Number of Deliveries: 11
Sales: $406.25
Tips: $72
Hours: 4.17
Total Wages: $25.26 per hour
Not much of interest happened tonight delivering, other than one door was answered by a man who looked like a Miami Vice bad-guy: greasy, slicked-back hair; a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal his hairy, tanned chest and gold chain; an obscure accent, possibly Lebanese. In other words, a customer that begs the questions: what the hell have you done with your life to become so wealthy? How are you different than I am?
Amy Krouse Rosenthal answers that second question in her hilarious, experimental memoir, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, where she realizes, while standing in an insanely wealthy individual's house, that "the only thing that separates the insanely wealthy from the rest of us is that the insanely wealthy enlarge all their photographs . . . the rest of us, on the other hand, make do with our fridge frame magnets; our five-by-seven frames from Target" (208). In my room I only have one photograph––me and my niece and nephews––and it's only 3" x 7". Which, of course, must make me poor enough to qualify for a free STD screening at Planned Parenthood.
Those of us who operate by reason think the difference between the wealthy and the poor has something to do with ambition and greed. We walk around with a simple equation/analogy in our heads: rich = greedy as poor = needy, which doesn't hold up. I began contemplating all of this because of a BBC World Service discussion on greed I listened to while driving around tonight. The first interview of the program was with televangelist and sometimes insane apocalyptic prophet (homosexuals cause hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and possibly an earth-bound meteor), Pat Robertson. He says, "Self-interest is good, and it creates prosperity. There's not anything wrong with people looking out for themselves and in the process looking after others." I think back: was I greedy when, as a child, I would starve myself by skipping school lunches to save the money ($1.25), accumulating a roll of twenties I kept in a coffee can on my shelved headboard, or was self-interest creating prosperity and a deferred reward in the American tradition? Did it only become greed when I loaned that same money to my less financially responsible and less sacrificial siblings and charged them interest, or was I looking after them? Oh God, please don't let me agree with Pat Robertson.
But then Dr. Pat goes on to equate greed with lust, and says, "Sex within marriage is a wonderful thing, but the idea of unrestrained sexuality outside of marriage can lead to terrible problems: unwed pregnancies and disease and so forth." I like the greed/lust analogy, but is he saying the financial crisis is a diseased, unwed mother? Does that make the government bail-out plan a syringe full of anti-syphilitic fluid? Or an abortion doctor removing the unwanted greed? Or, perhaps, a condom-wielding liberal who says, "Greed happens, it's best to be protected"? You lost me, Pat.
The second part of the discussion includes a round-table of less-metaphoric guests, including Socialist ex-mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, Enron whistle-blower, Sherron Watkins, hedge fund manager and confessed greed hound, Alpesh Patel, and BBC's moderator, Steve Evans. While they all make excellent points, their arguments boil down to Watkins's statistics on the character of human beings: 10% of employees will do right, 10% are "wired" to do wrong, and the other 80% will go either way, depending on the control system. Regulation is the only way to check greed, though Alpesh argues that greed is good, because wealth creates altruism ("There's only so much I can do with what I'm accumulating; the rest, I have to give away"), and he points out that Bill Gates has given away more money than anyone in the history of the world. But then Sherron counters with historical child labor abuses, worker safety issues, and environmental pollution (she forgot Gates's aggressive and illegal business practices) as being the cost of unchecked greed. But my question is, can you be wealthy without being greedy? Can everyone be a pre-sell-out Ben & Jerry's, or like Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard, who explains his "liberal" business philosophy in his book, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Business Man.
I think Ken Livingstone makes the best point in the discussion: "We all want security." But we in the English-speaking world, as Ken puts it, think that money equals security and social status, versus, say, a non-English speaking world (?) that builds security on close family ties, acts of bravery, and social reciprocation. Ken argues that hard earned social position, such as being a teacher or Doctor minus the money, should determine one's value to society. I would argue with Ken that I make decent money, more than I did teaching or my pilot brother makes, but it affords me no social status among my English-speaking friends or family, because the position I'm in isn't respected. A reasonable communist would agree with Ken, pointing out that when everyone makes the same amount of money, no matter their job, then the only thing to create self-worth is the position accomplished in society.
Then what am I to do with my life? I'm self-interested but not greedy. I have passions but no ambition, no drive to turn my art into a commodity. As always, I turn to my books and their philosophies and quotes:
"To succeed one must have ambition, and ambition seems to me absurd." -Vincent Van Gogh from his Letters.
In Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie visited a fur factory looking for work with his father during the Great Depression, saw the poor conditions the workers labored under, and he made a "vow that he kept until the end of his life: he would never do any work that exploited someone else, and he would never allow himself to make money off the sweat of others" (78).
And, again, from Van Gogh: "[The ideal is] to sacrifice all personal desires, to realize great things, to obtain nobleness of mind, to surpass the vulgarity in which the existence of nearly all individuals is spent."
What do I take away from all this: security is an illusion, and while money keeps the illusion playing on the cave wall (blatant Plato reference), it's best to be in the 10% that does the right thing all the time (I might have to start reporting all my tips, which would make my dad happy). Bill Gates and other "philanthropists" may do good (as was pointed out in Time Magazine's excellent article on Gates and Bono), but I think it's more about being in a position of power to decide whom gets the money (why not just pay your workers better and give them a better life?)––it's, like their business practices, driven by ego.
Maybe Amy Rosenthal is right, that the wealthy somehow see themselves as bigger and more important, enlarged, like those pictures adorning their earth-tone walls and white, marble fireplaces.
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