Hypocrisy

I went out walking. I was looking for one good capitalist.
I went to the tallest of the steel towers that lit up the horizon. I traveled to the very top floor.
Inside there were men seated around a solid oak table, leaning back in their chairs and looking very satisfied. Each of these men wore an expensive suit and had mostly perfect silver hair. I sat down with them and asked them if they were capitalists. They scoffed that I should even ask. So Itook them at their word and asked themto speak about their ideology; they replied with certainty, with unwavering conviction, and would have no part of any rebuttal. They spoke of the need to grow, and I listened at first with interest, but soon it was clear that their growth was aimed at a piece of paper and a price attached to it. Their interest was in that price and not in the production.
And I knew that these fellows were not capitalists.
I went down a floor and stepped into a large office where a man wearing a plain white shirt and tie worked diligently at his desk. I asked him if he was a capitalist and he replied 'damn right he was'. He told me that he ran this company and I asked him if he owned it. He said no. But he ran it. So I asked him what would happen to him if things went sour. He told me the fellows upstairs would fire him. I asked him whether that would leave him with nothing and he told me that no, he had taken care of that, and had negotiated a severance into his contract for such a case.
It occurred to me that this man had nothing at risk in this company he ran. He was an employee. One with responsibility, but still an employee.
And I knew this fellow was not a capitalist.
So then I walked to the old, clay buildings, where there are mostly old men with wide toothy grins and hearty handshakes.
I went looking for a particular man I had heard give a speech on the radio. He had espoused the virtues of a free market and spoke of the glory that its invisible hand would lead us to.
I found him in an office lush with expensive decoration. I sat down on his leather chair and asked him if he was a capitalist. I am indeed he replied, and he gave me a perfect smile. I asked him about his ideology. He gave me the same speech that I had heard on the radio, he said it verbatim. He told me it was all inevitable, that the market was an unstoppable force and that we were best served yielding to its dictum. It was all out of our hands he said, out of our hands.
I looked around his office, at its luxurious interior, full of art far too expensive for his pay. I asked him what he did before he ran for office. He told me he was a lawyer. I tried to ask him more, but he told me he had to go, he was being taken out for lunch.
I knew this fellow was no capitalist either.
I had given up my search. I took the bus home. After about two stops a scruffy man in a rumpled suit got on. He looked deep in thought and somewhat distressed.
I asked him what troubled him. He told me that he had just lost business to a competitor. He told me his mistakes and how he had misunderstood his market. I said yes that would bring any man troubles. But he looked at me and shook his head. No, he said, I'm not troubled. I've learned a lot. And I will not make the same mistake next time. I'm just trying to figure out what I should do next.
He had a relentless look in his eye, and I knew he understood the torture of success. His appearance was pocked with a thousand battles, many of them lost, but he carried with him a confidence. But it was a different confidence then I had seen earlier that day, it was not built upon the certainty of any invisible theory, it was built upon the only thing he could be certain of; that if he was beaten down again he would get right back up.
This, I thought, was a capitalist. The others only sullied the name.
- posted by Sigurd4/20/2005 11:51:00 AM