In Praise of Choosing to Be an Art History Major

An oldie but a goodie:

An American businessman was at the pier of a small Belizean village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large lobsters, and a slew of red and yellow snapper. The visitor complimented the Belizean on the quality of his catch and asked how long it took to bring it in.

The Belizean replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish and lobster?

The Belizean fisherman said, "I get up early and watch the sun rise, then I fish a little, come home and relax, play with my children, have a big lunch and take a rest with my wife. In the evening I stroll into the village where I sip cashew wine and play music and sing with my friends. I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave Belize and move to Mexico, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Belizean asked, "But how much time will all of this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"What then, Gringo?"

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions of dollars."

"Millions? Then what?" 

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move back to a caye in Belize, where you would get up early and watch the sun rise, then fish a little, play with your grandkids, have a big lunch and take a rest with your wife. In the evenings you could stroll to the village where you could sip cashew wine and play music and sing with your friends."

There is nothing wrong with being driven to achieve in business. Some among the driven people have greatly improved the quality of life for all humanity (even as others have inadvertently generated new challenges for us), and no one should stand in the way or pooh pooh someone else's dream so long as the dreamer isn't infringing on any one else's rights. If you wish to get an MBA and work hard for 15-20 years, building an empire, by all means, carry on with your bad ass self.

Just don't imagine that your dream makes you superior to your fellow human beings who have a different dream. 

In what Adam Davidson (in his review in The New York Times) suggests may become the most hated book of the year, former Bain Capital (Mitt Romney's company) executive Edward Conard outlines his argument for why Americans should be happy about the growing wealth inequality in our country (in a nutshell: because it proves the economy is working and because we're all benefiting from it). There are three basic elements in Conard's argument (quotes are Davidson's words): 

1. "[T]he superrich spend only a small portion of their wealth on personal comforts; most of their money is invested in productive businesses that make life better for everyone."
2. When those investments are successful, Conard "concludes that for every dollar an investor gets, the public reaps up to $20 in value" [note others suggest it's considerably less than $20...others argue it's more like $5 value].
3. "[W]e should all appreciate the vast wealth of others more, because we’re benefiting, proportionally, from it"

I would quibble with a few of the implied conclusions from this argument. One example Conard uses in particular suggests he's cherry picking examples and then looking at the economy less holistically than a more rigorous scholar would: 

He looks, in particular, at agriculture, where, since the 1940s, the cost of food has steadily fallen because of a constant stream of innovations. While the businesses that profit from that innovation — like seed companies and fast-food restaurants — have made their owners rich, the average U.S. consumer has benefited far more.  [emphasis mine]

A more holistic look at this particular example would need to consider the exploding obesity among the average US consumer, the costs associated with that obesity (in human, medical, and financial terms), and whether indeed the benefits are that significant. One can argue that just because food is cheaper doesn't mean people have to overeat, and of course they're correct, but there's no question that there's a direct relationship between cheaper fast-food and obesity among children.

A more holistic look at this particular example would also need to consider the implications of seed companies' patent enforcement practices. What has humanity gained when a few conglomerates have complete control over the pricing of seed? More importantly, what Conard sees as a relatively short-term benefit stands to become a long-term nightmare.

But in a vacuum, I would agree that the public benefits from wisely invested money and so again I say, if that's your dream, carry on with your bad ass self...go invest that money wisely.

But consider stopping short of viewing what it takes to achieve that dream some sort of universal religion. And most definitely stop short of proselytizing and/or moralizing from that religion's morally questionable point of view.

What's probably going to propel Conard's book to become quite hated is his disdain for people who don't view life's purpose the same way he does:

A central problem with the U.S. economy, [Conard] told me, is finding a way to get more people to look for solutions despite [the] terrible odds of success. Conard’s solution is simple. Society benefits if the successful risk takers get a lot of money. For proof, he looks to the market. At a nearby table we saw three young people with plaid shirts and floppy hair. For all we know, they may have been plotting the next generation’s Twitter, but Conard felt sure they were merely lounging on the sidelines. “What are they doing, sitting here, having a coffee at 2:30?” he asked. “I’m sure those guys are college-educated.” Conard, who occasionally flashed a mean streak during our talks, started calling the group “art-history majors,” his derisive term for pretty much anyone who was lucky enough to be born with the talent and opportunity to join the risk-taking, innovation-hunting mechanism but who chose instead a less competitive life. In Conard’s mind, this includes, surprisingly, people like lawyers, who opt for stable professions that don’t maximize their wealth-creating potential. He said the only way to persuade these “art-history majors” to join the fiercely competitive economic mechanism is to tempt them with extraordinary payoffs.

“It’s not like the current payoff is motivating everybody to take risks,” he said. “We need twice as many people. When I look around, I see a world of unrealized opportunities for improvements, an abundance of talented people able to take the risks necessary to make improvements but a shortage of people and investors willing to take those risks. That doesn’t indicate to me that risk takers, as a whole, are overpaid. Quite the opposite.” The wealth concentrated at the top should be twice as large, he said. That way, the art-history majors would feel compelled to try to join them.

What Conard seems to have no grasp of is that many people are not tempted by extraordinary payoffs. The necessary sacrifices and uncertainty seem ludicrous to many people. The ultimate purpose of an extraordinary payoff (most frequently imagined to be an early retirement that enables one to focus on one's passions from a point of security [Conard himself retired at 51 and now envisions spending his life being, as Davidson phrased it, "a public intellectual"]) strikes many as moronic, given how true security is a myth (just ask Steve Jobs) and the rest of that imagined payoff (living one's dream) is often theirs to be had throughout their entire life, not only after they've retired.

Isn't it smarter to live your life, like the Belizian fisherman, so you get to do the things you enjoy without having to wait 15-20 years doing things you don't enjoy?

Unless you enjoy the sort of business Bain Capital is in, why torture yourself? 

I know, I know, because the wealthy investor is helping humanity. Accidentally at best, mind you, and certainly not always, and certainly not in a way that is accountable to those who can't afford their products (or even for those who can afford their products, as in companies who make consumers sign contracts that prevent them from filing class action suits, etc.), and certainly not at the cost of profit whether the public need is great or not, and often certainly not without risks to the planet and the public's health, and certainly not in conjunction with the best principles of democracy, and certainly ....you get the idea. The suggestion that they're doing God's work is more than a little bullshit. They're trying to get insanely wealthy, and sometimes others benefit from their efforts and sometimes others don't. None of which supports Conard's claim that they deserve even more money, to my mind.

Conard strikes me as a man blinded by his own success. The hilarious irony of him wishing now to spend his retirement teaching others and being perceived as a public intellectual will surely occur to him one day.  If he's lucky, when it does occur to him, he'll be able to reach out to a few art history majors who can help him contextualize and/or channel that epiphany into something more productive/creative than an existential crisis.