Chapter 11 Wealth and Happiness

We left Chicago the next morning, once again heading west. Given the summer heat, I chose to follow a northerly route, passing over the prairies in Iowa and South Dakota, and crossing the Rockies in Montana and Idaho. After that, we'd head for the coast and follow it to San Francisco, where I'd drop Harold at his sister's house across the bay in Oakland. It wasn't the most direct route, but I didn't need to beat any deadlines. The Yosemite cabin would not be mine for another two weeks.

The Illinois sky was clear, a thin haze hanging on the horizon of the city fading behind us. At this time of day, commerce was heading into the metropolis, not out, and after an hour of dense suburban traffic, the road opened into farmland. I stretched my back, rotated my shoulder blades, and eased my grip on the steering wheel.

The moment seemed ripe to make sense of our experiences at the sports bar and at the opera. I pressed the record button on the tape recorder and glanced at Smith. He anticipated me, saying: "Surely you teach your students about diminishing returns?"

"Of course," I nodded. "If it's a warm afternoon, the first glass of ice-water I drink has a bigger impact on quenching my thirst than the second glass, and the second more than the third. By the fourth glass I'm getting very little additional benefit, or maybe even a negative benefit if I feel bloated. That's diminishing marginal utility."

"Well then, this applies to wealth as well," he said. "That's why the great source of both the misery and disorder of human life seems to arise from over-rating the difference between poverty and riches. It's quite scientific: our observations satisfied you, didn't they, that vast sums of money are not required to produce the most intense fellow-feeling? Tell me, what did these experiences cost?"

"The sports bar cost $20," I said. "The opera, including the value of tickets, parking, and drinks, came to about $200."

"My point is," Smith said, "it cost ten times more at the opera than it did at the sports bar. Was the return ten times higher? If not, then there are diminishing returns to wealth, and my thesis is that it diminishes ever-so-rapidly."

I shrugged. "Makes sense."

"Of course. Don't you think it possible that in the ordinary situations of life a well-disposed mind—take those Pirates' fans we met at the sports bar—could be as calm, as cheerful, and as contented as any of the high-heeled set from the opera?"

"There's no scientific basis for saying so. Surely you prefer wealth to poverty?"

"Wealth deserves to be preferred. But it doesn't deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules of prudence or justice, or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds. If wealth alone becomes the object, there is always someone with more, and 'having' is nothing if it isn't the 'most'! The pleasures of the rich, consisting of vanity and superiority, are seldom consistent with perfect tranquility."

I let these ideas settle; there was a logic to it, yet I had a litany of doubts.

"My second point," Smith said, "Is that an increase in wealth produces only a temporary surge in good feeling, because sooner or later we accommodate ourselves to it. Happiness restores itself to its prior—let us call it its 'natural'—level, just as a pendulum finds its balance." Smith shook his head. "Power and riches can keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, and they leave you always as much—and sometimes more than before—exposed to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to danger, and to death."

* * *

The flat rectangles of Iowa farm fields whizzed by on our linear path. The sun was high overhead. We resumed the conversation.

"You can't compare the happiness of the rich and poor in any absolute sense," I said. "Besides, actions speak louder than words. When poor people acquire wealth they stop going to sports bars and they start buying sky boxes and opera tickets. They drop the bowling league, and take up golf. Their revealed preference is for things of the rich."

Smith nodded. "Yes, this is what I call the great 'deception' of the human mind, that the poor race after the luxuries of the rich. This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful..." he paused for emphasis "...is the greatest and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments!"

I stirred in my seat. Overhead a pair of buzzards flew lazy circles. We passed a billboard advertising a Pancake House.

"Okay, I'll bite," I said. "How does this corrupt anyone's morals?"

Smith replied as if mating in chess, "The candidates for fortune too frequently abandon the paths of virtue. Unhappily, the road which leads to the one, and that which leads to the other, lie sometimes in very opposite directions."

We pulled into the Pancake House, found a shady spot for Rex with his water, and went inside. Smith used the rest room while I bought a newspaper and found us a booth. A small caption in the Entertainment section simply read, "Opera Marred by Shooting." It was a small blurb, apparently added to later editions. Police reported no motive for the attack, nor was any intended victim identified. The security guard was released from the hospital with minor injuries. A black wig was found in a trashcan in the alleyway, but investigators were unwilling to disclose other leads.

I sipped my coffee. Something didn't make sense. The robber—I presumed it was a robbery attempt—had picked an odd setting to practice his profession. Wouldn't a deserted locale have been better, somewhere without security guards milling about? Then I remembered all the wealthy people at the opera. Perhaps the economics made sense: the higher risk he took went along with a potentially higher reward. It made intellectual sense but my gut told me there was something else I'd missed.

After lunch we headed back onto the highway. I said to Smith, "This ... this 'deception' of mind you spoke of earlier—that people corrupt themselves unwittingly—any such deception would defy the foundation of much of modern economics." I paused. "Most economists ascribe to a model of economic man who is 'rational.'"

Smith seemed unperturbed. I decided to gently provoke him. "Do you have the gall to presume you're wiser than the masses? Isn't that pure snobbery?"

Smith stretched. "Rocking your boat, am I? Moral philosophy, at least as I practice it, examines motives," he said. "That's the key to this riddle. You, however, focus on the external behavior and ignore motives. But to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? What is the reason for avarice and ambition? It is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests men in acquiring things. The rich man glories in his riches because they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world."

"And why does any of this constitute a deception?" I asked.

"In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, the poor are in no respect inferior. The beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for." Smith turned to make sure he had my attention. "If the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved, as I believe it does, sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute much to happiness."

We approached a populated area with billboards hawking everything from luxury cars to pantyhose. Smith grimaced. "To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, is a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers!"

"That may well be," I said, "but at least it'll help us find a place to sleep." It was four o'clock, time to give Rex a run, and I could tell the long ride was tiring Smith. I pulled off at the exit and our luck held: the motel took pets.

After dinner and a shower, Smith and I lounged in our pajamas, Rex at the foot of my bed. Out of habit I flicked through the cable television stations. The channels assaulted us, each louder and more jarring than the one before. Smith watched and his face grew dark. On the shopping channel a saleswoman was animatedly hawking manufactured-diamond bracelets. Smith scowled. "How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on these trinkets? Eh?"

I lowered the volume and Smith went on. "Think how these trifling conveniences soak up the most anxious attention, and are ready to burst into pieces and crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor!"

I laughed. "A rather dramatic way of putting things."

"More to the point, where is the prudence in all this? Where is the self-command to delay gratification? Without saving for the future, this country can scarcely hope for future prosperity!"

Smith, this wizard of elocution, seemed always ready to anticipate the next step, add a nuance, shade a hair. "But there's a redeeming side to all this vain search for material happiness," he went on, yawning. "It's this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind."

"We strive harder? Professor Smith?"

No answer. Smith had fallen into a deep sleep.

I punched the remote, searching for a Chicago station. The evening news was almost over, judging from the light banter of the anchors. My shot of Drambuie made me mellow. I dozed, unwilling to make the effort to crawl under the sheets.

A slick newscaster with a polyester smile faced his co-host. "Brenda, what's the latest on the Opera shooting?"

I cracked an eye.

"Mark, the mayor's opponent, who was among the crowd when the shooting occurred, is turning this into a campaign issue. He released a statement today charging that, 'Not even the city's most public places are safe anymore.' The mayor's office denied the allegation, and said Chicago's streets are, quote, 'Safer than ever.'"

As she was speaking, the visual switched to a grainy black and white security tape shot outside the Opera House. A small man with a wig of thick black hair was striding with decided intent, a hand inside his windbreaker. His face again seemed disturbingly familiar. His eyes darted left and right, the thin nose defined and hard. The video replayed.

I turned the volume up and Smith tossed in bed, covering his ears.

"Brenda, why all the media attention to this story? Presumably a foiled robbery, with no one seriously hurt. Certainly not remarkable in this city."

"Mark, what started as a minor incident now has officials scrambling. No one at City Hall is willing to speak on the record, but WCYX has confirmed that the FBI was brought in on the case. There's one piece of evidence the police have not released, a flier or poster recovered from the scene."

The reporter smiled with obvious enjoyment. "Confidential sources tell us it contains references to the terrorist group, 'People Over Profit.' That group claimed responsibility for bombing the Russian consul earlier this year. They've also promised to disrupt the trade summit in San Francisco next month."

The male anchor raised his eyebrows. "Any leads on the suspect?"

"Mark, investigators are trying to locate where that black wig was bought. There's one other thing. Police interviewed several witnesses who claim to have seen the suspect fleeing the scene in a vehicle. An older model blue sedan."