Chapter 20 A Paradox

I whirled on Smith. "That's barbaric! I can't imagine doing that!"

"Exactly," he said, yelling at me over the wind. "You can't imagine doing it. Your imagination saved you from a terrible thing. Look, there he is!"

A body in a black wet suit was on its knees in the froth, thirty yards from us. We trotted down the beach to him, Rex in the lead. The surfer stood groggily, coughing. He wobbled in to shore. Smith crowed, proud of the trick he pulled on me. "Your reaction was to an external standard which has become internalized in you. This is the reaction of the impartial spectator."

"But if the spectator is just socialization," I yelled back, "we'd all be robots. If the society were racist, I'd be that, too. Moral relativism would rule the day."

We were almost to the surfer. "We haven't time to fix your misconceptions on that now," Smith said. "Let's give this fellow a hand."

The man was tall, heavily built, weighing easily two hundred pounds. I guessed he was in his early forties. With a wet and sagging arm around each of us he limped to the parking lot, and I returned for his board. The sun disappeared and the wind blew through my shirt, now sodden from the surfer. A chill went through me. The surfer was still spitting salt water when I got back to the parking lot.

"I can't believe I went out in that surf," he coughed. "I nearly bought it! My partners would have killed me." He managed a laugh.

We learned his name was Peter Chen, and he was also camping at Big Sur. He drove down last night from Palo Alto to try out El Nino's enhanced waves. Now he was in no position to drive anywhere. He slumped against his Jeep, hands on his knees.

After a few minutes Peter stood and shakily retrieved a backpack from his truck. "I need a painkiller for my shoulder and knee."

"Let's get you back to camp," I said. "We can put your board on top of your Jeep and come back later for our car."

Peter nodded wearily, and the three of us jammed into the front seat of Peter's Cherokee with Rex in the back. We plied up the narrow road from the beach and into the Big Sur camp. The old trail snaked around for several miles through the thick redwood forest. Peter said, "That's my spot, over by that creek."

"Pretty empty here."

"I come for silence," he said.

"Not so much that you won't join us for dinner? We have plenty," Smith said.

"I'd like that."

* * *

We returned in a happy mood to our campsite a half-mile away. At sunset a fire burned in the grate and potatoes roasted in tinfoil. Peter sat on the picnic bench, one hand massaging his right shoulder, the other holding a beer. Smith stood by the fire, Rex keeping close watch. "How do you like your steak, Peter?"

"Actually, I don't eat meat. I'll be fine with the potato."

Peter's soft-spoken manner was in contrast to his large, athletic frame, and the deeply tanned and strong look of his closely shaved face. His hands were muscular, the nails carefully manicured. A long whitish-gray ponytail went half-way down his back.

"Must be nice taking off in the middle of the week to go surfing," I said.

"One of the perks of being boss," he laughed. "Actually, we're all on flex-time."

"Your business?" Smith asked.

"Computer chips. Specialty boards." Again he spoke softly, humbly. "Sixty million in sales, about forty associates. Just had our tenth anniversary."

Smith and I nodded appreciatively. "But you don't look..." I started to say.

"Like a boss?" He laughed. "Thank you. That's a compliment. You must be from back East?"

"How'd you guess?"

"The mindset—it's different. Got to be different to succeed here. You've probably heard about all those start-ups going belly up? Well, we haven't. In this market, creativity is vital, but so is efficiency. Not just in product design, but production, marketing, distribution. Loyalty and motivation are the key. Takes a different kind of workplace to bring that about, and a different sort of person to run it."

"Not that different," I said. "Still run for profit, I guess."

"No, it's paradoxical," Peter said. "We don't run it for the bottom line. That's not the way we succeed."

Dinner was over and we sat in silence. Smoke drifted upward through breaks in the canopy; stars glittered. We were full in the belly and pensive in the mind.

"Tell us about yourself," Smith said.

Again Peter's voice was low and unassuming. "The key experience of my life happened when I was nineteen, serving in Vietnam. I was a radar operator in flight control. My best friend Roy was flying in one day, and I stood out on the tarmac to welcome him back. Next thing I knew, enemy rockets were exploding all around. Then his 'copter was hit and Roy was cut in half. He lived just long enough for me to get to him, and watch him die."

He stoked the fire with a stick. "When you hold someone dying, there's no more bull. It's not a game anymore. There's no trying to be something you're not. No more trying to sound intelligent or witty. None of that matters. There's only being. That was the gift Roy left me."

The fire settled and Peter threw on a small log. "Being real means being connected, whole. It means being the same person at work as at home and at play. Life is integrated. Heck, when I came back I got plenty of experience working for others, some big companies, some small. In some companies the tension is so thick it's like mud. No one can be themselves. You smell fear in every corner."

Peter spoke so softly I slid closer to him on the bench.

"Bosses who motivate with fear make decisions they aren't proud of," Peter said, "and they justify it by saying, 'it's just a smart business decision.' But if it's so smart, why is everyone wracked with pain? Why is turnover so high? When they go home to their families they hide it all inside. They lead dual lives, one at work, another at home. They want to see themselves as good people, but they're trapped in a sick organization, an organization that doesn't let them be human beings making human decisions."

"Being in business means making hard choices," I said.

"People accept hard choices for the right reasons," he said emphatically. "So you ask, what are these right reasons? What is it that motivates people to work willingly with all their energy, and with sacrifice on occasion?"

"We've all heard about the fantastic stock options in Silicon Valley," I said.

"No question, people work hard when their contributions are recognized and rewarded. Stock options are important. But you'll miss something momentous if you stop there." Peter hunched forward and chose his words carefully. "The secret is this: people work harder when they appreciate themselves for what they have done. When the goal of the enterprise is worthy of their highest aspirations."

Smith nodded and leaned toward me. "When the impartial spectator inside themselves approves," he said.

Peter looked curiously at Smith and continued. "People work harder when you touch someplace deep inside, by having them buy into a dream bigger than themselves. That unleashes a creative spirit, and the mind and heart are integrated. So the company becomes, in a sense, the vehicle for the aspirations of the workers as integrated human beings."

"I thought the company was a vehicle for making profit," I said, remembering Milton Friedman's and Adam Smith's injunctions against "do-goodism."

"It has potential for much more than that," Peter said. "When people accept a bigger dream, there's a remarkable transformation. The workplace becomes alive, dynamic, charged with energy. Profit is the by-product of achieving that higher aspiration."

"Not just money, but something better?"

Peter laughed. "Have you ever seen a company mission statement couched in terms of making money? You won't find one, and the reason is simple: it doesn't engage people as efficiently as a higher aspiration will. You've got to touch people by aspiring to be the first, the best, the biggest, the newest, or trying hardest, caring most, by tying your success to that of a lofty and worthy social goal. Even Donald Trump, after his come-back, said money was never the object of his success, only its measure."

I nodded. "Of course, most companies proclaim something other than money as their goal. They say they want to 'serve customers.' But that's a gimmick, isn't it, for public relations?"

Peter shook his head. "Better not be. Workers and customers have pretty sharp detectors for insincerity and pretense. If the company is run solely for the bottom line, workers become cynical and disillusioned. To succeed, the higher aspiration has to come honestly from the heart. The mission statement doesn't mean a damn thing without commitment and action."

"It's hard to imagine Wall Street reacting favorably to this," I said.

Peter nodded. "We had funding problems, like all start-ups. But the irony is that people long for meaning in their work. When you provide a vehicle for that, they'll do anything for you and each other to keep it working. But why listen to me? Why not come see for yourselves?"

Smith nodded thoughtfully and I assented.

"It's arranged, then," Peter said. "Day after tomorrow at noon."

* * *

With supper over, Peter dropped me at my car. On the way back to camp I pulled into the parking lot of the camp office. I needed quiet time to think, and plan. As entertaining as the dinner had been, it was pure agony to be in these beautiful redwoods without sharing it with Julia. I missed her alluring eyes. She could make me laugh. Even her clean scent lingered in memory.

There was a pay phone outside the park office. It was late, and with the time difference, it would be seven in the evening in Virginia. The last time I'd called, to ask her to come to Utah, I'd been lucky to catch her at the gallery. This time I dialed there, and heard unending rings.

I feared calling Julia at home, in case her phone was tapped by POP, the FBI, or who knows who else. I pondered for a bit. There was a young couple two houses down from Julia who bought one of her paintings a year ago. I carried it over for them to hang. What was their name? Thomas? Tompkins? I tried to remember whether street numbers rose or fell going west on her street. I plied the pay phone with quarters and was lucky to find a sympathetic operator. She gave me the number of Robert and Sarah Thompson, two doors down from Julia.

Sarah Thompson answered the phone with the buoyant cheeriness of a garden club president.

"You may not remember me," I began, sounding foolish to my own ear. I took a deep breath and plowed ahead with a quick and false rendition of my dilemma: how I very much needed to reach Julia, but thought her phone out-of-order. A poor liar, I felt as obvious as an embarrassed teenager. But there was no point involving others in our danger; the less they knew, the better. I finished with a plea for her to get Julia to the phone.

"No point in that," she said quickly, following with a rough laugh. "She won't talk to you. My husband's traveling in Asia, so I invited Julia over for dinner last night. Boy oh boy, you are not a welcome name around here. Can't say I blame her. After she'd given you a second chance."

I lowered my head. "It's different this time. I did it for someone else."

"Uh-huh," she said, letting me know she believed not a word.

"Won't you even try to get her?"

"Look," she said, "I'll leave it up to her, but she's not home now. She'll be over this time tomorrow if you want to try again. I'm not guaranteeing anything, Mr. World Traveler."

* * *

It was eight the next morning before we rolled out of bed. A heavy mist lay over the tent, the picnic table, and the canopy of leaves. Even Rex didn't seem interested in stirring. We sipped strong coffee and finished the last of the trail mix. When the sun dried the dew from the tent we stowed the gear and set off. Once again we were on Route 1, winding northward around steep cliffs that fell precipitously into the Pacific Ocean. Several times we came around a hairpin turn to find the road blocked by work crews shoring up the bank from a slide. Below us waves crashed into the rocks at high tide. Just south of Carmel we pulled into Point Lobos, a craggy outcropping in the ocean, famous for its colony of several hundred sea lions that bark from an offshore island. The sign by the road noted that it was one of the largest marine sanctuaries in the world. We paid an entrance fee and drove to a parking lot overlooking the ocean. I left Smith sunning himself on a blanket with Rex, and set off exploring a trail that hugged the coastline.

Along the rocky shore a troop of spotted harbor seals lay in the sun, looking like enormous fat hand-rolled cigars, one drooping over the other. Occasionally a new arrival flopped in from the sea, belly hopping onto the pile. They were placid and content, unconcerned with the tourists kept a safe distance away behind a wooden fence.

A protected cove was carpeted with a beach of gray rocks, worn smoothly to the size of marbles. The tide started out, exposing more and more pools of squirming sea creatures. Purple, green, and orange anemones were everywhere, gradually closing their bracts up around their bodies as the water receded. I picked about the barnacles and limpets, stepping carefully, enjoying the sunshine and the invigorating sea air. Terns feasted on helpless prey while sea gulls fluttered overhead with pompous importance. In the shallow water hermit crabs peaked out of their stolen shells and crawled alongside sea snails and an occasional starfish.

I turned my back to the ocean and leaned over to inspect another frothy tidal pool. I heard an unexpected "whoosh," and before I could lift my head a wave crashed in with sudsy flurry. Salt water drenched me to the knees. I scurried onto higher rocks, amazed at the violence of the ocean, and grateful I hadn't ventured farther out. The energy coiled in those waters was remarkable.

My thoughts flashed to Peter's ideas of the previous night. Could there really be a similar unharnessed energy inside each of us? Could a business become more businesslike by allowing workers to grow in their humanness? It was far from the eye-shade business calculations that seemed to rule the world. Yet paradox seemed to be at the heart of scientific revolutions. Under my feet I felt solid and unmoving rock. But subatomic physics asserts that matter is 99 percent empty space, and what little mass there is, is in constant motion. By breaking apart that atom we unleash a torrent of almost unlimited energy. Wasn't that Peter's point? Getting to the core of the human soul and unleashing that power? It sounded fantastic. Even if it got started, was it controllable? Once workers were empowered, could they be contained?

I returned to the parking lot, finding Smith munching on an apple smothered with peanut butter. He particularly seemed to enjoy the peanut butter, once I told him the price and he discovered how filling it was.

After a week of camping, we needed pampering. I checked us into a motel near Cannery Row in Monterey and the first thing I did was take a long hot shower. Afterwards, Smith stayed contentedly with Rex, and I wandered down to the Aquarium to see the majestic sights. Dolphins in the large tank seemed to anticipate each other's movements, and the fish swimming in sync seemed equally adept at picking up hidden clues. I recalled how Smith said we were innately wired for "fellow-feeling" with others. Wasn't this something dolphins experienced?

Another exhibit catalogued the fall of sea otters, hunted to near extinction during the last two centuries because of the high demand for their pelts. This story followed the well-known pattern of the "tragedy of the commons": since sea otters are a common property resource—owned by no one—no private actor gains any monetary value in preserving them, and yet many gain handsomely from hunting them. As sea otters dwindle, there are unintended consequences, because sea otters eat sea urchins. Without a predator, sea urchins multiply and eventually eat their way through the underwater plant life. As the submerged kelp forests disappear, so do the multitude of vital fish stocks harbored within, and, in turn, so do the populations of birds that feast off fish. The short-run gain to hunters creates a much larger loss to fishermen and others in the long run. This downward ecological catastrophe was halted by an international treaty to ban the killing of sea otters in 1911. The sea otter populations were recovering slowly.

I tried to put all of this in the context of Economics 101. While Smith argued that markets were generally self-sustaining and self-correcting, the market's free-for-all scramble for profit proved unsustainable in this case because there were no clearly defined property rights. And trying to assign property rights in a complex eco-system like the oceans entails monstrously high transactions costs. Hence, the market in this case could not naturally sustain itself without some outside rules. There was a lesson here: seeing otters merely as profitable commodities, in isolation from their integrated environment, was a dangerous practice. Likewise, when economists advocate free markets in far off developing economies, it is often in ignorance of the complex legal and social environments operating there. Could this likewise lead to unintended consequences, to unsustainable outcomes? When tinkering, make sure you have all the pieces! Capitalism is an intricate, integrated system of markets, institutional structures, and social values. Its complexity could hardly be captured by mathematical models that deal with impersonal markets in isolation. Yet that is exactly what Lattimer, and I as his student, were presenting to WorldChemm on their privatization project in Russia. These ponderous thoughts weighted me down, and made me less than happy with myself.

I consoled myself with the hope that I might be able to reach Julia tonight. As ten o'clock Pacific time approached, I ensconced myself in a phone booth three blocks from our motel, quarters at the ready. When the line rang on the Thompson's end I held my breath ... and Julia answered! I didn't get many words in edgewise in that first call, with her telling me off in her soft but pointed British accent. I didn't really need to speak. I just wanted to hear her voice.