So now that the introductions are out of the way, let me tell you how I got here. I mean, capitalists are made, not born right? I mean, no one comes screaming out of the womb with the desire to whip the proletariat to make them work harder for their scrap of bread at the end of the day. Well, I'm no different. I used to be a socialist. Hell, I was a Marxist. I still have the Communist Manifesto displayed prominently on my bookshelf next to The Wealth of Nations and Child Labor for Dummies. So what led me to become the nefarious turncoat that I am today? Well, I'll give you a rundown.I grew up in a poor working-class family in the heart of the western Pennsylvanian Rust Belt. From the get-go it was pounded into my head that business owners and corporate fat-cats were evil people who got rich dancing on the backs of the bruised working class. My stepfather was staunchly pro-union as he felt unions were the only chance for the working class to make a living wage. I was an average student at an exceptional school but I learned the most from toiling in the garden at home and reading books in my spare time (what I had of it).
When I graduated high school I went off to college to become an average student in a larger school. I studied history and english not because I wanted to do anything in those fields, but because I didn't really know how to do much else other than read and write and those majors had ample amounts of both. I had my brain filled to the brim with the liberal arts but other than igniting an interest in activism (also fueled by my roommate's Rage Against the Machine albums), it didn't seem to translate into something useful.
And eventually I got burned out. I didn't have much money and I was tired of eating ramen noodles and living in rat-infested college housing. I was three years in and school just didn't seem to grab me and I had a hard time making tuition, paying for books, and actually focusing on my studies. So I left.
My first job in the "real world" was in this college town at a printing company, the only printing company for 50 miles in any direction. It seemed like a better deal than flipping burgers or delivering pizzas--the typical college town jobs. I started out at six dollars an hour, jogging bundles of paper that rolled off the printing press and tying them into neat little stacks on a pallet for 12 hours a day. Everyday I would see the owner of the company roll into his parking space with some shiny, fancy car. He had a BMW, a Lexus, and a Cadillac. It seemed like he had a new car everyday. He came into the place with his suit and tie, would talk to the managers for a few minutes, grab some copies off the press and be gone on his merry way to the main office across town. That bastard was too good to even work in the same building as his company, the company I toiled in endlessly to buy those fancy cars for him. It just didn't seem fair.
It was around this time that I started ditching classics such The Catcher in the Rye and A Farewell to Arms and started reading things like the aforementioned Communist Manifesto. "From everyone according to his ability and to everyone according to his need." That sounded like a pretty damn good idea. The press operator runs the machine, the reel-stand operator keeps paper fed in the press, and I stack the paper on the skid. At the end of the day, we split the profits three ways and reap our rewards. We didn't need some jerk in a suit smoking cigars in some plush office somewhere or out playing golf collecting checks for our hard work. Heck, if we could just at least unionize we'd have a lot better options and leverage against this turkey who just went around buying cars and fancy houses at our expense. And so bitter I became.
Regardless, after about three months there the plant manager asked if I wanted to be a reel-stand operator. That was quite the step up from stacking paper on the skid. He said I worked hard (and I only did it because my stepfather told me that it was the right thing to do, spoil-sport that he was) and I seemed pretty smart because I was always asking the press operator questions and trying to be as helpful as I could (because, you know, standing around waiting for him to change printing plates or set up the folder just made a long day even longer). So I got another dollar an hour and I got more responsibility. Way to throw me a bone, guys.
After about another six months, the owner announced he was going to buy a brand-new state-of-the-art printing press, a 12-million dollar investment in the company. What a jerk! If he had 12-million bucks to throw around the least he could do was pay me more for all my hard work on these old outdated machines that you had to pray to the printing gods to run because you swore that the press hadn't worked right since Gutenberg built it. The hell with this guy!
But they carried on with building a new building and putting in the new press despite my silent protests. When it was all said and done that shiny blue Goss C-700 did look pretty snazzy with all its flashing lights, fancy computer system, and the giant console you could land an F-15 on.
But the real surprise was when the plant manager came up to me and asked me if I wanted to work on it, not as a lowly reel-stand operator but an honest-to-goodness press operator. The plant manager said that the press was unlike anything anyone had touched before and I seemed like a quick and enthusiastic learner. Whoa! That was like being promoted from ship's wench to captain! I had been there less than a year and was getting offered a position of honor over guys who had worked at that company for a decade or more. This wouldn't make me any friends--the other workers already chastised me daily for working too hard for such paltry wages--but how could I pass that up?
So I worked on that printing press for another year and a half, learning all its features, mannerisms, and secrets. I was paid an additional two-and-a-half dollars more an hour and produced millions of printed pieces of paper a day. My supervisors praised my work and I was set to get even better. But, eventually, through completely unrelated circumstances, I packed up, quit my job, and moved to Omaha.
I worked in printing in Omaha for a couple of years, but I hated it. I didn't get paid as much because my knowledge on state-of-the-art equipment didn't translate well to older, more manual presses and they were simple enough that they didn't require any real specialized knowledge to operate. Even worse, I worked with a lot of ex-union guys who had been rehired after the company broke up the union. What kind of evil company was this? Didn't they care about their employees? I started getting bitter again.
Again I saw the owner driving a fancy car and seemingly spending next to no time out on the production floor actually interacting with the very business he owned. When he talked about printing it didn't seem like he knew too much about the process of the machinery or how things operated. What a crock, I thought. This guy OWNS a printing company but can't even run his own presses? Doesn't he know that without me he wouldn't even be able to have a product to sell? And he pays me in peanuts? And, despicably, robbed the employees of an honest wage but firing most of them and crushing the union? The nerve!
So I quit that job and applied for a job at a company that built concrete batch plants. They wanted someone who was not only mechanically-inclined and knew how machinery worked but also someone who was computer savvy and could use office programs like spreadsheets and email. I was a shoe-in for the job because the company only seemed to get applicants that were either mechanically-inclined or computer-savvy but not both. And the starting wage was far higher than even my press-operator job back in Pennsylvania.
So I worked at the job and, during my first year, the company gave me a review on my third month, my sixth month, and my 12th month. At each review I was given an "exceptional" score, which meant each time I moved up two pay scales. In just a year I was making half again as much as when I started. And every year after that I was reviewed the same way.
And that's when I had my epiphany.
In just a few short years I had gone from making minimum wage at a job I knew nothing about to making more money than many college graduates. I had no rich parents to pull strings, had no union organizers fighting to pay me wages I didn't actually deserve, and didn't have to bob my head under anyone's desk to get where I was. I did it all based on the fact that I was eager to learn, wasn't afraid to ask questions and get feedback from my superiors, had a positive attitude even when criticized, and frankly busted my rear-end to help make the company money. I felt like part of a team and when I exuded that attitude it was contagious.
I had a nice car, bought a nice house, owned lots of fun toys, and had a pretty sweet life.
That's when I realized that our capitalist system wasn't so bad after all and I put down Marx and Engels and picked up Smith, Hayek, and Mises. I became absolutely enamored with the "dismal science" of economics, a romance I courted from cursory personal study to enrolling in college again to study formally. I had found something that I truly enjoyed, felt I was good at, and have continued working hard ever since. And now I'm a capitalist pig with a capital Oink.
I never checked in my chemistry class, but I wonder if bacon grease and elbow grease have the same chemical composition?
yes.
ReplyDeleteBravo! This is a good read.
ReplyDeleteGene (from SCS)