In his satire, “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift suggests that the poor peasants of Ireland might add to their pitiful incomes and alleviate their poverty by selling their small children as tender meat to intrigue the epicurean tastes of their rich landlords feasting at banquet tables. Trying to adjust myslef to the current political goal of deregulating all industrial and commercial transactions, leaving everything to the whimsies of the law of supply and demand in the free market, I offer some “Modest Proposals” of my own.
First, let the National Collegiate Athletic Association lift all restrictions on how much an aspiring athlete may charge to provide his skills to any of the colleges which may want his prowess on the gridiron, the basketball court, or the baseball diamond. At present, of he accepts more than tuition, books, board, room, and $300 a month in cash he becomes ineligible. How unfair. The poor guy needs a car, some walking around money, and provision for his future when he will be just a poor, uneducated has-been. I remember George Plimpton’s story about “Night Train” Lane, who, after four years of college football and five years as a star cornerback for the Detroit Lions, lay awake nights worrying about what he could do when he couldn’t play football. If some college wants to prostitute itself and its academic status by paying some young fellow $50,000 a year for ten touchdowns a season or ten baskets a game, what right do that college’s competitors have to set a cap on the earning power of a high-school kid?
On the other hand, why limit a college’s willingness to pay for a winning team? A 9-1 season for a football team may entice a Bowl game offer worth as much as $7,000,000 to the school. If the school wants that prize money, it, or its wealthy alumni, will have to buy the best players available, with payment either under the table or across it, openly. Academic ethics and standards should not stand in the way of commercially profitable deals between consenting adults.
Another element in the picture should be the repeal of all laws and rules prohibiting deals between athletes and professional gamblers. This is all part of the open market in the purchase and sale of services, all according to the laws of economics. That is one “Modest Proposal”.
A second “Modest Proposal” is to deregulate the drug business; repeal all laws concerning the production, sale, purchase and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other mind shattering substances. Leave it all up to the open market, the laws of supply and demand. Think what this would do.
a. It would reduce process by making drugs available at lower cost.
b. It would release thousands of persons convicted of drug crimes, reduce demand for prison space, reduce prison costs and save taxes.
c. It would make unnecessary the crew of federal, state and county drug law enforcement officials, and further reduce taxes.
d. It would provide jobs for hundreds of unemployed people to refine raw materials into useable form, and thus reduce the welfare rolls.
e. It would produce increased income taxes from dealers operating in the open, and help reduce the federal deficit.
f. It would help the real estate market. Every dealer would rent a store rather than peddle the stuff from a car or on a street corner.
g. It would reduce the number of burglaries, muggings and robberies, because fewer crimes would be needed to finance the habit with lower priced drugs.
h. It would eliminate gang wars for control of the drug business.
i. It would harmonize with the prevalent political philosophy of letting the market govern our social patterns.
The “Modest Proposal” is nonsense. Does it irritate you? Good!
Ethics and economics have nothing in common, though ethicists and economists may be friends. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”
In each of us a tug-of-war goes on between cash and conscience. Sometimes cash wins. Sometimes conscience. One of the tragedies of life occurs when we try to marry the two into one unity.
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