Reductio ad Absurdum

Thank you economists! The power couple has spoken! (Life as taught by a Power Couple: The New York Times, Sunday, February 12, 2012)

Right there in the Business Section, the Dismal Science speaks to the great unwashed, enlightening us about the important stuff. You see, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes had it wrong. Markets don't just control trade and commerce. They control everything!

Forget free will. Forget intelligence and reason. Forget philosophy, art and literature, morality, religion and emotion. Forget even reason, once it has inevitably taken us under the sway of the Almighty Market. For (especially if we are special) The Market will tell us how to spend our gifts for the benefit of humanity.

If, for example, an immigrant can be persuaded to rake our leaves for a modest stipend, why not hire him? If his wife will clean the house and do the laundry, better yet. It leaves us more time to do what we do best: working out how The Market actually applies to everything, even to life! L'chaim!

But what about 2 1/2 year-old Matilda?

The Market says that an unemployed twenty-something teacher can be had for $50K/year. Hire her, schedule her M-F 8AM to 7PM. The problem of Matilda's upbringing is solved. And of course, by executive decree, Matilda eats no meat or sugar and attends art classes. Like all children, she is above average.

What, though, about Mom and Dad when they are my age? For at their age I too was doing what I thought was important: putting bread on the table and keeping a roof over our heads. Now, a generation later, my perspective has shifted. Sure, the basics have to be there. The roof, the bread. The luckiest among us will also the able earn that roof and bread doing something we love. But in retrospect and approaching the end of life nothing even comes close in importance to what we do for those we love, our children first and foremost.

Does The Market know that?