Sweep your own porch, scrub your own toilet
A modest proposal for a troubled society
04.28.08
by: Nathan James


As readers of this blog have discerned, one of my big bugaboos is the human compulsion to create, and then reject, “others.” There are plenty of theories why we do this; the most compelling for me is that it is an outward manifestation of our inward separation from God. In other words, we make “others” of people just as we made an “other” of God – through our own pride.

Not to wax too philosophic, the real-world problems created by this psychic stance include racism, sexism, and religious intolerance. Quite a few wars have been fought over these and related human failings. But one category of “otherness” trumps the rest: social status. Social status is measured in different ways by different cultures, but here in consumerist America, it primarily tracks with money.

We are much more likely to socialize with our neighbors, whether or not they share our skin color, faith, age group, culture of origin or sexual orientation, than we are to socialize with people from a neighborhood that is significantly more or less expensive. In marketing research, we call this phenomenon “birds of a feather flock together.” It’s why targeting direct mail by 9-digit zip codes is much more effective that targeting it based on age, sex or race.

Now to porches and toilets, or if you prefer, sweeping and scrubbing.

By dint of marriage (oh so long ago, and not my current marriage), I once belonged to a wealthy family. (Think of a certain list published by Forbes.) My ex-wife and I weren’t wealthy – we were struggling grad students and artists. But when we visited my father-in-law, in Aspen or Palm Beach or at his estate next to the town club in Buckhead (Atlanta), I got to witness that lifestyle at close range. All three of my ex-wife’s siblings had married within the upper class; I was the lone middle class interloper.

Yes, this social disparity made me uncomfortable – mildly to severely, depending on where we were and what we were doing – and yes, it contributed to the break-up of our marriage. But one positive aspect of it was that I got to witness at close range and great depth the attitudes behind social stratification. And let me tell you: as frequently yet casually explained by my former father-in-law, it was a dangerously persuasive philosophy.

“It doesn’t pay for me to drive my own car anymore,” he announced to me one day, sitting on the lip of his Olympic-sized indoor pool, after completing one vigorous lap. “Isn’t that funny? I can make more money in forty minutes of phone calls from the car than the cost of a full-time driver.”

Perhaps it was insecurity that caused me to think of several other daily tasks requiring forty minutes that he also could hire out. Assuming he hired specialists for all of them, even his very large house would soon become crowded. But his wife might like it.

“I’m getting to be like those Chinese emperors,” he said, with equal parts self-regard and self-mockery. “The ones who let their fingernails grow through the palms of their hands, to prove they don’t do any manual labor.”

The perversion of this image distracted me from my previous, also perverted fantasies of all the labor my father-in-law would soon be assigning to other people. One involved toilet paper.

“Never trip over dollars to pick up a nickel,” he advised me, in the absence of my response. “Your time is the most precious thing you have. Do you want to spend your life taking out the garbage?”

I supposed it depended of the degree of goodwill I produced by taking out the garbage. Granted, taking out the garbage was considerably quicker at my house than at his, because he had to walk farther to get to his trashcans.

Finally I offered, “Doesn’t taking care of certain things for yourself help keep you in touch with how the other half lives – or in your case, the other 99.99 percent of people? I mean, think of President Bush. He doesn’t know what a gallon of milk costs.”

This would have been the first President Bush. He’d been nailed by a reporter in the ’88 campaign. The reporter simply asked what a gallon of milk costs. Bush’s blank expression confirmed that he was a true Connecticut blueblood, a Yalie (like his son). A patrician, not like the rest of us. Of course, that didn’t prevent him from winning.

“I’d have a good idea of what the grocery chain costs,” my father-in-law answered. “Why would I care about the price of a gallon of milk? That’s what maids are for.”

“Um, so you would know how much to pay the people who work for you?” I offered. Remember, I was a struggling writer then. I didn’t know bird one about business.

“Son, I do my job by providing other people jobs. I create opportunity. The market sets their value. I don’t need waste neurons on the price of groceries. It would be a disservice to our economy.”

As you can imagine, relations between my father-in-law and I were not what you might call relaxed. This conversation was only one of many, and neither of us converted the other to our opinions. But twenty years later, the current presidential campaign has given me cause to review our relative positions.

Here’s why: in the debate before the Pennsylvania primary, Senators Clinton and Obama both made a “read my lips: no new middle class taxes” pledge. (In case you’re young, that quote, minus the middle-class part, was also from the first President Bush, made while campaigning. Once in office, he broke the pledge.) Yet both Democratic Presidential contenders have outlined a variety of programs that will increase federal spending. They can’t convincingly argue that ending the war in Iraq will help fund these new programs, because the war in Iraq has been pure debt spending from the start.

Clinton and Obama know that this pledge, if kept, will increase the federal deficit, digging us deeper into long-term financial trouble. Long term, that deficit will hurt the same block of voters they were pandering to: the middle class. But that largest group of voters is also the largest group of taxpayers. When we’re already running a huge federal budget deficit, adding social programs without adding taxes on the middle and upper classes is inviting disaster.

Meanwhile, 37 percent of Americans are at risk of going to bed hungry each night. Forty percent of American children are not covered by health insurance. Our schools are so underfunded that our education system is not keeping pace with that of even some developing nations.

The Clintons earned more than $100 million last year. The Obamas earned more than $4 million. I doubt any of the four of them has scrubbed a toilet or swept a porch in a very long time. So perhaps it’s no wonder that, regarding middle-class taxes, the Democratic candidates are sounding so much like Republicans.

You could say, “How can you blame them? In stealing pages from the Republican playbook, they’re just trying to get elected. They don’t want to be labeled as ‘tax and spend Democrats’ again. Once elected, we can trust them to do the right thing.”

We should trust them later, even though they are lying to us now?

John Edwards, another multi-millionaire formerly seeking the Democratic nomination, made ending poverty in America the primary focus of his campaign. He didn’t promise not to raise taxes. He told the truth: the health of a society is best measured by the welfare of its poorest citizens. Of course, the media chose to focus on Edwards getting $400 haircuts. No toilet scrubbing for him! Maybe this apparent disparity between his words and his actions is why he lost.

So here’s my advice to current and future seekers of the highest office in our land: At least one day a month, forget about your wealth, power and importance, and humble yourself. Sweep your own porch. Scrub your own toilet. And tell the truth: for the financially weakest members of our society to get by, those of us more fortunate – even the vast middle class – will have to pay a bit more in taxes.

Then, when you say you want to end poverty and hunger in America, we, the voters, might believe you. Then, you might just actually gain our respect as a leader, instead of earning our cynicism for being America’s chief liar, a la GWB and the Iraq War.

Or maybe the American middle class doesn’t really care about the growing American poor. If that’s true, welcome back to the Middle Ages. I’ve got a porch to sweep.

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