Chris Kerr has it all. He is wealthy, successful, and controls his own destiny. Chris is married with two attractive children in their mid-20s, both educated at a local, prominent private school. One is a boy, and one is a girl, of course. He and his wife have been married for about 25 years, and they have lived happily ever after. Chris wife, Catherine, is a self-published author of books about local bicycle trails. The family is stable, happy, and comfortable. They epitomize the perfect American family.
Chris owns a small but profitable business begun by his parents and bequeathed to himself. He has lived in the trendy, expensive, tourist-oriented town of New Hope, PA, all his life. About 10 years ago, Chris built himself a large new home on a vacant lot adjacent to the house in which he already lived. He decided to rent the old house, and maybe sell it later. Despite the modest size of the original house, its location alone will ensure a price of well more than a half-million dollars. But there is no reason to sell it immediately. The Kerrs don’t need the money.
Chris’s compulsory education was at public schools. But college was different. Part of his university education was gained at the prestigious London School of Economics. Chris traveled around Europe, endeavoring to become the cosmopolitan he imagined himself to be. Although Chris studied Russian in college and retains some superficial knowledge, he is fluent in but one tongue, English. But don’t remind him of that when he is conversing with his foreign business connections.
The company Chris owns has one product, a catalog called Mariner’s Annual. It is a large book containing equipment and necessities used by the maritime industry. The book’s purpose is to serve as a common reference for those on ships and rigs and those on shore. Mariner’s Annual was first published in 1958, and has enjoyed success since. Chris’s parents operated the company until the late Seventies, when Chris was granted responsibility of daily business. His mother, a miserly, falsely modest German woman named Doro, has never relinquished the purse strings, however. She controls all money incoming and outgoing. Chris loves his parents, of course. They gave him everything. The building in which the business is located, Chris’s house(s), and his parents house, are all within 100 yards of one another.
Mariner’s Annual is staffed by fewer than 10 people, including Chris. The entry-level person is typically paid $20,000 per year. Chris pays himself $250,000 per year. But Chris doesn’t want anyone to think he is better off than they are. Like many shrewd business owners who do not want their employees to ask for more than they already get, Chris tries to show that there just isn’t anymore – not even for himself. Thus, Chris typically drives a base 4-cylinder vehicle, with a manual transmission. He dresses casually. He doesn’t want anyone to think he is any different than they are. But the differences are clear. The staff must be sure to be in on time, and to stay late to meet deadlines, and to get the job done. For Chris, those rules don’t apply. Irregular hours, frequent vacations, using company supplies for personal reasons, are characteristic of Chris. He hopes no one notices, but everyone does. The employees notice little things, like when he uses company stamps for his personal mail. They notice when he ships his wife’s books on the company tab. They notice bigger things, too, like that all of the company’s supplies are conveniently housed at his mother’s house – available for her personal use, too, on the company tab. When Chris announced “This company does own a 1200 DPI printer, it’s at my house but it does belong to the company” eyebrows were raised. Though such a high resolution printer would be perfect for an office that produces a book, it is also perfect for the owner’s wife who also produces books. Why should Chris use his own money for such a device when he can simply charge it to the company and keep it as his house? After all, it’s not as if employees will ask to go to the owner’s house to print an advertisement proposal. Nevertheless, Chris was vocal to everyone about the importance of keeping his family’s personal property separate from the company’s property, “for tax reasons.”
Employees notice that Chris is paid more in two months than practically all his employees earn in one year. Employees also notice that they are paid on salary so that Chris need not pay them overtime, despite that during the several months when the book being readied for the printer, extended hours are an unspoken given. But why pay employees for their extra time when such can be avoided simply by paying everyone on salary?
Marx introduced the concept of “false consciousness,” meaning a mental framework that is illusory, and typically detrimental to one’s self. Having a false consciousness about reality is what Marx believes prevents the proletarians from rebelling about their exploitation: they simply don’t realize they are being exploited. Chris depends on the false consciousness of his employees to sustain his lifestyle. He depends on their inability to perceive Chris’s true relationship to them, how he prospers from their labor while not being justly rewarded for it.
Like every capitalist of his status, Chris lives off the labor of his workers. They produce the wealth, and Chris benefits from it disproportionately more than they do. One of Chris’s – and his mother’s – main tasks is to ensure that the employees do not realize the unequal benefits in the relationship. So far, Chris has been successful. Without consciously applying it, Chris uses Ricardo’s Law of Iron Wages with his employees: They are paid just enough to keep them working, living well enough, not complaining, and not asking questions. An example of Doro and Chris’s success in keeping employees ignorant but happy: One day Doro walked in the office and announced she had $40,000 worth of checks in her hand. One employee clapped and gleefully cheered. Why? Is it because that employee would benefit directly from that money? Would she receive a bonus because of it? Would she be given a fraction of it as a reward, since her personal labor helped obtain it? Not at all. She was joyful because she has perceives everything through the false consciousness of the proletarian. She is happy that the money is there, that it will help the company. She thinks Chris and Doro share that view. She doesn’t realize that they are thinking only of themselves. For herself, this employee will not freely share in the fruits of her own labor. Instead, what she receives will be determined by Chris, because she has sold her labor to Chris at a price he, not she, has determined. Chris will always control that price. And that price will not be raised because of the income of the business.
Yet the employees are not totally enveloped in the fog of false consciousness. Despite what Chris thinks, the employees sometimes discuss the most obvious aspects of the unequal distribution of benefits between themselves and Chris. Yet, where they realize the inequity, they – like millions of others who also realize it in their own lives, passively accept it. One employee of Chris’s said, regarding the unfairness inherent in the relationship between Chris and everyone said, “That’s just the way it is.” Meaning, yes, it is unfair that a business owner should profit so much more than his employees. That there are different economic and social rules for the employers and the employees. (But is that so?) Chris couldn’t have hoped for a better sentiment to be uttered. Passive resignation to the inequalities and exploitation inherent in capitalism is what Chris, his mother, and people like them depend on for their survival.
Mariner’s Annual, the book, is divided into two sections. The first is the catalog section, which covers equipment used by the marine industry on oil rigs and sea-going vessels. The catalog section serves the purpose of the book’s existence. Those are the pages that are used by the people on the ships, and the people who order for the ships. Pictures, specifications, and other information about the products are all located in the catalog section. While that section is most important to the users of the book, it’s the second section that is most important for Chris and the company: The advertising section. These are pages for advertisements by companies who manufacture or sell the equipment presented in the catalog section. It’s by selling space for advertising in this section that the company generates its main income. The advertising is separated from the catalog section, which means a user of the book would need to intentionally choose to look at an ad before he actually sees one. Probably the number of workers on oil rigs or sailors in the merchant marine who decide to browse the ads in Mariner’s Annual is slim. Probably the number of ship chandlers who do that is equally small. So who looks at the advertisements in the advertising section? What justifies the price Chris’s advertisers are paying? When asked why any advertiser would buy space in a segregated part of the book, given that it will probably not be seen by the users of the book – who will instead be looking at the catalog pages – Chris’s response was a wry smile and “Shhhh! Let’s not talk about that.” Just as Chris depends on the passive acceptance of the capitalist system by his workers, he also depends on the blind financial promiscuity of his advertisers, whose money Chris spends to send his kids to private school. When Chris finally receives the anxiously-awaited check from 3M, the book’s biggest advertiser, he always says in an exaggerated voice of relief “Oh good, we can eat.” Would ship suppliers not know of 3M without a full page ad way in the back of Chris’s book? That is just another question Chris hopes is not asked.
Chris’s business is located in a dilapidated converted small motel, owned by Doro. Of course, the company pays rent to Doro for use of the building. That is yet another way the Kerrs have found to siphon company money to the family. Another is that Doro remains on the payroll, despite that she does little more than guard the company-purchased paper towels and white-out buried in her closets.
The office has one level, and spans the length of the building. But Chris’s customers are lead to believe that the Mariner’s Annual world headquarters is a sprawling, elegant building quaintly nestled in a small river town. Each customer feels special because they deal directly with Chris, the president. But all of them deal with Chris, because he doesn’t trust anyone else to deal with them. Chris also deals with the paperboy and trash collectors.
Chris lives in a world of illusions and false reality. Some he has created, and others have been created for him. Superficially, Chris is a good-natured businessman who lacks pretension and lives modestly. He treats his workers well, they are happy, and he wants everyone to prosper. But looking more closely reveals the objective reality. Chris’s stable, happy life is sustained by an organization he had no part in creating, but that he inherited. His wealth is generated by people who, while benefiting themselves in his employment, are benefiting Chris inordinately more. Without Chris, the company would function and prosper. But without the workers, the business will fail. Despite the greater importance of the workers to the survival of the company, they are rewarded less than a man whose presence isn’t necessary for the business to live. There is an inverse relationship between who labors the most, and who is rewarded the most from the labor. That, of course, is a situation that exists in practically every organization.
Chris projects an image of modesty and equality. But he denies employees the eagerly-anticipated June bonus during what he called a “financially difficult year” only weeks before he begins construction of his massive new home. While the company may have a difficult year, Chris never does. Further, Chris’s lack of adherence to his personally-expressed hard work ethic is unequalled by anyone working for him. While Chris wants everyone in early and to stay late, Chris is self-exempt. Chris knows that he need not stay for the tasks to be complete. Yet, somehow, he deserves for his pay to be 600% higher than the average employee’s.
Chris’s survival depends on a world populated by people who equate tradition with correctness. He benefits because people accept what is given to them, and don’t ask questions. In a world of questioning, critical people, Chris’s life would be much different. He would be the equal that he pretends to be. And his employees would be the equals that they deserve to be.
While this essay focuses on one man, one family, and one business and its employees, the problems presented are universal and timeless. Chris Kerr is no different from the thousands of others who share his economic circumstances. Because of those circumstances, they all tend to share the same attitude, opinions, and beliefs. This suggests that a person’s economic situation influences – if not determines – a person’s very thoughts and behavior.
Chris is a Quaker. Quakers believe in the equality of individuals before God, and to each other. The Quaker who founded Chris’s home state of Pennsylvania, William Penn, created a stir when he would address the king of England as a common man. But to Penn, the king was indeed just another man, equal to everyone else in the sight of God. However, Chris’s life could not be sustained if he shared Penn’s attitude. If he treated everyone as he treats himself, his business could not function. If he allowed everyone to work only when they wished, utilize company property for personal uses, and to pay themselves $14,000 per month after taxes, there would be no money left for business operations, among other problems. Therefore, Chris accepts the inequality that his religion’s founder rejected, because he profits from it. The profit motive is Chris’s “inner light.”
Chris takes pride that he is one of the biggest financial supporters of his Quaker Meetinghouse.
