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Citation: America Feb 13 1999, v.180, 4, 6(1)
Author: Golway, Terry
Title: Life in the 90's.(corporate America want young people
who will work long hours) by Terry Golway
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COPYRIGHT 1999 America Press Inc.
IT DIDN'T BOTHER me when I became so long in the tooth--over the dreaded age
of 35--that television advertisers (and, therefore, programmers) no longer
wanted anything to do with me. I've never been much of a television viewer
anyway, and my viewing choices have never been particularly hip. (You're
reading the words of a man who's been known to watch Patriot League basketball
games on cable TV.) And the advertisers probably were right to figure that my
35-plus years on earth were enough to convince me that mindless consumption
isn't what it's cracked up to be.
Fine. If television executives and national advertisers don't particularly
care about these now-43-year-old bones, so be it. Let them perform their
wizardry on 20-somethings awash in disposable income, ready to buy cars, beer
and designer clothing. If the wreckage of prime-time, over-the-air programming
seems top-heavy with materialistic young people without a thought in their
attractive heads, well, as I said, I'm not much of a one for television
anyway.
But, please, do not tell me that the presence of a few grey hairs (look
closely at the accompanying picture--I know the exact number) means that I am
a step away from retirement. There was a time not so long ago when folks in
their 40's and 50's were considered in the prime of their professional lives.
Indeed, I know plenty of workers in their 60's and 70's who certainly believe
they are productive, eager and creative--and wiser than they were in their
20's.
If the preceding sentiments seem somewhat obvious and utterly devoid of
context, well, prepare yourself for a shock. According to a chilling story in
Fortune magazine, corporate America increasingly regards people over 40 as
washed up, finished, unproductive--in short, a drain on the sacred bottom
line. These 40-somethings, you see, have a tendency to leave work after a mere
eight or nine or ten hours so they can be with their children. They don't like
to be disturbed on weekends, intent as they seem to be to have private lives
that do nothing--nothing!--to improve their employers' profits. Worse, they
tend to be near the peak of their earnings. Clearly this is not the sort of
people corporate America wants if it is to remain competitive in the global
marketplace, etc., etc.
One executive told Fortune: "The way I look at it, for $40,000 or $50,000, I
can get a smart, raw kid right out of undergrad who's going to work seven days
a week for me for the next two years. I'll train him the way I want him, he'll
grow with me, and I'll pay him long-term options so I own him, for lack of a
better word. He'll do exactly what I want--and if he doesn't, I'll fire him."
Friends, behold the new face of the new economy. This sort of attitude is as
vicious as anything you'll read in Dickens or any other chronicler of that
other great period of unfettered capitalism, the mid-19th century.
The magazine's astonishing look at the calculations driving the American
marketplace was on the newsstands when Pope John Paul II was in Mexico and
Saint Louis, warning us against materialism and the dangers of the voracious
new marketplace, where human beings are treated as mere numbers on a balance
sheet.
The Wall Street Journal interpreted the Pope's comments as a re-affirmation
of his past celebrations of capitalism, or at least of the good that flows
from competition and individual initiative. In an editorial entitled "The Good
News," the Journal assured the Pope that he has "more allies than even he may
know" in his crusades for human freedom, including the Pope's stated belief in
the "right to private initiative." Now, the Journal publishes some wonderful
pieces on religion and values (virtually alone among the national media, the
Journal has been crusading against Princeton University's appointment of Peter
Singer as a professor of bioethics, who would permit the killing of month-old
infants). The newspaper is a staunch supporter of Catholic schools and
appreciates the values Catholic educators seek to impart.
But the newspaper is wrong to suggest that the Pope's recent economic
critiques are more directed at materialism than at "the excesses of
capitalism." Surely the Pope is critical of both. Just as surely, there is
much to be critical of.
Take, for example, this appalling trend that Fortune uncovered. Forgive what
might appear to be a certain defensiveness, but many of the people being
dumped into corporate America's wastebasket happen to be mothers and fathers.
These days, in fact, plenty of 40-somethings are the parents of young
children. (That's my hand you see being raised.) If we assume for a moment
that we still have a social contract--a dubious proposition for some market
enthusiasts--then surely we should consider the human cost of throwing parents
out of work simply because they either make too much money or because they
insist on a modicum of what used to be known, back in the olden days of the
1960's, as "leisure time."
The end of this century is dominated by what some people call the
"Washington consensus," which asserts that freedom and liberty flow from
massive deregulation, free trade and the unfettered movement of capital. That
formula may well be responsible for today's prosperity in the United States,
but certainly the Europeans are dubious about its long-lasting effects.
And, as for the attitudes which the consensus has inspired in our new
economy, well, talk to a few washed-up 40-year-old executives.
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