Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Ursula, for obvious reasons I found those Mike Tyson links fascinating.
In a very weird accident of timing, just after watching the videos to which you linked, I received the strangest e-mail. A fight promoter in London--no one I've heard of--wrote to offer me an obscene amount of money to fly to London and fight some amateur guy who wants to fight a woman. My putative opponent, apparently, has a good 20 kilos on me, but on the bright side, "He's not very good."
I have no idea how this promoter found me or why he thought I'd be the woman to do the job. Perhaps he found my old martial-arts blog. Maybe he thought my rarified educational credentials (rarified, anyway, as far the martial-arts world goes) would make for a good promo angle. He was obviously persuaded that my skills are vastly greater than they really are; I'm not sure he realized that in fact I'm a small, middle-aged woman who only took up this sport a couple of years ago and has two left feet.
I said no. I'm not averse to fighting competitively, I'd like to, in fact, but in a ranked competition against someone my own size, not as a stunt or a set-up. Yet the amount he was offering to pay me--and to send to my bank account today--was so serious that I have to admit that for a moment I considered it, I mean, really considered it.
This came directly on the heels of an e-mail from an editor offering me a truly insulting amount of money to write an article about a controversial subject. (I'll be a bit coy about that subject, but you guys know the sorts of things I tend to write about, so you can use your imagination.) I know from experience that the article, if published, would inevitably result in my receiving the kind of mail that prompts a woman to take up the martial arts in the first place. So it's not necessarily persuasive to say that the disproportionate pay scale reflects the disproportionate physical danger to which I'd be exposed.
I've never once in my life been offered that kind of money to write a serious article about anything, and honestly, on many days I think it might be easier, and certainly more fun, to get the snot beat out of me in the ring than to sit down and face the looming white emptiness of the computer screen.
Now, I believe in free markets. I live by the market, I die by the market, and if people are willing to pay me more to fight than to write, that's just the way things are: My skills as a fighter are worth more than my skills as a writer. I don't think the government should intervene to ensure equal pay for writers; I don't think it should give me a grant or a stipend to write because writing is a good thing for society, none of that.
But I do think this situation is weird. Don't you? Something is not quite right with a society's values when the demand for the sort of grotesque spectacle this promoter has in mind so vastly exceeds the demand for the kind of journalism I'm actually qualified to do.
Does this count as a failure of the free market to create optimal outcomes for society at large, or is journalism really a lot less important to a healthy democracy than I think it is?
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May '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
The market is as good as those who compose it. A market is essentially a network of buyers and sellers of goods. If buyers want affordable S&M equipment, then sellers will provide them with it. Today's consumers certainly buy lots of trashy, useless [enter expletive]. However, government intervention, i.e., force, will not change such buying patterns since rationality cannot be imposed upon someone. It is a behaviour that must be voluntarily adopted.
But yes, today's journalism ain't that great.
Jun '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Good morning, Claire. So an editor is willing to pay you a pittance for your thoughts, but a promoter will pay you buckets of money for a spectacle. I think the interpretation is rather easy. We as a society no longer value the treasures of the mind; we just want to be entertained. It's the symptom of a decadent culture.
I see the same thing everyday in the classroom. A parent comes to me complaining that her kid got a "D" in history. Yeah, well, he doesn't do his homework, doesn't study, doesn't apply himself to actually learning the content. He does spend a lot of time on his cell phone and even more time gaming on his laptop. But then, for many parents a school is just a daycare center. I think Jacque Barzun got it exactly right in his magisterial work From Dawn to Decadence. The title tells you all you need to know.
BTW, I worked hard to prepare for a discussion about speech writing, but it looks now like a dead thread. Too bad because there's a lot of intellectual red meat to the subject.
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
No such thing as a dead thread, Paules; remember, I am in control here, so if you've got good material, let's open a new one. I agree that it's a great subject. I've been thinking about it all day.
Jun '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
You can snatch my 5:27 post from Peter's Speech Writing, Con't. and repost here if you like.
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Why don't we move the conversation to the new thread to avoid chaos ...
May '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Al Haig, call your cosmic office, Claire Berlinski says, "I am in control here..."
Seriously, I don't believe in comparative worth arguments. It's like the old saw about athletes make gazillions while teachers scrape by... Yeah, well, nobody ever shelled out $45 to watch Mrs. Schlitz try to teach little Johnny his math tables and nobody ever payed millions to televise it either.
If comparative worth arguments meant anything, George Clooney would be sweeping floors...
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Yes, EJ, that's the allusion. (I suppose I shouldn't assume that everyone is completely au courant with my jokes.) I don't buy the comparative worth argument either, at all. A job is worth what someone will pay you to do it, that's the definition of "worth." But I do find it disturbing to think that the demand for journalism from Istanbul is that much less than the demand for totally amateur kickboxing matches. When someone like me starts thinking, "Hey, it would make a lot more economic sense for me to fight than write," it doesn't really seem the most persuasive argument for the idea that the market efficiently allocates talents and resources, does it? I mean, talk about brain drain. Literally. And bad news for a superpower with ambitions to stay super when the public values dumb kickboxing matches so much more than it does foreign news.
May '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
This was certainly an interesting post. When I read the part about being offered the fight my mind wandered to "Celebrity Death Match" for some reason ... kind of strange. I am glad that you declined, because you do not want to fight the kind of man who wants to fight a woman.
Anyway, I am hoping that Mr. Lileks comments on this post, because that is sure to give me a belly laugh or two.
Also, Claire .. I am sure that the promoter inferred excellence in the martial arts based on your general impressiveness. I did.
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
I think the economic driver is on the supply side, meaning it's less dismaying than you suggest. As your own experience implies, the supply of would-be opponents for this fighter is -- reassuringly -- small enough to drive prices through the roof.
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Good point, Matt! Okay, I feel better.
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
What a grave mistake that would be. At some point I'll post a video titled "Claire's hilarious training mishaps." That should clear up any confusion about the matter.
May '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
Claire - Let me tell you mt story. When I got into the television production business 30 years ago, I vowed that I would treat my audience with respect. And then I met them...
What was it Mencken said? "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." That's apropos to the rest of the world, too.
To its core the problem is that we are all consumed by the details of day to day living. To provide the diligence that is required to maintain our own political freedom can be overwhelming. We want easy, short attention span amusements to relieve the pressure. And that's how you wake up one morning and find the world has changed for the worse.
May '10
Re: Mike Tyson, my fallback career, and the things free markets cannot do
There are far more snotty writers than people willing to have the snot beat out of them. Pretty women willing to risk broken noses and cheekbones, and travel overseas for the opportunity, are even rarer.
It seems to me the market's in healthy condition, though I would hardly view fewer writers and more attractive fighters as a problem.