Sample Chapters from
The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance
by Russell Roberts
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Chapter Three: DANGER AND DELIGHT
"Spare change? Have a good day. Spare change? Have a good day. Spare change? Thank you, sir. Have a good day. Spare change?"
The man sat on the ground near the entrance to the Woodley Park Metro station. His clothes were filthy, his hair matted to his head. The sun was out and the temperature was in the upper 50s—a mild November day in Washington, D.C. Still, the man wore a heavy wool overcoat, its pockets stuffed with plastic bags and other keepsakes. He was known as Fast Eddie. No one knew why or even if his name was really Eddie. A regular at the Woodley Park station, he was known for his unfailing politeness.
"Spare change?"
Fast Eddie looked up from his mantra to see a tall young man in wire-rim glasses stop in front of him and block the sunlight. Sam Gordon reached into his pocket and pulled out two quarters and a dime.
"How are you today, Fast Eddie?"
"Doing fine, sir. Doing fine. Rain gonna come if the sun don't shine."
"Right as always. Stay dry."
"Thank you, sir."
Sam turned away and bumped into a young woman passing by. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm very sorry."
The woman looked at him, looked away, then looked again. "Don't you work at the Edwards School?" she asked.
"Yes."
"I'm Laura Silver from the English Department," she said, extending her hand. "I've seen you at faculty meetings."
"Sam Gordon. Economics."
The young woman flashed a quick smile of recognition. So this was the man who put the money on the table.
"So how do you manage to pay your rent?"
"Excuse me?"
"You seem to specialize in giving away money. I heard you give money to your students. And now this guy—"
"Fast Eddie? I don't do much for him. Just a few coins and a smile."
"Don't you worry that he's going to waste it on drugs and alcohol?"
Sam was about to start the little tango step necessary to get on the escalator. He stopped and turned toward Laura.
"Given his situation, I'm not sure I'd call it a waste. He looks like he needs a drink."
Laura looked into Sam's eyes. Surely he was teasing her. But his face was calm and free of laughter. He was waiting for her reply. Laura wasn't sure she could have a civil conversation with someone who thought poisoning the homeless was a gesture of compassion. But this cheerful evasion of responsibility was so annoying and wrong she had to respond.
"Look, Sam, I hope it won't offend you, but—"
"Very little offends me. Disagreement never offends me."
Laura looked back over her shoulder at Fast Eddie, sitting cross-legged on the ground, his hand outstretched.
"I just don't see how it helps to give alcohol to an alcoholic or cocaine to a drug addict," she said. "It's like giving a sick person a more intense dose of the disease. My brother Andrew carries little cans of V-8 juice in his briefcase. When beggars ask him for money, he gives them one. That way he knows he's not adding to their problems."
Sam could see that Laura was very proud of her brother. "What's he do for a living?" he asked.
"He's a lawyer for the Consumer Product Safety Commission."
Sam was not a big fan of the Consumer Product Safety Commission but there was no need to alienate someone he had just met. He could always use another friend at the Edwards School. He said nothing.
"Isn't that a great idea?" Laura asked.
"The Consumer Product Safety Commission?" Sam asked. Was she going to ferret out his true feelings?
"No. Carrying around little V-8 juices."
"I don't know. I doubt the beggar cares about getting his minimum daily requirement of vitamins. His life stinks. He wants to get high. He tries to sell the V-8 juice on the street. If he's successful, your brother has inconvenienced the beggar and had no nutritional impact. If the beggar can't sell the can, he drinks it, takes the money he would have spent on lunch and uses it to buy crack or liquor. So did your well-intentioned brother participate in the beggar's habit, or are his hands clean?"
They eased their way on to the escalator. Laura's mind wandered for a moment. The escalators of the D.C. Metro go on forever. They always made her think of a scene from some Italian film, where the ride downward would be a surreal symbol for a trip into hell and the upward journey a passage to redemption. Sam's mind wandered as well. But he thought of the taxes necessary to dig so deep.
"When you give to charity," Laura said, "it seems to me you have a right to give it as you see fit."
"I agree. It's your money. Or your brother's. But a person who gives away V-8 juice instead of money is being charitable in a selfish way."
Laura nearly winced at hearing Andrew described as selfish.
"I think," Sam continued, "you should try to help people on their terms, not your own. People use the same argument when they talk about motorcycle helmets."
"I hope you're not against helmet laws. The next thing you'll tell me is you're against laws that require people to wear seat belts."
Laura laughed in anticipation of Sam's response.
"I'm against both of those laws," Sam said.
"But seat belts save lives!" Laura said in exasperation.
"I like saving lives, but that's not the only goal of life. If it were, you would move away from Washington D.C. to a safer city. You would never ride in a car. You would stop eating ice cream. The goal of life is to live as richly as you can—"
"You say that because you're an economist," Laura interrupted.
"I don't mean living richly in the sense of having a lot of money. I mean the sense of fully experiencing everything that makes us human. If people want to risk their lives by not wearing a seat belt in exchange for greater comfort, or to save money by buying a less expensive car without air bags, then I think they should have that right."
"But they don't realize that the discomfort of a seat belt or the cost of an air bag is worth it. They just assume that an accident is never going to happen."
"I don't know," Sam said pensively. "Maybe they do know and they just feel differently about the costs and benefits. It reminds me of this dinner party. I was sitting across the table from a doctor who worked in the emergency room at a local hospital. He was in favor of mandatory air bags for the same reason that you're in favor of seat belts. He told me they save lives. But they're expensive, I reminded him. Perhaps to some people their cost is not worth the safety."
"But how could the cost not be worth the extra safety?"
"Ahhhhhh," Sam sighed. "A profound question. There is no free lunch. More safety means less of something else. Force people to buy safety devices for their cars and maybe their kids don't go to college or get music lessons."
"If the kid is killed in a car wreck it won't matter."
"Quite right. And now we know that even air bags can kill kids. But ignore that. Let's assume that all air bags work perfectly."
"OK."
"Air bags or seat belts aren't the only way to keep a kid safe in a car. There are other, cheaper ways. You can drive more slowly. You can drive less often. You can postpone travel when it rains. It's better to give the parents the choice than to force them to create safety in a particular way. It is hard to believe, but you don't want to have the safest possible car."
"That's ridiculous."
"Maybe it is. But it's the way I look at the world. I'm not saying safety is bad. Safety is great. I'm saying that it's possible for safety to get too expensive. Here's an easy way to see it. The safest car is no car at all. That's the only way to guarantee that you don't get into a car accident. Most of us understand that no car at all is too much safety."
"That's a lovely theory. But what if people make the wrong choices—what if they're not as knowledgeable or informed as we are? They'll make the wrong choices. They won't be safe enough for their own good."
"I wonder how you'd feel if someone who claims to be better informed than you are stopped you from eating beef or from going skiing or from living in a particular neighborhood because he, Mr. Knows-better-than-you-do, thinks the risks from those activities are too high. Do you think his education and good intentions would win you over?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. It wouldn't hurt me to at least consider stopping those activities."
"Oh no. You don't have a choice. I'm all in favor of worriers providing the less-worried among us with more information at their own expense, out of the goodness of their hearts. But we're talking about foreclosing people's choices against their will."
"I thought you were allowed to turn off your air bag."
"Deactivating it is against the law. In theory, you're allowed to install an on-off switch. You have to write a letter to an official in Washington explaining why you want to turn it off, say because your mother drives your car sometimes and she's only 5' tall and prone to being killed if the air bag deploys. If the official finds your reason acceptable, he sends you a letter giving you permission to turn it off. Isn't that thoughtful? He sends you a letter giving you permission to use your own car as you see fit. Then all you have to do is find a mechanic willing to put in the switch. He has to hope you won't sue him if someone is hurt or killed. If he's willing to do it, you're out about $500. So it's not really voluntary."
"I guess you're right."
"Anyway, this doctor at this dinner party got on his high horse, the one that helps him look down on economists and other lower life-forms, and told me that if I worked in the emergency room like he did and saw what people looked like after a car wreck at sixty miles an hour, I'd agree with him."
"What did you say?"
"I went a little berserk. 'Do you really think people don't know what happens to their body when it hits a windshield at sixty miles per hour? Do you think it's a secret only revealed to doctors and people in driver's ed. and traffic school who watch those gory movies to deter drunk driving? We know, doctor, we know. Maybe some people don't wear their seat belts because their values of the costs and benefits are not the same as yours.' "
"What did he say to that?"
"I didn't give him a chance to reply. I asked him if his car had an air bag. Just a stab in the dark really. But I hit home. His car did not have an air bag. He said that at the time he was looking for a car, only Chrysler and Mercedes offered air bags as an option and he didn't like them. Here was a guy who chose style over safety. But he still wanted to deny that choice to others. I'll never understand a person like that."
"You'll probably never understand me, then." Laura said cheerfully. "I think wearing a seat belt is a good idea."
"I think the world of seat belts myself. That's why I wear mine whenever I drive."
Laura wasn't sure how to react to Sam. His perspective on the world turned a wait for a subway train into an intellectual tennis match. And it always seemed to be his serve. She was relieved when the train arrived. It was crowded and Sam and Laura found themselves pushed close together, swaying gently back and forth as the train started forward.
For a moment, Sam let go of the bar he was holding to clean his glasses. Laura took a good look at him as he used the slack in his shirt to buff the lenses. He reminded her of a blackboard filled with equations, chalk dust everywhere. His intensity brought out her own passion. She felt like she was back in her dorm at Yale, arguing some philosophical point late into the night.
"Let me get this straight," Laura said. "You wear a seat belt but you don't want to force people to protect themselves. What's the harm in helping people?"
"Maybe not a lot with any one law like mandatory seat belts. But the more you limit people's choices, even in the name of helping them, the more responsibility you take away from them. I don't like it when people make decisions for me and I believe in extending the same courtesy to others."
"But are you comfortable knowing that people will often make mistakes?" Laura asked.
"I am. I probably think they make fewer mistakes than you think they do. But life is about choices and taking responsibility. It's about learning from those mistakes and growing up. When my folks first got married, they bought a house in University City, Missouri, just outside of the city limits of St. Louis. The house was built around the time of the 1904 World's Fair. It was a beautiful old house with creaky wood floors and two fireplaces. It would be the house I would grow up in. But even though my dad and the owner agreed to a deal, there was still a problem."
The train stopped and disgorged half its riders. Laura and Sam were able to find seats next to each other.
"When the house changed owners," Sam continued, "it had to comply with the new housing code. There was a front porch that ran the width of the house. It was lovely. According to the housing code, a porch that was three feet or more off the ground was required to have a railing. Ours was four. So we had to have a railing if we wanted to move in."
"Was it such a big deal to put up a railing?"
"Two people were very upset. The first was the previous owner. He had rehabbed the house to make sure that it looked as close as possible to how it had looked in 1906 when it was built. He had a photograph of the house from the turn of the century. No railing. The second person who was very upset was my dad."
"He probably didn't want to pay for the railing."
"Actually, he didn't care about the money. When my dad signed the deal, the seller agreed to pay for the new railing if the city forced them to put one up. No, my dad was upset for a different reason. He liked the idea of having a slightly dangerous porch."
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Laura interjected. "I wonder if there's a gene for weirdness."
Sam smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment," he said. "Anyway, my dad and the seller went to the hearing to request a waiver on historical grounds. The seller waxed poetic about historical authenticity and got nowhere. The head of the Board of Aldermen kept saying that he had a responsibility to the children who would play on that porch. My dad explained that he had no children. And the alderman countered that he might have children in the future, which of course turned out to be true. The alderman was worried about those children and any others who might visit the house."
"Fair enough."
"Sure. But my dad had an answer and it has stuck with me over the years. He stood up—at least this is the way he tells it—he stood up and made a speech. He said that the goal of a parent isn't merely to keep a child from physical harm. The goal of a parent is also to teach a child how to cope with the danger and excitement of the world. He liked the idea of a porch without a railing because then he would have to teach his children to take care. Obviously you wouldn't leave an infant or a toddler alone on a porch with a four-foot drop. But it would be wise, he said, to give an older child the responsibility of taking care not to fall off the porch. A four-foot drop was an excellent height to learn such a lesson. If you messed up, you might be merely bruised, you might break a leg, you—"
"You might break a neck," Laura interjected.
"That's right, and that made the alderman feel self-righteous about treating my dad like some kind of lunatic. But my dad understood that breaking your neck was incredibly unlikely. And that if you put up railings everywhere, your life was poorer for it. Not just because you weren't able to give a child the responsibility to learn how to cope with danger, but also because seven-year-olds like to get close to the edge of a four-foot porch and sometimes they like to jump. My dad used to say 'danger and delight grow on the same stalk.' "
"That's a nice line."
"He said it was an English proverb. He also used to say that it's good to feel the grass between your toes. Even if there might be a snake in the backyard, the wise man goes barefoot."
"Nor can foot feel, being shod," Laura said, almost to herself, her mind elsewhere for the moment.
"Excuse me?" Sam asked. "Shod? As in shoddy?"
"No. It just means wearing shoes. 'Nor can foot feel, being shod.' It's from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Nineteenth century. He was trying to say that our pursuit of material comfort erodes our ability to truly feel. "
"My father didn't teach us a lot of poetry, but I think he'd like the line."
"So your dad lost."
"Yeah. I imagine he came home burning mad."
"Kind of the way you came home from that dinner party with that doctor, I would guess."
"A week later, we had a railing."
"How did your mom feel?"
"She kept quiet about it. But years later, she told me she had been glad that my dad had failed that night. She and my dad didn't always see eye-to-eye on danger and delight."
"I guess we don't either," Laura said.
"Fair enough. And vive la différence."
Laura smiled. She wondered how long the list of differences might be.
"The point is," Sam continued, "it's bad enough for the government to keep children away from dangerous porches. It's worse to treat adults like children, putting fences up everywhere to create a world of little danger. Not only is there less delight in a world of little danger, but there is less humanity when we are always being treated like children."
"Why? Do you think it makes us meaner?"
"No. That's not what I mean by less humanity. I mean less of what makes us essentially human."
"But why does a safer world make us less human?"
"Part of the essence of being human is making choices. It's anticipating the future and being aware of the costs and benefits of our actions. If you take the risk out of the future, you take away the choice and the challenge of grappling with the risk and reward. You take away the responsibility. Children don't anticipate the future very well, so we treat children differently from adults. But when we start treating adults like children, we start taking away the essential human challenge of coping with uncertainty and making decisions."
"But helmet laws are different."
"Why?"
"Because if some jerk without insurance splats himself on the highway I'm going to end up paying for his hospital bills. It seems to me I have the right to keep his head in one piece."
"That's why it's like the V- 8 juice. Of course you have the right. A father doling out the allowance has the right to be paternalistic. I wonder what the politically correct phrase would be." Sam peered at the ceiling of the subway car as if the answer were written there. "Parentalistic? Ugly-sounding word, don't you think?"
"Oh, I don't know," Laura countered. "It might grow on you in time."
"Sounds like a fungus to me. Anyway, it does seem charitable to guarantee medical assistance to people without insurance or without the ability to pay. After that magnanimous gesture, why spoil it by treating the pauper as a child and putting conditions on how he or she is to live life? If you're going to be charitable, be charitable. Why not say, 'I accept you for who you are and I am willing to help you on your terms'? Of course, I don't believe that there should be laws guaranteeing medical assistance to people who splat themselves on the highway—"
"You're kidding, right? It's one thing to let people wander off a porch. But how can you be against helping people who can't afford to help themselves? It's just selfish, it's evil—"
"Evil?" Sam asked with wonder. "Evil?"
"OK, maybe just satanic. Until now, I had you to the right of Genghis Khan but to the left of Attila the Hun. You are rapidly moving Hun-ward."
"Welcome to the wonderful world of economics. Everything precious in life has a cost."
Laura looked at him and laughed.
"You were right," she said. "You're not easily offended."
"If you had my views, you'd get used to being insulted."
"If I had your views, Sam, I'd read more on the Metro and talk less."
"And if you had my views, you would be lonely and embattled, but you could take solace in being right."
Sam smiled at her sweetly. Laura couldn't decide whether the smile was an attempt to indicate a joke or whether he was trying to soften the brazenness of his claim. She tended to rely on Freud's dictum that there are no jokes.
"I can't figure you out," she said. "Your self-confidence borders on arrogance, but you aren't comfortable imposing your views on others. You're against helping people without health care, but you give money to beggars. And what about that poster in your classroom of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. What's that doing there?"
"That's exactly where it belongs. See you around."
It was Sam's stop. Before Laura could ask him to explain, he was gone.
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