SocialAir

In the United States we have this crazy idea that if you pay more for something, you get something better. Let’s just take a random example and say someone was trying to sell a blue 1999 Jeep Cherokee that made a heinous noise when the air-conditioning was left on and would only let the driver roll the windows down. This might be a perfectly good car; but a person, despite the celebrity of the Jeep’s previous owner, might not think it was worth as much money as a car that allowed the passengers to roll down their own windows. People can be picky about these sorts of things. A person could buy the perfectly good Jeep Cherokee with the celebrity status if having once belonged to one of the greatest provocateurs the world has ever seen, or they might spend a little more money and get a Lamborghini. While in this hypothetical example the 1999 Jeep Cherokee was greatly undervalued and sold for way less than it was worth given the prominence of the owner, the principal hold true: if you pay more for something, you get something better. This is the American way.

More money gets a person a better car. Logic follows that paying more into a national healthcare system through higher taxes gets the payer an additional liver or maybe a bigger heart. Additionally a person who buys a first class plane ticket gets a better seat than everyone else. In Europe it does not seem to work like that. In Europe everyone gets the same thing; even if they pay more. I believe there is a word for it; but I can’t seem to put my finger on it. No where is this point better illustrated than with the European aeroplane builder Airbus.

If you have ever flown on an Airbus surely you have noticed that the first class seats are cordoned off from the economy seats; as they should be. Rich people are better than the rest of us and they should be segregated so that they can enjoy their champagne in peace without having to worry about the rest of us asking for money. The first class seats on good old American planes are much more splendid than the regular plebian seats because the rich person’s ass is suppler so that it is not raw or chapped when it is kissed. On Airbus, however, the first class seats look exactly the same as the regular seats. It boggles the mind. Why would a person pay more money to sit in the front of the plane, where they will die sooner in the event of a crash, if their bum is not supported by the extra sweat and tears of Chinese labourers? This is why the tenants of Socialism elude me.

As you may have guessed I am leaving on an aeroplane tomorrow. I’m going to Birmingham for a Rotary thing and as you can guess I will be sitting in economy, and I will surly die seconds after the rich who sit in the same kind of seats that I do; but in the rows preceding me.

Later days,