A Cool Million

I've just finished reading Nathanael West's novella, A Cool Million. The book is a mixture of Voltaire's Candide, in which the main character for which the title is named is systematically brutalized throughout his journeys, and a satire of any number of Horatio Alger novels depicting characters successfully living out the American dream of achieving wealth and power by the means of their industry.  I've read Candide but never any of Alger's novels but I doubt that it matters since most of us, from even the earliest of our schooling, know the basic tenets of achieving the American dream:  work really hard, be somewhat inventive and after some patience you will earn your fortune. As A Cool Million's hyper-capitalist character, Shagpoke Whipple puts it to the young, poor but aspiring capitalist Lemuel Pitkin, "the world is an oyster that but waits for hands to open it."

What I was most impressed with in this book is West's understanding of just how people acquire great deals of money in a capitalist society.  Surely, because this is a satire, West doesn't agree that the world is an oyster and that anyone can make a fortune just by trying hard enough.  This is a boring myth that most of us can dismiss just by looking around ourselves.  We all know people who hold down two or three jobs hoping to make a lot of money; we know people who talk about how they will make it big with their creativity or by being noticed by their superiors for their superb work ethic; we know people who have started their own businesses hoping to catch a lucky break or people who spend thousand going to school, convincing themselves that they will stand out from the pack.  Some of these people make the money they hoped for and some of them don't.  But hard work is just not enough to become rich.  I work hard - going to school, raising a child, married, job, writing, etc. - and you probably work hard.  In fact, I would guess most of us work very hard.  But most of us are not rich.

Working hard does not mean becoming rich.

No, no, there are really only two ways to make a "cool million" in a capitalist society and West's novella deals with both.  First is through luck - being born into money, winning the lottery, striking rich off a trend, hitting it right on the stock market, etc.  Secondly, is by desiring money so completely that one would use nearly any means necessary to obtain it.

People don't seem to be impressed with the first way - through luck.  There doesn't have to be any hard work when luck is involved.  It's more by accident than anything.  West shows this in Million but in the opposite way by first informing Lemuel Pitkin  that he can obtain a great fortune by traveling to New York - of course, what other city? - and by working hard.  However, through very unlucky circumstance Pitkin runs out of hope of ever obtaining his fortune.  The message is:  some of us are lucky and some aren't.

Doesn't that sound exactly like real life?

The second way of obtaining money is the "respectable" way of doing it:  wanting it.  But why is this supposed to be respectable.  "The love of money" is supposed to be "the root of all evil."  This is one of the most quoted phrases that Christians have.  Does no one actually believe this?  No, nearly every Christian I know has huge amounts of respect for people with a lot of money.  But what they don't realize is that people who don't get lucky, earn their money through the dubious way of stomping on the rest of humanity in order to obtain their fortune. West shows this as well through the character of Shagpoke Whipple.  Whipple spends the entire novella promising to help young Pitkin only to take advantage of his friendship by rising to power and fortune largely through Pitkin's martyrdom.

This is how "respectable" people make money:  off the backs of those "beneath" them.

Let's stop giving respect to the rich.  They were either lucky or selfish assholes that don't mind exploiting everyone else.