I'm an ardent capitalist. Marx is for chumps.
Given a choice between gummint and the private sector, I default to the free market 96% of the time. I defend Wal-Mart -- though I don't shop there. Three times I've bought and sold Philip Morris stock after shares spiked -- and I don't smoke. If Exxon Mobil rakes in "windfall profits," good for them -- even though I don't drink the stuff.
And yet, every week for 30 years I've suffered a cognitive disconnect with my walking, talking entrepreneurial self.
Since February 1975, I've worked at WFMU -- for free. It's fun. But there's labor involved, as well as time, effort, commitment, and sacrifice. In some ways, it entails a small measure of compromise. As a WFMU DJ, despite the "free" in "free-form," you can't do anything you damn well please. Ask Kenny G. We are a station of by-laws, which impose restrictions and penalties for violations. The paradox of WFMU policymaking is that most of those who make and enforce rules are bigger troublemakers than the rank and file.
But let's talk economics. How much money has a weekly radio program put directly in my pocket over the past three decades? Not enough to pay the rent from here to the next paragraph.
I love money. I'll work for it. Scheme for it. Conspire for it. Occasionally whore for it. I cheat the taxman. So do you. A drunk, wiping drool from his whiskers, once sputtered to me in a PATH station: "If you had all the money you paid in taxes back, you could have a really good time." The man looked and smelled like he was in the 90% bracket.
There's tremendous value in what WFMU offers, in the public service it provides. To operate, we must pay bills, which entails generating income -- but the phenomenon we've created is not about money, nor is there a cost-based calculus that determines our programming.
This leads to my guilt-tinged epiphany.