I recently spent a weekend on the strip in Las Vegas. The strip, the area where the major casinos are located, feels to me like another planet. Flying over empty desert, Las Vegas springs up suddenly like an oasis, or maybe a mirage, in the midst of nothing. Green golf courses, gigantic buildings with gold windows, a miniature skyline of New York, the Eiffel tower, buildings styled to look like Venice and ancient Rome. A bizarre, surrealistic landscape, with an uncountable number of lights and signs and crazy, sensory overload.
I’m of two minds when it comes to Las Vegas. Part of me admires what humanity can do. Vegas to me is like we’ve taken an orchid (which grow naturally in rain forests) and by directing all our might towards it we’ve planted it and sustained it in the desert. Against all sense, we’ve built a modern day oasis with every luxury available, if one can afford it. In the Vegas strip, you’re in a different world. It’s a fun place to get away to, for a short while at least. In this other world, the worries and responsibilities of daily living fall away and people can focus on enjoying themselves. It’s a hedonistic playground where you are free to eat as much as you want, drink as much as you want, have as much sex as you want or can pay for (if that’s your thing), feel the thrill of losing (mostly) and winning (sometimes) money, all divorced from your “real” life. For me, it’s a fun getaway, once in a while for a day or two.
But I’m also repulsed by the Vegas strip. It strikes me as so completely and outrageously artificial on every level. Flying over housing developments as you come into Vegas you can see empty plots of land and see what the land in Vegas is really like, desert with some scrub brush and a few cacti. And then sitting next to it, houses with green lawns and trees. From our hotel room window I could see semi after semi bringing in “stuff” to the casino. And you realize without bringing in water, power, food, and materials none of this would be here. If those supplies were ever cut off, Vegas would wither and die, like those grass lawns in front of those houses.
And while one of the failures of capitalism in general is that you are only valuable and worthwhile and worth caring about if you have money, this feels like it’s taken to an extreme in Vegas. Have money, you can buy virtually anything. If you’re broke, don’t let the door hit you as you’re being tossed out.
Not coincidentally I was reading “The Value of Nothing” by Raj Patel over the weekend. This slim book offers a scathing critique of modern hands-off capitalism. Patel argues that the basic premise of capitalism is that the market will determine the price and therefore the value of everything. Absent monopolies the market will correctly determine the value of something by its price. If it’s expensive it’s valuable, if it’s cheap it’s less valuable. This premise might work with toasters and Iphones, but do we really think it extends beyond that?
Over and over again life and science converge to tell us that the pursuit of wealth and the accumulation of “stuff” doesn’t create happiness. The true happiness of life: our relationships with others, the meaning we derive from our work and our lives, and the positive impact we have on the world are rendered worthless if we base our concept of value solely on capitalism, because after all what can you sell relationships, meaning and positive impact for? They have no price, therefore they have no value, therefore they are worth nothing.
What if instead of defining the value of something as its ability to satisfy a craving, desire or vanity (often created by the very marketers trying to sell us the widget), we valued something by its desire to create well-being.
Bill Gates asked at a talk recently “Are the brightest minds working on the most important problems? Probably not.” Is the newest widget an important problem? We have a new Iphone and it must be valuable because it’s expensive, and it certainly satisfies a craving, a desire, and vanity. But does it create well-being?
Patel closes his book talking about the emerging Zapatista democracy. In this dirt poor little state in Mexico, where the people are harassed and oppressed by the Mexican government, poor, illiterate villagers are banding together to create a fair and compassionate society. From the villages any adult can be selected to serve on their government council (for one week out of every six, for a term of three years, and after their term they never serve again). Their meals and transportation are provided but otherwise they receive no payment (the job is a civic duty, not a form of personal enrichment). These elected members wear face masks (balaclavas) while sitting in “power” both to protect them from persecution from the Mexican government and also as a sign that their position is not about personal power (not about the individual) but about the community which they serve. By removing personal power and wealth from civic service (cravings, desires, and vanity) the Zapatistas have created a more fair and more compassionate form of government. I think we have a lot to learn from their example.
If any of these ideas seem valuable to you, I recommend reading Raj Patel’s “The Value of Nothing” (unless you love Ayn Rand, Patel has nothing but scorn for Rand and her philosophy). It is a short, stimulating read and well worth your time.
When I think of Vegas I’m of two minds. I’m awed at what we can do, we can literally move mountains if we put our mind to it. And I’m disgusted; this is what we do with that power?
As I walked around Vegas, amidst all the glitz and glamour, it was enjoyable, fun, an escape, but it also looked incredibly hollow and utterly fake. It was fun, and despite being expensive, it had no value.