Alice in the
Freeland
“Curiouser and curiouser”
cried Alice about the ‘queer’ things
happening to her and around her in the Wonderland.
If Alice was transplanted from England of the Victorian
era to modern-day America what would her observant
eyes notice as odd and curious: innumerable things,
no doubt, considering the fertile imagination of
her creator, Lewis Carroll.
Even without the Carrollian imagery, she would have
instantly noticed and uttered: “My, my, what
a nice country! And, how considerate the people!
No matter which way you turn, you see something
offered FREE.
This must be the Freeland!” She couldn’t
miss noticing hypes such as: Buy one pair of shoes
and take the second pair free. Buy one dinner and
the second dinner is free - no wonder there is widespread
obesity. One perfume bottle worth $30 is yours free
with each purchase of cosmetics of $20 only. If
you can find a mattress at a price lower than ours,
we will give you ours freefreefreefree. Free eye
exam with free frames up to $99. One cent frame
sale of the century: 1c canvas: 1c art print.
Internet connection. Free PC. Free e-mail. So on,
and so forth. America is the leader of the free
world. Its constitution guarantees emphatically
the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. When this country won its independence
from the British, it threw out the old society’s
caste system and granted full equality and freedom
to the downtrodden to labor and live well. Therein
lies its real source of strength, its secret to
success. How about the practice of slavery long
after independence? It was an aberration and don’t
mention it to Alice. Why disturb her reverie? Unfortunately,
her reverie was broken abruptly on 9/11 when the
terrorist attack was interpreted by President Bush
as an attack on the American concept of freedom.
While the freedom of choice and action assured to
the individual has been largely instrumental in
bringing the country to the apex of the comity of
nations, the industrious producers of goods and
services and their distributors have worked overtime
to take advantage of the very word ‘free’.
Some examples of their hypes have already been quoted
above.
A highway is called here a freeway not because it
is free of crossings and red lights but because
it is free from toll tax. The highway between Islamabad
and Lahore, whose cost/benefit ratio makes a mockery
of all economic and financial theories, is called
a motorway. It is a toll way but, according to one
estimate, it would take 450 years to pay back the
cost
through the toll collected; kickback was however
instant.
The 1-800 phone numbers are called toll-free numbers.
The tone you hear while dialing one of these numbers
sounds like a spider’s seductive song to the
fly. In crowded cities like Los Angeles or New York,
a signboard that reads “Free Parking Space”
is more attractive than the “Free Gift”
sign by another store in the vicinity. However,
when you drive into the underground free parking
space, you discover that a parking space is a place
where a car is already parked.
At some posh hotels the sign “Free Valet Parking”
greets you. This is a facility where you hand over
your car key to a uniformed young man to have little
dents put in the fenders.
Freeway Rush Hour: This is an oxymoron for a period
when the traffic stands still and there is no rush
whatsoever.
Free Gyms: In the first 90 days of the fee-free
period you get almost addicted to the mystique of
their facilities. Afterwards it costs you so much
that you have to starve yourself to keep up the
payments.
Either way you lose weight.
Freedom of Expression: That is the privilege to
be able to go to your boss with your opinion and
leave with his.
Free Port: A neutral, stockade area where a shipper
can put down his load, catch his breath and decide
what to do next; also known as a smugglers’
haven.
Free Thinker: A person who thinks he has an open
mind when it is merely vacant. Duty Free Shop: Where
prices are usually higher than in the city.
Free association: A method of psychological treatment
developed by Sigmund Freud in late nineteenth century
but commonly practiced now by psychiatrists in the
US.
The patient is asked to “free associate”
that is he should say whatever comes into his thoughts
without regard to whether the ideas seemed to be
silly or logical, vulgar or proper. James Joyce
followed this system in literature by expressing
his thoughts without regard to the rules of punctuation,
normal sentence structure or logic. In poetry, it
is called free verse.
Free Enterprise: This is the basic moving force
behind the current system of freedom in various
walks of individual and national life in the West,
particularly in the United States. It may be traced
to Adam Smith who wrote in the late 18th century
that the simple system of natural liberty should
be the foundation on which all economic behavior
should stand. He contended
that each individual, in acting independently and
rationally to serve his own self-interest, is guided
by an “invisible hand” towards maximizing
the
satisfaction of the entire society. The concept
served well in the 19th century, in the form of
free trade.
It provided colonial markets to the emerging industrial
states of Europe. It also promoted grueling capitalism
that in its turn spawned communism.
The advent of big businesses and corporations in
the current century has eliminated small businesses
and competition. No neighborhood grocery store can
compete successfully with a supermarket, with the
exception of
the ‘halal’ meat or kosher shops that
enjoy the business of an exclusive group of customers
despite the questionable quality of their products.
At the
international level, this is known as free market
economy or globalism, that is the provision of facilities
to the big fish to swallow freely the small fish.
Big businesses being well regulated to ensure the
well being of the individual, which is regarded
as paramount in all legislatures, the essence of
the free enterprise system continues to permeate
all economic activities. It provides the greatest
feasible freedom of choice to the individual and
is therefore most efficient in maximizing what Adam
Smith called “individual satisfaction”.
Alice might not have even heard of Adam Smith. So,
we shall revert to the antics of advertising in
this country which had attracted her attention in
the very first instance.
“It is the economy, stupid” Clinton
is reported to have said while launching his Presidential
campaign. The word “economy” thus became
the buzzword in advertising joints. No wonder a
small size car came to be called an “economy-size”
vehicle. A large cereal box is also called “economy
size”.
Whoever said “honesty is the best policy”
obviously never had to write an advertisement. Those
who do write consider the customer to be a wallet
with a person attached to it.
Whoever said “The customer is always right”,
was probably a customer himself. The ad writer fully
realizes that the customer may not be always right
but he is always the one with the wallet. Like they
say, a fool and his money soon part. The ad writer
has to make a fool of the customer before making
him part with it.
This being the state of affairs, Alice would soon
start carrying with her in the Freeland a grain
of salt to put on any ad that says, “It is
yours for free”.
