April 23 , 2010

 

Alice in the Free land

 

“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 frames up to $99. One cent frame sale of the century: 1c canvas: 1c art print. Free 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 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 actually 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.

Free way 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.

Free dom 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” is already 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 simply 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”.

arifhussaini@hotmail.com