The way I see it, the problem is no longer that people want to eat their cake and keep it, too. The problem is now that people want their cake at the lowest possible cost while they simultaneously bitch about the fact they had to buy the cake at a large chain store.
I base this statement, in part, on a letter to the editor in last week's Reno News & Review, the so-called alternative weekly around these parts. Basically, it comes down to this: The News & Review has been hosting what is called the monthly Western Lit Book Club over the past several months. The club, in which people sit down and discuss a new book, has been held at a variety of places in its first months.
Well, enter Borders, the new bookstore/music store/coffee shop that just opened near Kietzke and Virginia streets (where basically every business in the entire planet has seemly opened within the past three years). It turns out Borders has agreed to host the News & Review's monthly book club.
While this seems like a logical fit to me, it apparently is not a logical fit to everybody. In last week's News & Review, a letter was printed from someone who apparently thought the pairing of the News & Review and Borders was the most heinous union since the marriage between Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts.
After whining that the News & Review was abandoning smaller "businesses" (one which was the University bookstore -- huh?) and selling out its ethics, the writer complained: "This decision-making style is very corporate and seems contrary to the heart and soul of an alternative newspaper like the RN&R."
I have a few comments about this:
--First, what exactly is the News & Review? To the letter writer, I must say: You see all those little things in the News & Review (as well as every other newspaper on the planet) with the pictures that are not articles? Well, those are ADVERTISEMENTS which people PAY to put in the newspaper in the hopes that IDIOTS like you will read them, making it so newspaper OWNERS can wear nice clothing and drive SPIFFY CARS and such.
--Second, how is placing a book club in a place where more people will find out about it and attend it causing any harm? Isn't it better for more people to attend such an intellectual event, even if, God forbid, it has to be held in a business that happens to be "corporate?"
--Third, exactly what defines the ethics of a newspaper, anyway? After all, is a newspaper ethical if it rejects Borders but accepts advertisements from swingers' clubs and an ad which screams, and I quote, "WORK IN ADULT FILMS"?
Anyway, my point is this: Why do people who live in America, the great home of capitalism, complain so much about people and businesses who do well in the game of capitalism?
I admit that I am not necessarily wild about capitalism as a system, because hard work and morals are not always rewarded as they should be. But I do realize that no other system in the world has ever worked as well -- and that all those who do succeed in capitalism are not evil.
Take Borders and Barnes and Noble, for example. They have been reamed in some places for opening and putting smaller bookstores out of business; even a recent blockbuster movie, "You've Got Mail," used this as a major plot device. (I found it ironic that this film, which criticized big-business as such, was in many ways a two-hour advertisement for Internet giant America Online. But that is a different column.)
But what evils have these stores committed? Absolutely none that I can see. In a capitalist society, a weaker, smaller business closing down is a way of life.
And lets look at the good that these big bookstore chains have done. They bring good books and literature at decent prices to people. In my book -- no pun intended -- anything that brings literacy and books to people is a good thing.
I recently visited Borders on a Saturday night. A performer was singing in the corner as people enjoyed themselves. Meanwhile, children and parents sat intently in the children's section looking over books, while others mulled around thumbing through magazines and listening to the newest compact discs.
As I walked around Borders that night, I could not help but think: If this an example of the evils of corporatism and big business, then my values system must be terribly messed up.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who fears he may have to get a third job to pay his credit card bills from the new bookstores. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays; he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@alumni.stanford.org.