Do professional athletes make too much money, or do they deserve every penny? Why?
I’m glad you asked.
As a capitalist, I believe professional athletes “deserve” whatever the market will bear, so long as they have not broken the law to bolster their earnings. (For instance, I’m not aware of any direct correlation between athletes’ drug abuse and their profits, except perhaps that reports of abuse disillusion fans and reduce profits.)
As a person with a conscience, I believe consumers spend too much as spectators of professional sports. I would personally prefer they spent more on, say, alleviating poverty by funding immediate aid and self-sufficiency education for the poor. But how we spend is a fundamental right we have in a free market. I spend money in ways that trouble my conscience (and I freely admit it’s easy for me to not give money to professional athletes, because I don’t particularly like sports 
). It is up to me, and not “the system,” to move my actions into better alignment with my principles.
A few misguided individuals will say that changing one’s spending according to one’s conscience is “politically correct” and represents unwarranted interference with the free market. Nonsense. It is the free market working precisely as it should. I am a consumer; I vote with my wallet. If I am outvoted, I accept that. Professional athletes will continue making sums of money I personally consider preposterous, but which I also believe they have fairly acquired in the marketplace.
These principles also apply to the tiny minority of mutual funds known as “socially conscious” funds. A few people will object that these funds violate the principles of free choice and free markets, that personal and political values have no place in choosing one’s investments. Such arguments are, of course, bullshit. Again, individuals choosing what to do with their money is the free market working precisely as it should. Whether “socially conscious” funds perform as well as purely profit-driven funds in corresponding categories, and whether any lag outweighs investing per one’s values, is up to the individual to assess.
At least one fund company offers a “vice fund”—investing in “bad” things like cigarettes, gambling, and liquor—apparently in an effort to counteract the insidious influence of “socially conscious” funds and their supposed sanctimonious posturing. Fair enough, if that’s what they believe, but really a “vice fund” is just one more choice in a free (and bulging) fund market. (It’s an interesting idea, too: if times are terrible, will a “vice fund” soar because people turn to escapism and self-destructive behavior? I personally would find such a bet distasteful, but I respect others’ right to try it.) It’s amusing to see such a response to “socially conscious” funds when there are so few of them. The overwhelming majority of funds are already, if you will, “politically incorrect,” investing according to specific financial goals, not whether a particular investment might be seen as good or evil.
Well. That’s quite enough didacticism for one day. Sorry. Runs in the family.
Over the next several months I’ll be posting the 1998 CD Chaos Town by my old band, The Practical Man. (The actual files will live on the band’s web site, but I’ll link to the download page here.) I’ll roll them out in the order they’re in on the CD. Everything will be available at 128 kbps MP3 and AAC.
