On Human Nature: What's natural isn't always natural
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and now Alex Rodriguez apparently used performance enhancing drugs, baseball players widely viewed as the best, most dominant professional athletes in their sport—before they allegedly used illegal substances.
The question is why would someone who already dominates feel the need to cheat?
Today's New York Times reports on the Rodriguez' story. With spring training approaching in a few short weeks, this story will continue to dominate the sports news until college basketball's "March Madness." But the story is bigger than sports, it reflects something in all of us that speaks to our humanity.
Waiting in the Wings:
As tax season approaches, the problem of the Alternative Minimum Tax hovers like a dark cloud over millions of American taxpayers. Just when the government is struggling to figure out how to put money into the hands of consumers, the A. M. T. is set to extract it. Some of this problem, perhaps all of it, could be fixed if all income were treated as, which is to say taxed as, income. Currently loopholes allow the rich to avoid paying income tax at the same rate as workers by declaring much of their income under other guises, such as capital gains.
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and now Alex Rodriguez apparently used performance enhancing drugs, baseball players widely viewed as the best, most dominant professional athletes in their sport—before they allegedly used illegal substances.
The question is why would someone who already dominates feel the need to cheat?
Today's New York Times reports on the Rodriguez' story. With spring training approaching in a few short weeks, this story will continue to dominate the sports news until college basketball's "March Madness." But the story is bigger than sports, it reflects something in all of us that speaks to our humanity.
Waiting in the Wings:
As tax season approaches, the problem of the Alternative Minimum Tax hovers like a dark cloud over millions of American taxpayers. Just when the government is struggling to figure out how to put money into the hands of consumers, the A. M. T. is set to extract it. Some of this problem, perhaps all of it, could be fixed if all income were treated as, which is to say taxed as, income. Currently loopholes allow the rich to avoid paying income tax at the same rate as workers by declaring much of their income under other guises, such as capital gains.
Labels: Ethics, The Economy
posted by Jim | 10:12 AM
1 Comments:
"The question is why would someone who already dominates feel the need to cheat?"
Good question.
Let's say you're a young outfielder from, say, Venezuela. You're in your second year at AAA and your first year was pretty disappointing. You made a lot of contact and took your walks, but you're viewed as a Right Fielder and the organization thinks you just don't have enough bat speed to be an asset as a corner outfielder.
Meanwhile, you've got family back home. Since you're not on the 40-man roster, you're earning in tens of thousands of dollars. Budgeting carefully, you can send some money home, but having that spread between your parents, grandparents, your siblings, and some of your cousins, well, it just doesn't go far enough. If you make it to the majors you automatically start earning over $370,000 a year, more than 10 times what you earn now. This would mean you can support all of those members, maybe even move some of them to the U.S. If you perform well, by the time you hit free agency you could be earning millions or even tens of millions of dollars a year, enough to financially support a whole town or two.
So if steroids help you develop enough power to convince management that you can hit at the major league level, a lot of your loved ones stand to benefit. Plus, you'll be loved at home. Maybe you know or don't know that there are health risks. Heck, you may or may not know what you are taking--maybe your agent has hooked everything up for you and somebody just brings you the stuff. But regardless, you are probably willing to risk getting caught and maybe even risk a shortened life in order to make the sort of money that is on the table.
Now, let's say you're Roger Clemens. You've already got a career ERA under 3.20. You've won over 250 games already. You've just won your 5th Cy Young award. You are one of the highest paid pitchers in the majors--you're earning tens of millions a year. You own multiple homes. You're wife bought the most expensive breast implants she could find.
So why have you decided to take steroids? Are you giving the money away to people who really need it--do you have a Robin Hood mentality: any means by which to take money from those skeezy club owners and give it to the poor? Or maybe you want to go beyond dominating your peers. Maybe you want to pitch well into your 40s and by combining performance with longevity you hope to be remembered as the best ever.
Maybe you're Barry Bonds and you are already a great hitter--but you've never hit 50 homeruns. Maybe you know that chicks dig the longball and people will forget you sooner or later unless you do something like break the single season homerun record, or the career homerun record. Maybe you just can't stand that people are talking about McGwire so much, that surly jerk.
I have a hard time understanding these latter perspectives. Am I missing something?
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