Eavesdropping on an Airplane

author : Marco Rosaire Rossi topic : Civil Liberties

by Marco Rosaire Rossi

It is impossible to hide anything on an airplane. The small cramped seats, and their cubicle-like formation gives the illusion of privacy – but in actuality everything that is said is heard. Eavesdropping on airplanes is not intentional, it’s inevitable. And perhaps because I was eavesdropping on the rich – who perhaps feel more at liberty to speak their minds than the rest of us – it was all the easier.

The plane was headed to Costa Rica. I was going to study. A small band of wealthy men a few seats down and across the aisle from me, were going for vacation. I soon discovered, from the literature on the airplane and at customs, how much Americans love to vacation in Costa Rica. The country’s economic foundation is built around tourism. Televisions broadcast American programs, stores carry American products. Some writing is in English, and the people, though they may not speak English, understand it very well.

My ears caught bits and pieces of the men’s conversation. As the plane landed, one of the voices became particularly boisterous. “All those people on welfare in Minnesota—I can’t believe it,” he said. “Why do we keep throwing money at these people—I mean we are just aiding helplessness. I don’t mind paying taxes, but not to a program that has completely failed in every way.” He then went on to say how he celebrated when the progressive Senator Paul Wellstone died, and how he’d proudly refused to shake his hand when he was given the opportunity.

My mind started racing to all the arguments in support of welfare programs: how sending money to people on the bottom gives them spending power and generates economic growth; how poverty is cyclical, and how intervention is necessary to break the cycle; how the job market has been squeezed shut in the United States leaving many people no alternative but government support; how studies comparing northern European countries – which spend more per capita on welfare programs than the United States – and the US show no correlation between welfare and laziness. If anything northern European countries are more economically productive, even though they work less. Finally, societies should be judged on how they treat their most unfortunate members. But of course, I never had a chance to have that conversation. The inundation of people, all bustling to get their bags and get through customs, never provided the opportunity. The man and I went our own separate ways.

Walking through the airplane hallways, I couldn’t stop myself from replaying his comments in my head, focusing on the irony of it all. The man loves what Costa Rica can provide for him, but the main reason Costa Rica is able to provide so much is because the people have some democratic control of the economy. The government of Costa Rica owns key industries, including telecommunications, energy, insurance, and banking. In addition, the government has spent massive amounts of public funds on “welfare programs,” like literacy and education, making it one of the most educated countries in Latin America. It’s also the most stable country in the region with sixty years of uninterrupted elections, all the while having no military. If Costa Rica were to adopt the American economic model – with its small land mass and few resources, it would economically drown. Its poverty would be on par with the rest of Latin America, and it wouldn’t be the hub to which American tourists flock.

The man’s comments provide some insight into the psychology of American imperialism and what can be done about it. The goal of American imperialism isn’t so much to rule the world as it is to control it. Imperialists think other nations should strive to be like the US, to follow our lead and do as we say, but not to the degree that they would lose their exotic and foreign appeal. Differences which separate other prosperous nations from the United States are never economical or political – they are cultural, and furthermore, culturally trivial. For many such Americans, the fact that Costa Rica publicly owns important industries is not an economic model – it’s a fluke. It’s not an intentional policy of ending poverty, but a part of the Latin American persona – which makes vacationing there so “wild” and “adventurous.” All is well and good as long as this “wildness” doesn’t get too out of hand. Underlying this perspective is a supreme arrogance. The mystique of America is that it is better than the rest of the world. They believe that when other counties don’t follow our lead, it is not because we are on the wrong path, but because those other countries strive to be exotic and unique for those American tourist dollars.

The remedy for such gall is of course a little humility. Instead of always asking what the United States can bring to other parts of the world, it should be asking what it can learn from other parts of the world. But of course, asking that question would lead to other questions, like: if social welfare and publicly owned companies work so well for other countries, why not here? Why have we always heard the opposite? What are our public officials doing with our funds? Why is poverty such a problem in the richest country in the world? In answering these questions we may find some unexpected answers: the possibility that rampant American capitalism has failed more deeply and severely than the much-maligned American welfare system.

Former Olympia resident Marco Rosaire Rossi is moving to Costa Rica where he will take international law courses.