Congratulation Speech: Southern Oregon University Honors College Graduates

This is a copy of a speech I will give to the graduates and their parents of the SOU Honors College in about an hour.

It is a departure from the normal format of this blog, but only partly so.   In my talk I address the same issues which have dominated politics in America for the past two years.

The forces of globalism, world trade, automation, and the movements of people have caused dislocations and resentments in the developed world, roiling the politics of the US and Europe.  Progressive voters need to address the problems those forces create.  But I think that those forces need to be mitigated, not rejected.  Progressives need to work with them, not fight them.  Only the Amish are in a position to reject those forces and it is too late to go back.

My Speech:

Greetings Students and Guests,

If at any point what I say is different from what Ken Mulliken has told you, go with Dr. Mulliken, not me.  He finished his PhD in history and I dropped out of mine.  I came out of college wanting to have a life of significance.  First I thought I would do it by writing and teaching history.  Then I thought I would do it by being in political office.

From the Honors College Facebook Page

I discovered the world didn’t want to be changed all that much, and certainly not by me.   Oh.   I thought people would like me if I held political office.  I wasn’t paying attention.

I didn’t think having a 30 year career in business had much to do with making the world a better place, but I changed my mind.  That’s what I am going to talk about today.

First of all—congratulations.   You should be proud and grateful.  Thank your parents for the great DNA.

Now this is risky business but I will ask, are there step parents here?   Step parenting is a tough, thankless job.  Some of you will learn that.  Thank them, too.

I want literature majors to know there is money in being a literature major.  We know about Hansel and Gretel and the evil stepparent.  Prince Hamlet’s uncle became a step dad and Hamlet thought he was a murderer. Are there any good-guy characters in myth or literature who are step-parents? 

Raise your hand and shout it out if you can think of one.  There is $20 in it for each of you.  Just interrupt me at any time.   This way you folks have something productive to do while I talk.

Oh, speaking of money.  Is the student here who advised me on Facebook to be brief in this speech?  Justine.  Come forward.  She gave me advice on the Facebook page, the only one who did.   She said to be funny and brief.  I like initiative and I think it should be paid for.  Here’s $20.

I still think of $20 as a lot of money.  When I was your age, doing work study cleaning bathrooms and checking out books, I made $2 and hour.  This is ten hours work cleaning toilets.  So here is a businessman’s lesson.  Money can lose value.

What I am doing here is trying to shake up a college mentality, which I certainly had back in the day.  I want you to think that maybe a job in business or commerce is actually worthwhile, serving the good work of the world.  

That’s what happened to me.  I worked for Wall Street firms, the least popular subset of global companies.   I realized I was in a helping profession.  Sort of like Dr. Mulliken.

Justine, have you thought of what you are going to buy with $20?  

This Year's Graduates, from their Facebook page

Actually, I have another lesson for you.  A lot of you are going to get rich.  It is going to happen.  You may not even set out to get rich but in America the kind of people you are—high achievers--often get rich.  I want you to imagine it. 

Accept it and integrate it.  Don’t fight it. The world will insist you pay taxes.   That’s right, 39.6% federal, 2.9% Medicare,  9.9% state.  Oh, and 6.2% for FICA, which is social security.  Then some deductions.    Call it 50%.    Justine, that $20 was never yours, now that you are thinking like a rich person.  Only half of it.  Please bring one of those $10s to Dr. Mulliken.   Pretend he is the government.

Don’t think Ken Mulliken is getting rich, either.   He will have lots of claims on that money..  Most of it goes for defense, protecting you from thieves and raiders.  That’s the mascot of the school, right.  We’re surrounded by raiders but you are safe here.  Good job, Dr. Mulliken.

Some of you may think that was sort of unfair or cruel.  Rewarding her then taking away half of it in taxes.   There may be some Ayn Rand folks here in the room who imagine that if there were little or no government we would have a glorious paradise of industrious free enterprise prosperity, everybody hard working, industrious, orderly, rule of law, private property respected, and Justine would keep it all.   

Actually there are plenty of real life examples of what happens when governments collapse.  Remember, Raiders.  Well Somalia has warlords, roving gangs, pirates and kidnappings for ransom.  The default without government is gangs with guns.   When governments collapse you don’t get freedom and wealth, you get refugees. 

Paying Dr. Mulliken is the price of civic order.  Its worth it. 

Anyone thought of a good stepparent in literature yet?   Keep thinking.   Make some money. 

OK, I watched the awarding of the stole ceremony and I was thrilled.  You’re getting ready to go off and do good things, Teach for America, change the world.  I remember the college viewpoint really well.   You want your lives to be significant. 

You look at a guy like me, lots of you anyway, and think, maybe 30 years in business, fat windbag, another wasted life.  At least Professor Mulliken made a difference in the world.   

Commerce is actually a pretty darned good way to interact with the world.

For many of you commerce will seem selfish.  You are a really conscientious person.  You want to do good, not just make money.  You like Bernie, maybe.  You hate the grinding oppression of globalism.  You hate fracking.  You are concerned about Climate Change.  You want to empower workers.    You want artistic expression.  You want a better world!

So do I!

But let’s do a thought experiment.   What is the most banal, meaningless, commercial transaction you can think of?   You need gasoline and you buy it at a service station.   $20 worth of regular, please.  Oops, taxes.  $10 please.   The attendant puts 3 gallons of gas in the tank, you hand him $10.

Meaningless, right?  Not to me.  I liked it.  Feed the hungry, service the transportation needs of the sojourner..

It is not exactly the college way of thinking, where salaried public employees serve to instruct brilliant young minds, but think about it.   Many of you want to serve the community, achieve world peace, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked.  How does feeding the hungry get done? It looks like a farmer planting wheat hoping to sell it to a baker who makes bread who sells it to Safeway who sells it to you.  

Exxon drills and refines petroleum to make money but that very effort fulfills a human need.  You need fuel and are darned happy to see that open gas station when you are nearly out of gas.

Exxon has 70,000 employees, specialized people in specialized roles all around the world to put that woman standing in front of a pump at the exact moment you drive up. You have $10 and they have gasoline.  Good matchup. 

This isn’t banal. It is exhilarating.

But what about artistic free expression?  It is a good thing, and I like it in lots of places, but not everywhere.

Let's start with the premise you want to be good and conscientious. You drive a Prius, you know, light footsteps on the planet. But it was built by a multinational corporation with superb quality control, i.e. reliable consistent procedures, every car the same, perfect.   The value of a Prius to the planet comes from its precision engineering and tight control of every detail of production.  Not artistic expression and independence but uniformity and order. There is virtue in that, too.  The car starts every time, and it sips gasoline.

I am urging you to have two ideas in your mind at the same time.  One are the values that can flourish in a campus environment—a life of meaning and significance--and the other is the idea that businesses, including global corporations that are striving for profit, are also, simultaneously, methods for making the world a better place.  Open your minds.

I helped people manage their retirement savings for Morgan Stanley.  Clients paid me.  Win win, a better world

If you actually think you hate global commerce stop using it.  Throw away your cell phone and don’t ride in cars.  From my point of view, getting people the gasoline they need is just as meaningful as a social worker at a charity day care center reading a story to a 4 year old or a doctor or nurse adjusting the IV of a patient or Professor Mulliken arranging a field trip.

There is honor in every vocation.

Yeah, some of you are thinking, but it is all about money, not compassion and empathy.  You want to help directly.   And my point is that even the least lovely examples, the woman at the gas pump and the guy with the drain tool are serving human needs.

You folks are high achievers.  You probably believe in the Protestant Ethic.  Who here can tell me what it is? Surely there is value in a history degree, at least $20 pre-tax right now. [Worldly success comes from diligent prudent work and that success is a sign of God’s favor.]  $20 for anyone who offers it.

I said you would succeed because of your talent and industry, and it will probably work out for you.  But there is a lot of luck, including that great DNA..  Justine earned hers.  If anyone has a good stepparent example they would have earned another.

At random, is there a Mariah here?   I glanced at a Facebook posting and saw a bunch of names and just picked one.  You win.  Here is $20.   You get this for nothing.  You just inherited it.  You get to keep it all.   No tax.

Sound unjust?

Yup.  That’s how it works in America.  You might as well learn this now in case

Dr. Mulliken left that out describing how your diligence would lead to success.

There are two lessons here.    

1.  Rich people with big estates have political power.    Most inheritances are untaxed.

2.  Don’t assume a direct link between money and worth.  In fact there is a loose connection.  There is a lot of luck involved.

Some of you are thinking that you meet a better sort of person in nonprofit, artistic, government, and education work.  Not Wall Street windbags.     My observation: There are jerks everywhere and nice people everywhere, including in business. 

My time playing the role of Polonius from Hamlet is nearly up.  “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”  Yeah, right.  Try to buy a house for cash in your thirties without a mortgage.

 Yes, you are tomorrow’s leaders.   Organizations want high achievers. They will be looking you over.

So I will give you a couple of tips on how to get ahead.   Some of them you know:   Get a reputation for being reliable and responsible.   If you say you will show up, show up.  Do what you say you will do.

Here is another one:  be nice to the people at the office, even the people you think don’t count.  They all count. Don’t get a reputation for wandering the halls wasting other people’s time with chitchat but greet people in the morning and respect the people doing the janitorial and clerical work. 

A lot of you will step into your first or second job ahead of non-college people who have been at the organization a long time.   They might resent you a little, but they realize that you might be running the organization in a few years.  They want to weed out the jerks.  Don’t be one.  While your mind is on other things, they are evaluating their next boss.  

When the time comes for promotions, managers will talk to the clerical staff, whether they know it or not.   An eye roll or a frown from their secretary—or the people who talk with their secretary—means more than anything you present to the boss.  Get their respect.  Give them respect.  The clerical staff talk with each ogther and they know everything.

Here is a last one, Dr. Mulliken may be too shy to say:  be nice to SOU.  For a few years most of you will be just starting careers and won’t have a lot of money.   Send them a token contribution every year so you stay on their mailing lists.  Your situation will likely improve because that is what happens to people like yourselves.   Some of you will meander into careers that do very well indeed.

Be generous back to SOU.  Its good karma.  It puts you in a spirit of gratitude, which is a better mindset than entitlement.  Don't do it because you owe them.  Do it because you owe yourselves the joy that comes from knowing you are passing along a great gift.  SOU created an environment that nurtured your education with a sense of community, and that takes money, especially money from generous, successful alumni.  That is you.  Accept the role.  You are part of something big.

Be proud. Be grateful.