(fat)Cat and Mouse

The typical Tom and Jerry episode is a string of of tit-for-tat vollies where Tom tries to flush Jerry out of his hole in the wall using any number of tricks. There's usually a moment of trepidation when Jerry's life hangs in the balance. Then, by some act of hubris, Tom ends up burned, beaten, or bruised, and Jerry has his deservedly smug moment of glory. Finally, the credits roll by and Tom and Jerry are followed up by Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, Sylvester and Tweety, or Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. Each episode leaves the viewer with the assurance that no one was really hurt, but that what they just saw was just one battle in an endless war.

Some of earliest memories for millions of us are of these cat-and-mouse allegories, absorbed on the TV screen with bug-eyed abandon, and washed down with a bowl of Corn Flakes. I am positive that the hours I spent enrapt with these cartoon shorts are at least an order of magnitude greater than the time I devoted to long division or cursive writing. But it's only now that I am beginning to appreciate the lessons they taught. 

What are those lessons?

1. The small guy is nimble and unpredictable.
2. The big guy takes his strength for granted and makes amateurish mistakes.
3. The small guy can be both irritating and a sympathetic character.
4. You can feel bad for the big guy even if you don't want the small guy to lose.
5. Sometimes, often when there's a mutual enemy, they can be friends.
6. Both sides usually have a point, often an existential one.
7. The fight is because they are cats and mice. 
8. The fight is never-ending.

All of the talk of Class Warfare keeps bringing me back to the lessons I learned in front of the TV on Saturday mornings (and Sundays, and most days after school). The Class Warfare declaration is as silly as telling Tom and Jerry not to try to kill each other. As long as there are cats and mice, there will be conflict, sometimes even life-and-death ones.

The essential truth is that cats eat mice, while mice just want some cheese. The core nature of the big guys and the little guys dictates that there will be conflict so long as the two inhabit the same space. It's not a perfect metaphor. Mice would do fine without the cats around, whereas labor would have nowhere to work without capital. But the idea that there are separate, often opposing interests arising out of their positions in the pecking order, seems iron-clad to me. What's good for capital isn't always good for labor, and vice-versa.

The power balance and the necessary trade-offs between capital and labor are always shifting, but the battle continues. Maybe all that TV ruined my imagination, but I can't picture a future where there are no more cats and mice, where all of our interests are harmonized under one ethic or another. There may be an ebb and flow to the tensions, but the game of cat-and-mouse will always be with us.

The good news is we are real people, not cartoon animals. We can see beyond our naked self-interest. We don't need to kill if we're reasonable. Somehow, despite our conflicting needs, we have made enormous progress in labor, wealth, rights, and markets. Life does get better. But it is only through our own version of cat-and-mouse that it does. Game on.