Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

"But that backfired once and I wound up as High Justice of a planetary Supreme Court-just in time to save my bacon. And neck.

"Let me see. Farmer, and lawyer, and judge, and I told you I had practiced medicine. Skipper of many sorts of craft, mostly for exploration but sometimes for cargo or migrant transport-and once an armed privateer with a crew of rogues you wouldn't take home to mother. Schoolteacher-lost that job when they caught me teaching the kids the raw truth, a capital offense anywhere in the Galaxy. In the slave trade once but from underneath-I was a slave."

I blinked at that. "I can't imagine it."

"Unfortunately I didn't have to imagine it. Priest-"

I had to interrupt again. "Priest'? Lazarus, you said, or implied, that you had no religious faith of any sort."

"Did I? But 'faith' is for the congregation, Ira; it handicaps a priest. Professor in a parlor house-"

"Excuse me again. Idiomatic usage?"

"Eh? Manager of a bordello...although I did play the pianette a little, and sang. Don't laugh; I had a pretty good singing voice then. This was on Mars-you've heard of Mars?"

"Next planet out from Old Home Terra. Sol Four."

"Yes. Not a planet we'd bother with today. But this was before Andy Libby changed things. It was even before China destroyed Europe but after America dropped out of the spacing business, which left me stranded. I left Earth after that meeting of 2012 and didn't go back for a spell-which saved me much unpleasantness, I shouldn't complain. If that meeting had gone the other way- No, I'm wrong; when a fruit is ripe, it will fall, and the United States was rotten ripe. Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun- and neither can stop the march of events.

"But we were speaking of Mars and the job I had there. A fill-in job for coffee and cakes-but pleasant, I was also the bouncer. The girls were all nice girls, and it was a pleasure to throw out some slob who was misbehaving toward them. Throw him so hard he bounced. Then blacklist him so he couldn't come back. One or two like that every evening and the word got around that 'Happy' Daze demanded gentlemanly behavior toward the ladies, no matter how big a spender a man was.

Whoring is like military service, Ira-okay in the upper brackets, not so good lower down. These girls were constantly getting offers to buy up their contracts and get married- and all of them did get married, I think, but they were making money so fast that they weren't anxious to grab the first offer. Mainly because, when I took over, I put a stop to the fixed price the governor of the colony had set, and reinstated the Law of Supply and Demand. There was no reason why those kids shouldn't charge every ruble the traffic would bear.

"Had trouble over that until the Governor's Provost for Rest and Culture got it through his thick head that slave wages won't work in a scarcity situation. Mars was unpleasant enough without trying to cheat those few who made it tolerable. Or even delightful when they were happy in their work. Whores perform the same function as priests, Ira, but far more thoroughly.

"Let me see- I've been wealthy many times and always lost it, usually through governments inflating the money, or confiscating-'nationalizing' or 'liberating'-something I owned. 'Put not your faith in princes,' Ira; since they don't produce, they always steal. I've been broke even oftener than I've been wealthy. Of the two, being broke is more interesting, as a man who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from is never bored. He may be angry or several other things-but not bored. His predicament sharpens his thoughts, spurs him into action, adds zest to his life, whether he knows it or not. Can trap him, of course; that's why food is the usual bait for traps. But that's the intriguing part about being broke: how to solve it without being trapped. A hungry man tends to lose his judgment-a man who has missed seven meals is often ready to kill-rarely a solution.

"Advertising copywriter, actor-but I was very broke that time-acolyte, construction engineer and several other sorts, and even more sorts of mechanic, for I've always believed that an intelligent man can turn his hand to anything if he will take time to learn how it works. Not that I insisted on skilled work when my next meal was at stake; I've often pushed an idiot stick-"

"Idiom?"

"An old gandy-dancer expression, Son, a stick with a shovel blade on one end and an idiot on the other. I was never that for more than a few days, just long enough to sort out the local setup. Political manager-I was even a reform politician once...but only once: Reform politicians not only tend to be dishonest but stupidly dishonest-whereas the business politician is honest."

"I don't see that Lazarus. History seems to show-".

"Use your head, Ira. I don't mean that a business politician won't steal; stealing is his business. But all politicians are nonproductive. The only commodity any politician has to offer is jawbone. His personal integrity-meaning, if he gives his word, can you rely on it? A successful business politician knows this and guards his reputation for sticking by his commitments-because he wants to stay in business-go on stealing, that is-not only this week but next year and years after that. So if he's smart enough to be successful at this very exacting trade, he can have the morals of a snapping turtle, but he performs in such a way as not to jeopardize the only thing he has to sell, his reputation for keeping promises.

"But a reform politician has no such lodestone. His devotion is to the welfare of all the people-an abstraction of very high order and therefore capable of endless definitions. If indeed it can be defined in meaningful terms. In consequence your utterly sincere and incorruptible reform politician is capable of breaking his word three times before breakfast- not from personal dishonesty, as he sincerely regrets the necessity and will tell you so-but from unswerving devotion to his ideal.

"All it takes to get him to break his word is for someone to get his ear and convince him that it is necessary for the greater good of all the peepul. He'll geek.

"After he gets hardened to this, he's capable of cheating at solitaire. Fortunately he rarely stays in office long-except during the decay and fall of a culture."

I said, "I must take your word for it, Lazarus. Since I have spent most of my life on Secundus, I know little of politics other than theoretically. You set it up that way."

The Senior fixed me with a stare of cold scorn. "I did no such thing."

"But-"

"Oh, hush. You are a politician yourself-a 'business' politician, I hope-but that stunt of transporting your dissidents gives me doubts. Minerva! 'Notebook,' dear. My intention in deeding Secundus to the Foundation was to set up a cheap and simple government-a constitutional tyranny. One in which the government was forbidden to do most things and the dear people, bless their black flabby little hearts, were given no voice at all.

"I didn't have much hope for it. Man is a political animal, Ira. You can, no more keep him from politicking than you can keep him from copulating-and probably shouldn't try. But I was young then, and hopeful. I hoped to keep politicking in the private sphere, keep it out of government. I thought the setup might last a century or so; I'm amazed that it has lasted as long as it has. Not good. This planet is overripe for revolution-and if Minerva doesn't find me something better to do, I might show up under another name, with my hair dyed and my nose bobbed, and start one. So be warned, Ira."

I shrugged. "You forget I'm migrating."

"Ah, yes. Though the prospect, of suppressing a, revolution might change your mind. Or perhaps you would like to be my chief of staff-then displace me with a coup d'etat after the shooting is over and send me to the guillotine. That would be something new-I've never tended to lose my head over politics. Doesn't leave much for an encore, does it? 'A tisket, a tasket, a head in a basket-it cannot reply to questions you ask it.' Final curtain, no bows.