What Money Can’t Buy

Are we rich? Kids often ask the question, and answering it can be a complicated business, especially on Martha’s Vineyard. Of course we are, considering the living conditions of kids in much of the world, and even many Americans. Most of us have plenty to eat, warmth in all seasons, and the benefits of quality education and a beautiful environment.

Still, the answer that seems true enough when driving through urban slums or a rundown town off the interstate meets with skepticism when you deliver it while driving past an Island house with square footage measured in five figures, where the people doing the outdoor chores, your child is quick to point out, are clearly not the owner’s children. We don’t have a yacht, either, the kid adds as you round the harbor, as if such possessions were nothing extraordinary. It’s all in the comparisons.

Children have an instinct about the injustice of massive inequality. “By the age of six or seven, children are zealously devoted to the equitable partitioning of goods, and they will choose to punish those who try to grab more than their arithmetically proper share of Smarties and jelly beans even when that means the punishers must sacrifice their own portion of treats,” according to a study in the journal Nature, cited this week in The New York Times.

The article was about how a belief in fairness has been important to human evolution, increasing our chances of survival. It was prompted by new figures showing that the average annual salary of America’s top executives is about ten million dollars and rising some twelve per cent a year while many in the country struggle with “miserably high unemployment, stagnant wages and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

This inequality manifests itself in bas relief on Martha’s Vineyard. Here average wages are way below the state average, and even though many people work multiple jobs to make up the difference, household income is still thirteen per cent below the state average. Meanwhile, Island jobs are ever more dependent on a seasonal influx of people whose incomes vastly exceed any average. The ability of some to pay so much raises the cost of land, housing and necessities here, costs already high because, after all, we live on an Island. One in twenty people here year-round needed food from the Island Food Pantry this winter.

The consequences of this situation are corrosive, and not just for those with less money. “There is quite a lot of evidence that even those who do well in unequal societies would be happier if the gap separating them from the majority of their fellow citizens were significantly reduced,” wrote the historian Tony Judt in his final book, Ill Fares the Land. Nevertheless, taking a long view of economic history, his work was hopeful that we would reverse this trend toward inequality and tap what Adam Smith called our benevolent instincts.

That same spirit seems to infuse a new, free publication called Understanding the Vineyard. With a snappy sketches from Vineyard talents Paul Karasik and Jules Feiffer, this report calls itself “an invitation to understand the importance of Island nonprofits and philanthropy in sustaining the Vineyard. It is also an invitation to get involved.” It comes from the Martha’s Vineyard Donors Collaborative just in time for what Dukes County has declared Philanthropy Day, today.

It’s not an issue for a day, but for every day. The Vineyard has a history as a place where seasonal people came to do what Islanders do. Dress down, dig clams, swim in clean water, spend time with friends, tend and enjoy the land. For many longtime seasonal residents their place here has been a true second home, and they have been an active part of the community, taking an interest in its history and well-being. For their part, year-round Islanders welcomed their sometimes neighbors, falling into conversation with them at barbecues and on the beach. These days, however, he gap has grown not just in income but in the common ground that binds us all together.

At this time of the year, it’s a joy to see the Island so alive with people enjoying its bounty, whether at the bustling farm stands or with chock-a-block bushels of quahaugs on the mud flats. The traffic, not so much, but it’s a price worth paying to enjoy a community that gets with its summer sunshine an annual injection of intellectual energy from what Islanders call abroad — that is, off-Island.

Together we have a common purpose, to sustain this Island and community. This is indeed facilitated through philanthropy. That may mean spending big at fundraisers, such as this weekend’s Sail Martha’s Vineyard buffet, next weekend’s Meals in the Meadow, August’s Possible Dreams and other upcoming auctions, or by dropping a few toothbrushes, peanut butter jars and bags of rice into the food pantry box at the supermarket. It may mean coaching a team or spending time on a nonprofit board. It may mean just talking to each other and sharing with our neighbors.

However we do it, bridging the gap matters. That’s how we enrich all our children in Vineyard ways, which are far more satisfying than money can buy.