To the victor goes the cup

OPINION: How does it feel," said the reporter, "to be finally holding the America's Cup?", writes Joe Bennett this week.

"Mate," said the laughing multi-billionaire, his arm wrapped around a jewel-encrusted courtesan, "it feels awesome".

"But what do you say to critics who accuse you of simply buying the trophy?"

"I say thank you for pointing out that this is a great day for honesty. Now move aside, poor people, while I sail on."

"Did you ever doubt that you were doing the right thing?"

"I won't deny that there were moments of doubt. For despite all the books I've read asserting that money is power and that the history of power and money is the history of the human species, I still wondered at times whether my money could achieve this great thing. But now it has and I feel good. Look at this cup. Look how big my boat is. Oh happy day. Victory is sweet."

"And it doesn't ring hollow?"

"Mate," said the multi-billionaire, plucking a sauteed bee's wing from a passing platter, "you just don't get it, do you? Winning, as the wise man once said, isn't everything. It's the only thing. We inhabit a society dedicated to it in every way. We celebrate winners. We deride losers. Loser is the commonest term of abuse among the young and the ambitious. Look at those insanely popular Idol programmes that have swept the world. Their appeal is the humiliation of the many for the glorification of the one, the winner.

"There was a time, and it wasn't so very long ago, when we pretended that losing was a good thing, that it built character. But no-one really believed it, not even those fogey schoolmasters who preached it because they themselves were afraid to compete.

"And there was even a time when we pretended that losers were blessed and winners doomed, that the poor would inherit the earth and that the rich had as much chance of glory post mortem as a camel had of passing through the eye of a needle.

"But that was only ever a ploy by the rich to placate the poor, and those antique voices are silenced now. Today the winners strut in the glossy mags, while the weak stumble into unrecorded graves. Let competition thrive. Let the devil take the laggard. The winner takes all."

"But – "

"But nothing, my friend. By buying the America's Cup I have done a cleansing thing. I have openly demonstrated that nothing is beyond the reach of money. Money has won armies and hearts and wars since time began. It has won elections everywhere since elections began. Money is the hub of all things.

"Look at any city centre. Look how tall money has grown. Look at the banks. Their glinting towers outsoar cathedrals and dwarf hospitals. Goldman Sachs makes millions a day, hundreds of millions, and yet it manufactures nothing and does no good. It just rolls around in money and the stuff sticks to its back. But still there persists in the popular mind this niggling fantasy that some things stand beyond the reach of money. Things like art, honour, patriotism and fair play. Well phooey to that.

"Art has always been money's poodle. And the only difference between Picasso and the stock exchange is that Picasso's a better investment. As for honour, patriotism and so on, consider the Olympics. They started innocently but then people saw that there was money in them. The Olympic committee became as corrupt as the Mafia. And national leaders saw that medals made electorates happy so they started to buy medals. Some states pumped drugs into athletes. Others pumped money into sports academies. Everyone knows that the US is the fattest nation on earth but it also wins more Olympic medals than any other. How? It buys them.

"It's the same with the America's Cup. The government of little New Zealand, to take just one trivial example, has tried to do exactly what I've done. It's poured millions that it frankly can't afford into a campaign to win the cup. But I've beaten them at it. I've bought their best yachties, their best boat designers. I've trumped patriotism with a few paltry bucks. God, I've even bought the best lawyers.

"The difference between me and them is that I admit what I've done. And by doing so I reckon I've done the world a favour.

"Perhaps we can now all stop pretending. We can shed those last sad tatters of hypocrisy and admit the truth of the way things go. Money is power and always has been and always will be and everyone wants it.

"Meanwhile, if you'll excuse me, I've got an evening planned of sauteed bees' wings and sycophantic yes men. Sayonara, loser."

» Joe Bennett is an English-born travel writer and columnist who lives in New Zealand with dogs. His columns are syndicated in newspapers throughout New Zealand.

- © Fairfax NZ News