How to be poor

until the perfect Utopia of a “we are all
middle-class now” society arrives. Until then, they should refuse to identify
with the spoilt and degenerate rich, with their snobberies, yachts, farms,
swimming pools in the garden, racing stables and Old Masters; but they should
also turn away from the demonstrators, egg-throwers, pilferers, moonlighters,
Trotskyites and the trolley-pushers who instruct surgeons which patients should
be operated on and whose life should be put at peril.
    All this put into a brief slogan: Bourgeoisie
of the World Unite! You have
nothing to lose but your Overdrafts!

The New
Poor

     
    Soon after I arrived in England before the War, in one of the periods when my salary from Hungary had failed to turn up, I
was very short of money. A friend of mine, who stayed in the same boarding
house, told me one day that he had discovered a wonderful restaurant, just the
right place for us.
    “It’s called Sam’s.”
    “Never heard of it.”
    “It’s not a famous restaurant,” he
explained ominously. Until then we used to have most of our meals in one of the
Lyons Corner Houses. One and six the meal, one penny tip.
    “This is much cheaper,” my friend
reassured me, not very reassuringly.
    Next day we went to Sam’s. It was the
filthiest stinkhole I have ever seen. The bare tables were covered with grime
and crumbs as well as the remainder of the previous customer’s lunch; the floor
was covered with sawdust, cigarette ends, ash and bacon rinds. The clients
matched the place: they were rough and loud people without jackets and
displaying their braces. The food was what you would expect at such a place:
bacon and chips swimming in stinking fat and overcooked cabbage drowned in
tepid water. My friend — always more interested in the quantity of food than in
its quality — was delighted with his discovery. But I put my foot down and told
him that the place was too awful for words.
    “You are a snob,” he replied.
    “I don’t mind a little dirt here and
there,” I went on, “but to eat pure dirt — if there is such a thing — is too
much.”
    My friend was unconvinced:
    “This is also for our education. We
must face reality. We must accept the fact that the old, comfortable,
middle-class days of Budapest are over. We are poor now, so we have to live as
poor people do.”
    “We cannot spend much money, I
agree,” I argued. “But eating at Sam’s is just not on. This is a showing-off
new-poor attitude.”
    I was right; almost prophetic. The
“new poor” became a commonplace figure of a subsequent period.
    Two years after the war I visited the
United States. I spent two months there but I would have needed another month
to do my work properly. “So why don’t you stay longer?” asked an American
friend. “I can’t afford it,” I told him. He was speechless with admiration.
“What is so admirable in this?” I asked him. “It’s no great achievement, not
being able to stay another month.”
    “But it is a great achievement to say
so,” he explained. “I’ve never heard in this country anyone admitting that he
could not afford anything .”
    That surprised me. What is — or at
least was — a grave admission in America is a boast here.
    The ostentatious poor were more
numerous during the sixties, in the days of affluence, but they are pretty
noticeable today too. Although they are different in character. In those days
people simply affected poverty, today they flaunt their poverty, wear it
aggressively in their buttonholes. Very well, we are poor. Any vulgar and
dishonest fool can be rich; but we chose to be poor.
    People keep boasting with things they
do not have. Not having a television set is more of an intellectual boast than
a financial — or should I say non-financial — one. Not having gadgets — from a
lawn mower to an electric typewriter — is another source of pride. Not owning a
car is, of course, the ultimate swagger, although it is more a sign of riches
than of poverty. Only the rich can afford to be without a car today.
    To be poor is right; to be poor is
noble. It is better, more satisfactory, less worrying, and more human than
being rich. But you must wear your poverty with dignified satisfaction and must
not show off with it. Some people are less fortunate than we are; they are
carrying the cross of riches for all of us. We must not laugh in their faces. Only
behind their backs.
    I must admit, all the same, that
being rich has some advantages.