Capitalism, Innovation, and Olives

In the summer of 1994, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon, an online bookstore from his garage in Seattle.  In the first month of 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched theFacebook, an attempt to put all of college life online, from his Harvard dorm room (fun fact: I lived in Boston at the time while my father worked in the lab right next to that dorm).  Many more like Bezos and Zuckerberg started out like this and continue to use their large companies to perpetuate this system of capitalism throughout the country.  So what does that have to do with The Mezzanine?  The detailed observances, the slight faults in life, and the mystery is all carefully dissected by Baker in this tangential novel of his. It is however, these very observations that eventually lead to such innovation and legacy.  

Yes, while I believe that the author is creating this satire of a capitalistic society by creating overly illustrious descriptions of relatively meaningless commercial things, he himself unknowingly desires to become an innovator and perpetuate this endless system of economy, thereby contradicting his very purpose.  One of the first things that Baker begins to describe is the usage of the plastic straw in different beverages.  He goes step by step on how he thought the researchers went by creating and testing it.  He creates a pro and con table and dissects the problem of sinking and floating straws all the way down to the chemistry: something seemingly unnoticeable to the general population, but when the problem arises, does become annoying.  

Secondly, Baker brings up the concept of olive and cream cheese sandwiches.  He displayed olives as this ugly and disgusting food that when brought in with a backdrop of cream cheese becomes this precious jewel.  More importantly, he goes into the detail of the name "sliced olives".  This piqued my curiosity as well.  What's so cool about having an olive sliced rather than not sliced? Is it a marketing tool, does it unknowingly look better to us, or is that the actual functional name?  The fanciness associated with the olive, it's texture, it's personality, and it's bitter taste might as well be better served "sliced" as the author put it. 

Just the act of trying to break down all of commercial and common life into little pieces shows that the author wants to leave some sort of legacy and innovation.  Baker, in my opinion, is not completely satisfied with the life he chooses to live.  He speaks in a sarcastic and almost denouncing tone when talking about his work especially.  In any case, he is extremely disengaged with his work and job.  Zuckerberg, who saw the enormous success his first website had, in addition to noticing the slight trends and faults college life had, created Facebook as sort of his legacy, and the truth is that it's not a very uncommon thing to derive from among the top innovators of today.  Bezos saw the minor annoyances of having to drive and shop to collect commercial products.  This topic of legacy and innovation doesn't have to just apply with just business people, it could be politicians, anyone, and in this case, an author.  Baker had the guts to put what most people consider embarrassing and personal thoughts, onto paper and publish it.  And truth be told, that itself is innovation.  This book is proof of his true underlying contradiction.