40 How to Win Every Argument(Maybe so. He might have added that right-handed people dis-
agreed with him, that 6-foot-tall people agreed, and that those with
hazel eyes were evenly divided. These have about as much to do with
being right as money does.)The fallacy in the argumentum ad crumenam is, of course, that
wealth has nothing to do with it. It is a sweet and fitting thing to
make a lot of money. It is also a sweet and fitting thing to be
right; but only an undistributed middle can relate the two
because of this.
Behind the argumentum ad crumenam there lies the vague
feeling that God would not allow people who were wicked and
wrong to scoop the pool of life's goodies. We know that money
isn't everything, but we suspect, deep down, that it is 90 things out
of 100, that it will buy nine of the remaining ten, and even make
the absence of the remaining one tolerably comfortable.
Surely a man who can make £60 million in a year by recording four
songs cannot be all wrong?
(He can.)The world's most expensive beer...
(But it makes you no more drunk than does the cheapest.)There are limited and artificial situations in which money is the
measure of right.The customer is always right.
(This is because the customer has the money. It is true in America; but
in Britain the convenience of the shopkeeper often comes first, and in
France or Germany it always does.)In the field of tipping, money can often bring right in its wake.