Wealth & Money Quote by Evan Esar

Deadpan arithmetic is Esar's weapon here: he builds the sentence like a civics poster, then detonates it with an obviously upside-down comparison. The intent is satirical, but not abstractly so. It aims at a very American habit of self-congratulation: we say we worship education, yet our paychecks reveal a different religion.

The line works because it mimics the tone of earnest national mythmaking ("America believes in...") while smuggling in a punchline that any reader recognizes as false on its face. Professors, famously, are not the financial aristocracy. By pretending they are, Esar forces the reader to confront the real scandal: athletes and entertainers capture the market's adoration, while teaching is framed as a calling that should tolerate austerity. The joke isn't just that we underpay professors; it's that we keep insisting we don't.

There's also a sly critique of how America measures "belief". Esar treats belief as something provable in wages, not slogans. If a society truly valued education, the people tasked with producing it would be compensated like the people tasked with producing spectacle. The subtext stings because it reframes cultural priorities as economic evidence, then uses exaggeration to expose the lie.

Contextually, Esar is writing from within a long tradition of American humorists who use mock patriotism to puncture national vanity. The sentence reads like a pledge, but it's really an audit.