One has to wonder how different life in Cambridge would be--how much better, for instance, the public school and housing systems would be--if Harvard had to pay annual taxes commensurate with its vast financial and property holdings. Most disturbing, however, is the fact that a solid majority of the lowest paid workers at Harvard are people of color, immigrants and parents. These men and women are struggling to make ends meet in a society that continues to dismantle basic guarantees of justice and decency even as the rich and the poor grow increasingly unrecognizable to each other. At Harvard, where words like "diversity," "equality" and "civility" are tossed around as effortlessly as major gift contributions, why do class distinctions so often harden along lines of color and language?

Two centuries ago, Adam Smith, the founding father of capitalism, reminded us that the wealth of any nation could be measured by the number of people who live in poverty. The same can be said of Harvard. At a time when university administrators and alumni donors are busy celebrating the accumulation of great wealth, we would do well to remember that several thousand workers in our midst share neither the wealth nor the self-indulgence it so easily inspires.

And we should remember that the price of fixing our neglect--of paying every worker at Harvard a living wage of at least $10--is about ten million dollars a year, hardly an insurmountable hurdle for our well-oiled fund raising machine. For many of us, this means the difference between salmon and chicken, open bar and cash bar, at alumni appreciation dinners. For workers, however, it might very well mean the difference between poverty and lives of genuine decency. Alumni ought to be mindful of this while celebrating our successes this weekend. More than that, however, we should seize this opportunity to make sure that the university does the right thing with all the money it has raised by devoting some of it to a living wage guarantee for all Harvard workers. As we decide whether we will be part of the problem or part of the solution, we might also think about who will be left with our mess after the celebration has ended.

Timothy Patrick McCarthy '93 is a tutor in history and literature. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Alumni Association.