What Ayn Rand’s "Atlas Shrugged" Teaches Us About the …

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The search for the Great American Novel should have ended in 1957 when a Russian immigrant named Ayn Rand published Atlas Shrugged. Arresting in its breadth, depth, and style, Atlas Shrugged is a manifesto on politics, philosophy, and economics wrapped up in a compelling narrative featuring larger-than-life (and smaller-than-life) characters.

Atlas Shrugged has shaped the worldview of many devotees of liberty, and it surged in popularity in the wake of the recent financial crisis since it became clear that the government's response to crisis and recession would not be to learn from its mistakes and recede but to expand its reach.

I first read Atlas Shrugged during my fourth year of graduate school. On one hand, I wish I had read it much earlier. On the other, I feel like I appreciate it on a much deeper level than I would have had I read it in high school or college. Atlas Shrugged is my favorite novel for two reasons.

The first is its treatment of human potential. Atlas Shrugged is a brilliant exposition of the things that are made possible by the rational, thinking human mind. A lot of things that we take for granted are the product of free markets harnessing the power of free minds. Something as mundane as a hot cup of coffee, for example, embodies innumerable decisions by innumerable people, each with their own specialized knowledge. We see what happens throughout the book when people are unshackled and allowed to pursue their own goals. Production increases. Lives are saved. Life is meaningful.

The second reason is its exploration of how a society disintegrates when we deny human nature. The great tragedy I see throughout Atlas is the tragedy of what might have been. The producers are destroyed, and their destroyers continue to be oblivious to their destruction. One of the most important principles in economics is that we rarely if ever take account of the unseen, unintended consequences of policies and actions. In several places throughout the book, Rand explores how an "emergency directive" to help someone in one part of the country leads to the ruin or suicide of a bankrupt entrepreneur in another part of the country. The book is an extended lesson in what happens when we focus only on what we see.

Atlas Shrugged confronts its reader with a difficult and uncomfortable set of moral questions. Production is the outpouring of the human mind. The mind responds to the problems presented by the physical and material environment, but without the application of intelligence, no production is possible. Life, if one would call it that, would be nasty, brutish, and short.

The most interesting moral question occurring to me as I read it concerns the unintended consequences of supposedly good intentions. The idea that we should serve one another and that we should practice love and charity is appealing (as a Christian, I think them obligatory), but these principles are often applied in an almost strictly superficial sense.

Atlas traces the unseen, unintended consequences of so-called "good intentions." Henry Rearden, for example, points out that he cannot use his suppliers' good intentions to fuel his blast furnaces. When I board an airplane or get behind the wheel of a car, I like to think that the governing principles are not charity and sincerity but excellence and fidelity. If I have to have my brakes fixed, I care only about whether the person doing the work is honest and competent; I don't care a wit for whether he means well. His intelligence and his fidelity, not his intentions and his sincerity, are what will slow my car when I am hurtling down the freeway at sixty or seventy miles per hour. Well-meaning incompetence poses a danger to me and to those around me.

Recent eventsthe bizarro circus that is the 2016 election, the disintegration of Venezuela, and so on make me wonder if a lot of this could have been avoided had we taken Atlas Shruggeds message to heart. It is a book that is worth re-reading every few years. In this sense, it takes its place alongside books like 1984 as 20th-century cautionary tales that teach lessons we ignore at our peril.

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10 (insane) things I learned about the world reading Ayn …

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Over the past year,I've been reading and reviewing Ayn Rand's massive paean to capitalism,Atlas Shrugged. If you're not familiar with the novel, it depicts a world where corporate CEOs and one-percenters are the selfless heroes upon which our society depends, and basically everyone else journalists, legislators, government employees, the poor are the villains trying to drag the rich down out of spite, when we should be kissing their rings in gratitude that they allow us to exist.

Rand's protagonists are Dagny Taggart, heir to a transcontinental railroad empire, and Hank Rearden, the head of a steel company who's invented a revolutionary new alloy which he's modestly named Rearden Metal. Together, they battle against evil government bureaucrats and parasitic socialists to hold civilization together, while all the while powerful industrialists are mysteriously disappearing, leaving behind only the cryptic phrase "Who is John Galt?"

Atlas Shruggedis a work of fiction, but as far as many prominent conservatives are concerned, it's sacred scripture. Alan Greenspan was a member of Rand's inner circle, and opposed regulation of financial markets because he believed her dictum that the greed of businessmen was always the public's best protection. Paul Ryan said that he required his campaign staffers to read the book, while Glenn Beck has announced grandiose plans to build his own real-life "Galt's Gulch," the hidden refuge where the book's capitalist heroes go to watch civilization collapse without them.

ReadingAtlas Shruggedis like entering into a strange mirror universe where everything we thought we knew about economics and morality is turned upside down. I've already learned some valuable lessons from it.

1. All evil people are unattractive; all good and trustworthy people are handsome.

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The first and most important we learn fromAtlas Shruggedis thatyou can tell good and bad people apart at a glance. All the villains the "looters," in Rand's terminology are rotund, fleshy and sweaty, with receding hairlines, sagging jowls and floppy limbs, while her millionaire industrialist heroes are portraits of steely determination, with sharp chins and angular features like people in a Cubist painting. Nearly all of them are conspicuously Aryan. Here's a typical example, the steel magnate Hank Rearden:

The glare cut a moment's wedge across his eyes, which had the color and quality of pale blue ice then across the black web of the metal column and the ash-blond strands of his hair then across the belt of his trenchcoat and the pockets where he held his hands. His body was tall and gaunt; he had always been too tall for those around him. His face was cut by prominent cheekbones and by a few sharp lines; they were not the lines of age, he had always had them; this had made him look old at twenty, and young now, at forty-five.

2. The mark of a great businessman is that he sneers at the idea of public safety.

When we meet Dagny Taggart, Rand's heroic railroad baron, she's traveling on a cross-country train which gets stuck at a stoplight that may or may not be broken. When the crew frets that they should wait until they're sure it's safe, Dagnypulls rank and orders them to drive through the red light. This, in Rand's world, is the mark of a heroic and decisive capitalist, rather than the kind of person who in the real world would soon be the subject of headlines like "22 Dead in Train Collision Caused by Executive Who Didn't Want to Be Late For Meeting."

Dagny makes the decision to rebuild a critical line of the railroad using a new alloy, the aforementioned Rearden Metal, which has never been used in a major industrial project. You might think that before committing to build hundreds of miles of track through mountainous terrain, you'd want to have, say, pilot projects, or feasibility studies. But Dagny brushes those concerns aside; she justknowsRearden Metal is goodbecause she feels it in her gut: "When I see things," she explains, "I see them."

And once that line is rebuilt, Dagny's plan for its maiden voyage involvesdriving the train at dangerously high speed through towns and populated areas:

"The first train will... run non-stop to Wyatt Junction, Colorado, traveling at an average speed of one hundred miles per hour." ...

"But shouldn't you cut the speed below normal rather than ... Miss Taggart, don't you have any consideration whatever for public opinion?"

"But Ido. If it weren't for public opinion, an average speed of sixty-five miles per hour would have been quite sufficient."

The book points out that mayors and safety regulators have to be bribed or threatened to allow this, which is perfectly OK in Rand's morality. When a reporter asks Dagny what protection people will have if the line is no good, she snaps: "Don't ride on it." (Ask the people of Lac-Megantic how much good that did them.)

3. Bad guys get their way through democracy; good guys get their way through violence.

The way the villains ofAtlas Shruggedaccomplish their evil plan is ... voting for it. One of the major plot elements of part I is a law called theEqualization of Opportunity Bill, which forces large companies to break themselves up, similarly to the wayAT&T was split into the Baby Bells. It's passed by a majority of Congress, and Rand never implies that there's anything improper in the vote or that any dirty tricks were pulled. But because it forces her wealthy capitalist heroes to spin off some of their businesses, it's self-evident that this is the worst thing in the world and could only have been conceived of by evil socialists who hate success.

Compare this to another of Rand's protagonists, Dagny Taggart's heroic ancestor Nathaniel Taggart. We're told that he built a transcontinental railroad system almost single-handedly, which is why Dagny all but venerates him. We're also told thathe murdered a state legislatorwho was going to pass a law that would have stopped him from completing his track, and threw a government official down three flights of stairs for offering him a loan. In the world ofAtlas Shrugged, these are noble and heroic acts.

Then there's another of Rand's heroes, the oil baron Ellis Wyatt. When the government passes new regulations on rail shipping that will harm his business, Wyatt retaliates byspitefully blowing up his oil fields, much like Saddam Hussein's retreating army did to Kuwait in the first Gulf War. In real life, that act of sabotage smothered much of the Middle East beneath clouds of choking, toxic black smoke for months, poisoning the air and water. But as far as Rand sees it, no vengeance is too harsh for people who commit the terrible crime of interfering with the right of the rich to make more money.

4. The government has never invented anything or done any good for anyone.

In Rand's world, all good things come from private industry. Everyone who works for the government or takes government money is either a bumbling incompetent or a leech who steals credit for the work of others. At one point, the villainous bureaucrats of the "State Science Institute" try to sabotage Rand's hero Hank Rearden by spreading malicious rumors about his new alloy:

"If you consider that for thirteen years this Institute has had a department of metallurgical research, which has cost over twenty million dollars and has produced nothing but a new silver polish and a new anti-corrosive preparation, which, I believe, is not so good as the old ones you can imagine what the public reaction will be if some private individual comes out with a product that revolutionizes the entire science of metallurgy and proves to be sensationally successful!"

Of course, in the real world, only minor trifles, like radar, space flight, nuclear power, GPS, computers, and the Internet were brought about by government research.

5. Violent jealousy and degradation are signs of true love.

Dagny's first lover, the mining heir Francisco d'Anconia,treats her like a possession: he drags her around by an arm, and once, when she makes a joke he doesn't like, he slaps her so hard it bloodies her lip. The first time they have sex, he doesn't ask for consent, but throws her down and does what he wants: "She knew that fear was useless, that he would do what he wished, that the decision was his."

Later on, Dagny has an affair with Hank Rearden (who's married to someone else at the time, but this is the sort of minor consideration that doesn't hold back Randian supermen). The first time they sleep together, it leaves Dagny bruised and bloody, and the morning after, Hankrants at her that he holds her in contempt and thinks of her as no better than a whore. Almost as soon as their relationship begins, he demands to know how many other men she's slept with and who they were. When she won't answer, he seizes her and twists her arm, trying to hurt her enough to force her to tell him.

Believe it or not, none of this is meant to make us judge these characters negatively, because in Rand's world, violent jealousy is romantic and abuse is sexy. She believed thatwomen were meant to be subservient to men in fact, she says that"the most feminine of all aspects" is "the look of being chained" and that a woman being the dominant partner in a relationship was "metaphysically inappropriate" and would warp and destroy her fragile lady-mind.

6. All natural resources are limitless.

If you pay close attention toAtlas Shrugged, you'll learn that there will always bemore land to homestead, more trees to cut, more coal to mine, more fossil fuels to drill. There's never a need for conservation, recycling, or that dreaded word, "sustainability." All environmental laws, just like all safety regulations, are invented by government bureaucrats explicitly for the purpose of punishing and destroying successful businessmen.

One of the heroes of part I is the tycoon Ellis Wyatt, who's invented an unspecified new technology that allows him to reopen oil wells thought to be tapped out, unlocking what Rand calls an "unlimited supply" of oil. Obviously, accepting that natural resources are finite would force Rand's followers to confront hard questions about equitable distribution, which is why she waves the problem away with a sweep of her hand.

This trend reaches its climax near the end of part I, when Dagny and Hank find, in the ruins of an abandoned factory, the prototype of a new kind of motor that runs on "atmospheric static electricity" and canproduce limitless energy for free. Rand sees nothing implausible about this, because in her philosophy, human ingenuity can overcome any problem, up to and including the laws of thermodynamics, if only the government would get out of the way and let them do it.

7. Pollution and advertisements are beautiful; pristine wilderness is ugly and useless.

Rand is enamored of fossil fuels, and at one point, she describes New York City as cradled in "sacred fires" from the smokestacks and heavy industrial plants that surround it. It never seems to occur to her that soot and smog cause anything other than pretty sunsets, and no one inAtlas Shruggedgets asthma, much less lung cancer.

By contrast, Rand informs us thatpristine natural habitat is worthless unless it's plastered with ads, as we see in a scene where Hank and Dagny go on a road trip together:

Uncoiling from among the curves of Wisconsin's hills, the highway was the only evidence of human labor, a precarious bridge stretched across a sea of brush, weeds and trees. The sea rolled softly, in sprays of yellow and orange, with a few red jets shooting up on the hillsides, with pools of remnant green in the hollows, under a pure blue sky.

... "What I'd like to see," said Rearden, "is a billboard."

8. Crime doesn't exist, even in areas of extreme poverty.

In the world ofAtlas Shrugged, the only kind of violence that anyone ever worries about is government thugs stealing the wealth of the heroic capitalists at gunpoint to redistribute it to the undeserving masses. There's no burglary, no muggings, no bread riots, no street crime of any kind. This is true even though the world is spiraling down a vortex of poverty and economic depression. And even though the wealthy, productive elite are mysteriously disappearing one by one,none of Rand's protagonists ever worry about their personal safety.

Apparently, in Rand's view, poor people will peacefully sit and starve when they lose their jobs. And that's a good thing for her, because accepting that crime exists might lead to dangerous, heretical ideas like that maybe the government should pay for education and job training, because this might be cheaper and more beneficial in the long run than spending ever more money on police and prisons.

9. The only thing that matters in life is how good you are at making money.

In a scene from part I, the copper baron Francisco d'Anconia explains to Dagnywhy rich people are more valuable than poor people:

"Dagny, there's nothing of any importance in life except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard."

You'll note that this speech makes no exceptions for work whose product is actively harmful to others. If you burn coal that chokes neighboring cities in toxic smog, if you sell unhealthful food that increases obesity and diabetes, if you sell guns and fight every attempt to pass laws that would restrict who could buy them, if you paint houses with lead and insulate pipes in asbestos relax, you're off the hook! None of this matters in the slightest in Rand's eyes. Are yougoodat your job? Do you make money from it? That's the only thing anyone should ever care about.

10. Smoking is good for you.

Almost all of Rand's heroes smoke, and not just for pleasure. In one minor scene, a cigarette vendor tells Dagny thatsmoking is heroic, even rationally obligatory:

"I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips ... When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

It's no coincidence thatAtlas Shruggedexpresses these views. Ayn Rand herself was a heavy smoker, and she often asserted that she was the most rational person alive; therefore, she believed, her preferences were thecorrectpreferences which everyone else should emulate. Beginning from this premise, she worked backward to explain why everything she did was an inevitable consequence of her philosophy. As part of this, she decided that she smoked tobacco not because she'd become addicted to it, but because it'srightfor rational people to smoke while they think.

In case you were wondering, Rand did indeed contract lung cancer later in life, and had an operation to remove one lung. But even though she eventually came to accept the danger of smoking, she never communicated this to her followers or recanted her earlier support of it. As in other things, her attitude was that people deserve whatever they get.

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Small Talk: Every First Quarter Earnings Call – The Real Deal

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The Real Deals latest humor column sums up every earnings call in the coronavirus age.

Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our first-quarter earnings call. Hopefully, youve all received our hastily revised presentation by now, and if you havent, just picture a collage of arrows pointing aggressively downward. If any of you would like to feel a burst of nostalgia, we would be happy to also send you the presentation we started putting together in the olden days late February. I like to look through that one late at night while sipping Scotch and alternating between hysterical laughter and uncontrollable sobs.

Lets get the bad news out of the way: The coronavirus pandemic has had an adverse effect on elements of our business strategy, which includes investing in hotels and theme parks and an assumption that people would never be terrified to leave their homes. The outbreak also reversed the benefit of our early March team-building exercise, where everyone was required to cough on each other. We estimate that this will reduce our annual revenue by a number that Im too scared to say out loud.

But there were positive signs this quarter as well! For instance, everything worked out pretty much exactly as we expected it to until around March 11, which we are attributing solely to our intelligence and foresight. And that coughing fit our CFO had last week turned out to just be Cheez-It dust that went down the wrong pipe. Also, I found a dollar in my sons room the other day that Im pretty sure he didnt know about, so thats going right into the company coffers!

The dollar was under his pillow. I know what youre thinking, and no, he isnt too old to still believe in the Tooth Fairy. But we all need to make sacrifices during this challenging time, including 6-year-olds. Especially 6-year-olds.

Now, if theres one thing everyone needs to keep in mind about the pandemic, its that it is far too early for us to tell you anything specific about the effect it will have on our results for the foreseeable future. Whenever you feel yourself wanting to ask that question, we recommend thinking of three comforting words or phrases and assuming our answer would somehow incorporate all of them. For me, its beach, cotton candy, and Atlas Shrugged.

Having said that, rest assured that we are confident our company is still well-positioned to survive and thrive. Some of you may be wondering how it is possible for me to be simultaneously confident about our companys future and unable to tell you anything about it, but to those folks, I would just say beach, cotton candy, Atlas Shrugged.

The other important point I want to make is how much we appreciate what our companys frontline workers have been doing during this crisis. I know we tend not to think about them very often, but they truly are heroes, and I am going to keep calling them that until they stop asking me for a raise.

Now, do we want to do the usual question-and-answer session, or are we all OK with assuming that I will respond to every inquiry with some variation of Good question, but were not quite ready to answer that one yet?

Great, thats what I thought. So, in that case, this concludes our first-quarter earnings call. Thanks again for listening, and I hope that many of you will also join us on our second-quarter earnings call, which will most likely just consist of me cursing for about 17 minutes straight. Have a nice day, everyone!

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Menter: Will Aspens reopening shrug off the virus? – Aspen Daily News

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This week I am reprising a slightly modified version of a column I wrote in this paper almost eight years ago titled Aspen shrugged (Aspen Daily News, July 19, 2012). Its substance seems more appropriate now than ever. Socialism and free market economics intersect more acutely in Aspen than perhaps any other place on earth. Without adaptation, Aspens fragile balance of unparalleled governmental subsidies for locals, and an international tourism economy playing to the jet-setting, uber-wealthy capitalist class, may be in jeopardy. Can such a system, dependent on safe and efficient air travel, and relying almost entirely on the intangibles of experiential value, survive the emerging coronavirus-triggered economic disruption?

Ayn Rands self-proclaimed magnum opus Atlas Shrugged uses as background for her philosophy of objectivism a fictional world where capitalists are denigrated by ministers of a centrally controlled economy. In this dystopian domain individuals work for the benefit of the collective. As the capitalists disappear into hiding, the worlds economy collapses.

Atlas imperfectly references the titan from Greek mythology, who in modern interpretations is forced by Zeus to hold the world on his shoulders. Rands symbolism of a shrugging Atlas represents the worlds productive capitalists shrugging off responsibility for anyone but themselves by retreating to a mountain hideaway and refusing to help rebuild an economy they did not destroy.

Theorizing an opposing world view to Karl Marxs workers paradise, Rand envisioned a world where people act out of selfish rationality to achieve their individual interests, in contrast to Marx and Friedrich Engels, who openly promoted the Communist Manifesto to portend a stateless and classless worldwide communist society where the individual was subordinate to the collective. Rands world view was seared into her consciousness through personal experience with the failed Soviet interpretation of Marxs communism. Not unlike Marx, Rands belief in the superiority of her economic and political philosophy was the definitive sign of her narcissistic intellectualism.

If Marx and Rand are foundational polar extremes of modern political and economic thought, then Aspen is the modern petri dish for the interplay of their philosophies. While few Aspenites would identify as communists or objectivists, mostly placing themselves somewhere in between, it remains true that few communities are so geographically separate and also so economically and societally segmented as Aspen.

On the valley floor reside mostly workers. The workers mostly, but not exclusively, inhabit tidy government-subsidized, garage-less homes. On the elevated surroundings reside mostly the capitalists as Rand might refer to them. The capitalists mostly reside in exquisite privately owned homes, some with garages so big, theyre larger than an average workers entire home.

The workers of Aspen are united in the sense that their livelihood relies upon consumption, which like gravity, flows from the higher elevations to the valley floor. This activity generates the taxes needed to provide the subsidized housing, transportation, child care, and recreation that make Aspens idyllic working-class life possible in one of the nations most expensive zip codes (although according to Business Insider, as of 2019 Aspen no longer even cracks the nations top 25).

Conversely, as if defying gravity, political power rises from the workers on the valley floor who exact the taxes needed to support their idyllic (it isnt really, hence the quotation marks) working-class lifestyle from the capitalist class, so long as they continue enjoying the view. Rand might not consider these as examples of objectively selfish behavior, but given the system in place, thats what it looks like to me. More importantly, there is exactly nothing requiring this systems perpetuation.

Reflecting neither Marxs utopia, nor Rands dystopia, Aspens delicately balanced, capitalistically funded socialism relies on one commonly shared notion. While the people here are real, the place defies reality. In traditional economic terms, Aspen produces almost nothing of value yet retains some of the highest property values on the planet. This understanding of value is both notional and contrived.

Aspens notional economic value lies exclusively in its ability to deliver one product, the Aspen experience. Its contrived economic value flows from the government subsidies generated by the demand for that experience, which over the past many decades has far exceeded available supply. But will future demand remain so high? All economic systems have a half-life, and Aspens monied visitors and government-subsidized, private-sector workers cannot exist without each other. It is Aspens intertwined economic values, notional and contrived, capitalist and socialist, that make Aspens economy work, and the kicker is, its a system that produces nothing that any consumer cannot live without or get at a lower cost someplace else.

In a coronavirus world, will Rands capitalists continue to willingly pay any price to parachute into Aspen to ski, listen to beautiful music and annually conjure a festival of ideas, financing the resort communitys government-subsidized locals' lifestyle? The notion seems less objectively rational than ever.

Would Marx recoil at the sight of Aspens sell-out socialism, where service to and control over capitalism have heretofore simultaneously made possible his otherwise futilely pursued workers paradise? Or would he decide its demise was a painful but necessary step for the purity of the collectives cause? My guess is the latter.

Most importantly, will Aspens delicately balanced, capitalist-funded socialist paradise (by now you know the reason for the quotations) and tourism-based economy shrug off the coronavirus pandemic and return to some adaptation of normality? Or, like after the silver boom ended a century ago, will Aspen begin a return to quieter years? I hope its the former, but only time will tell.

pmenter98388@gmail.com

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The Code and the Key – National Review

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(Enisaksoy/Getty Images)Lessons from human nature about writing, politics, and Donald Trump

I worked one summer as a kitchen boy in a Wisconsin summer camp. It was one of those jobs from which you fall down at night near too tired to sleep. A previous occupant of my bunk had left behind a copy of Atlas Shrugged. So I spent the summer, between work and sleep, reading the perfect companion for my teenage summer.

I dont care for short stories. I prefer the heft of the doorstop book, reassuring me that I can immerse myself in the fantasy for a good long time. Yes, yes, I think. Thank you. Take me. Anywhere but here . . .

My companion for the lockdown is The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet, written by David Kahn in 1967 and updated by him in 1996. One thousand pages so interesting that my mind will not reject them even though they are informative.

My new novel, not yet released, is Forty Years at Anstett, a fictional account of one mans life at a New England prep school. In it, a young man returns from imprisonment in Japan during the RussoJapanese War. The fellow applies for the job of instructor of languages. He has no academic credentials, but a very practical one: He was forced, in prison, to learn Japanese, Russian, Chinese, and, more important, how to learn languages. He challenges the Head (my protagonist) to point out the dullest lad in the school, to name a language, to leave the applicant alone with the boy for an afternoon, and then to assess his progress in the new tongue.

Well, the Head says, Latin or Greek. Id say Latin; its simpler as it shares our alphabet. No, the applicant says, its simpler to teach Greek. A new alphabet is a code. What twelve-year-old boy has ever been able to resist a code?

Not I, certainly. It seems Ive spent my professional life fashioning them and solving them, and have found the process commutative, which is to say, the study of one is the study of the otherit works in both directions.

Heres what I mean. Raymond Chandler wrote, in his essay The Simple Art of Murder (1939), that it is near impossible to craft a good murder mystery, as it requires two otherwise unconnected skills: the ability to write beautifully and the ability to fashion a code.

He is near right in his observation. The two skillswhile not mutually exclusive per seare unlikely to be found fully developed in any practitioner, because to achieve excellence, he or she would have to devote all energy to one or the other. I know of no great contemporary instrumentalist who is also a great composer.

The intersection of cryptography and literary merit is discoverable, though, in one very particular craft, and it is my own: writing drama.

For the drama has much in common with the detective novel. The clues in each must, scene by scene, be displayed to the reader in such a way that their importance will become both clear and acceptable only when the protagonist (and, so, the reader) has finally arranged them, correctly, at the works conclusion. If a clue is omitted, the writer is cheating; if it is too apparent, he is a hack.

Oh, yes, it was there all the time is the revelation capping not only the story of Sam Spade and his Maltese falcon, but that of Oedipus.

Ive always understood my job as a playwright as crafting the code. I came to this understanding through watching the audience.

In the various storefront theaters of my youth, I was offered the opportunity to make a living superior to mine as a cabdriver, if and as I could please the audience: not the critics, not the universities, but the paying audience.

I could write sufficiently well to keep em in their seats, but I was not going to get out of the Yellow Cab Company, I saw, unless I could do something additionally, which was (and is) to lead the audience unconsciously, at the plays end, to a revelation, which is to say, to a thrill.

Most plays, and all dramas, conclude, Well, I suppose life is just like that. This is sufficient to get the audience back into their cars, but by half the drive home, the play is forgotten. It may have diverted, but it did not thrill. This is to say, it did not deliver anything that could not have been foreseen. One says of such plays, They came in humming the plot.

Well, I wanted to trade the delights of the Yellow Cab Company for those of Broadway. So I sat down to the study of a code, and the code was, and is, human behavior.

I now learn from David Kahn the same lesson I saw in the storefronts: The cipher cannot be resolved without possession of the key.

Human behavior is fairly clear. One did or did not do or say this or that; one keeps marrying the wrong guy, or forgetting ones car keys, Aunt Mae always arrives late, and so on.

The attempt to interpret these actions, to determine the underlying assumptions, and, so, possibly, arrange them for the understanding of the group, the family, or the individual, is a search for a unifying key.

Psychoanalysis is, essentially, cryptanalysis. It is the attempt to find the key that will render intelligible, that is, arranged into a cause-and-effect progression, a string of various otherwise puzzling actions. It is fairly useless as a clinical tool (for, finally, the solution is as moot as is, in most cases, the complaint). But it is a handy theoretical tool, for a dramatist/cryptanalyst. He may walk the cat both backward and forward, discovering, in his own, unconscious creative process, the hidden key, which resolves his disparate perceptions and creations (an event, a line, an interchange) into that whole that may at the plays end be revealed as a progressionthat is, as a surprise.

This key is called the plot.

The practical codebreaker differs from the psychoanalyst in this: It is not his job to evaluate and act on the decoded information, but only to strip away the code.

Applied to psychoanalysis: Rather than asking What was the repressed trauma to which cause I can assign these symptoms? we may ask What was the process that caused that particular trauma (plaintext) to be so encrypted; that is, what is the key?

For, even if the hidden trauma is correctly determined, this can mean nothing more than that it has been identified in a way sufficiently satisfying to doctor and patient as to be acceptable; and the very fact that the patient accepts a psychoanalytic solution (which, again, is merely suppositional) might argue for its falsity. Diagnostically, he leaves the analysis not having had his life changed by revelation but gratified in his assessment not only of his own reasoning but of his courage in being able to accept a (putatively) new idea.

Similarly, modern drama and entertainment, and the so-called news media that flog it, present as a cure for (inescapable) human anxiety various solutions that, in their inaccuracy and inconclusivity, induce the individual to commit to further, more-drastic (which is to say, more-macabre and more-bizarre) restatements of the original diagnosis: E.g., you are not anxious, you are legitimately appalled, and frightened, as who would not be, as the world is ending (burning up, poisoned, overpopulated, run by Monsters).

The committed liberal, leftist, or analysand is like the government establishments that have devoted so much time, energy, and treasure to the creation of a code that no evidence could convince them that it has been broken and so must be replaced.

Drama carries an acceptable, but not a transformative, solution. Only tragedy has the power to transform, its revelation shocking the hero/sufferer (who is only the representative of the audience) into an absolutely new life. This life, however different from or lesser than the previous one, has this great benefit: It can be led truthfully, without either shame or anxiety, as one no longer fears discovery. The neurotic individual or organization fears not that its code may be broken but the knowledge that it already has been.

A mass movement coalesces around previously unconnected forcesthose that, absent a catalyst, cannot combine to any effect. Its formation will be predated to account for a supernatural beginning, but this merely raises the question Why now?

Islam, Christianity, and, in the 20th century, Marxism and Fascism emerge and proliferate exponentially, creating a new polity, spreading first through the joy of novelty, then through the herd instinct, and, finally, through force directed at the unconvinced.

A doctrine that cannot be proved, and whose only benefit is membership in a herd of the similarly professing, must (like a neurosis) be vehemently defended, as its refutation would threaten the individual not only with expulsion but with shame at his complicity, which is to say, with self-knowledge. But this, again, just raises the question: Why does this or that belief or delusion emerge and metastasize at a particular time? What is the relationship between the individual and the mass movement?

Tolstoy asks the question in the epilogue to War and Peace. He observes that 5 million Frenchmen didnt march into Russia just because Napoleon told them to. There is some relationship between his and their folly, but the relationship is unclear. The question, he tells us, is What is power? For, if they did not march because of his orders (a proposition that is, on reflection, absurd), why did they march?

Why did the young of my post-war generation embrace the various doctrines of free love, anti-Americanism, dissent, and mass movement, which, here as everywhere in the West, have matured as leftism, its various doctrines as absurd and obviously destructive as Napoleons (or Hitlers) invasion of Russia: open borders, free health care and education, and a universal salary not only for our citizens but (given open borders) for the entire world.

Ive been puzzled for a while by the absence in this virulent movement not only of a handy name (for leftism defines the thing only in relation to its opposite) but of a leader.

In the upcoming election, the Left has proposed, and its adherents have accepted, no candidate onto whom can be grafted even the most basic and most provisional attributes of charisma, wisdom, or record (however factitious) of accomplishment.

Why has the Left, intent on destroying the West, put forth no leader, and why has no leader put himself forward to fill the vacuum of power? What does the Left have, in place of a Marx, a Hitler, a Lenin, or, indeed, a Roosevelt or a Churchill? One who could state and embody its principles and thereby unify a country or a party? Perhaps the Lefts inability to propose a leaderand, so, a coherent (even if loathsome) visionis not a problem but a solution.

The question, then, is: To what problem?

For four years Ive found the massteria (Professor Harold Hill, The Music Man, 1957) around Trump healthy, as energy directed thus was unavailable for the Lefts beatification of a new leader (a fhrer). How fortunate for the country, I thought.

The national emergency has given me some leisure to think and consider; it was awarded by a virus. My question of the Virus is Why now?

The virus could not have spread globally without universal air travel, the national wealth that created such travel, and the disposable incomes that allowed individuals to take trips.

The Black Death reached Europe through rats on merchant ships from the Orient, the Spanish flu was spread here largely by servicemen returning from Europe, and so on, and so on.

Each, perhaps, could be seen as occurring through, or spreading because of, some stage of progression or, say, maturity, in the economy, or, to flirt with eschatology, in the Progress of the World.

The individual lifespan lengthens, and now the elderly are faced with diseases unknown to or rare among grandparents who would have been dead at a similar age.

Traffic congestion, attendant pollution, anxiety, and so on are the result of urban success. The highways take the mass of the newly solvent to the suburbs, the commutes become intolerable, and the old cities die, or exist (all the old capitals of commerce) as tourist attractions, or amusement parks, with the super-wealthy maintaining their skyboxes above the entertainment, as in The Masque of the Red Death.

The liberal, elite cities and states raise taxes, because they must, as their tax base disappears. As the services disintegrate, the rich follow the middle class out and leave the cities to the homeless, their ranks engorged by the aliens attracted to the notion of something-for-nothing (as who is not?), which is to say the Garden of Eden before the Fall.

There it is, before our eyes, but those who call attention, like our friend Laocon, are swept back into the sea, and the wooden horse, inside which the voices of enemy soldiers are heard, is dragged inside the city.

The unabated loathing of Trump must be considered a delusion, for how could one man be responsible not only for treason, collusion, malversation, and other crimes that, though they might be practiced individually, would, in their conjoined execution, each cancel the efficacy of the other (e.g., armed robbery and embezzlement)? Consider that in addition to this endless litany of his human corruptions, he is, coincidentally, indicted as responsible for the weather and the spread (if not the inauguration) of a global pandemic.

A comparison of Trump Psychosis with adoration of Hitlerthough perhaps appropriate mechanically, that is, in terms of power exerted on the mobis inexact in terms of utility. For the apotheosis of Hitler united the Germans behind a shared vision; he personified, and gave voice to, a nationalist desire for revenge, pride, and power, in which vision, and through its supposed benefits, the individuals could participate.

But the revanchist Left is not opposed to Trump as the avatar of the Right, of capitalism, of Americanism (once called patriotism). They cannot object to his policies per se, because the policies, one by one, are demonstrably superior in practice to any the Left has employed and, in reason, to any they have suggested. Their objections are all ad hominem, alleging various isms, which epithet may be applied, given but little inventiveness, to any of his words or acts. (As they may to any of yours or mine.) To suggest it is his acts that enrage the Left would be as to understand the Islamist attacks of September 11 as architectural criticism.

The Trump resistance began in the first hours of his presidency and has continued unabated by either reason or fatigue. There are no dissentient voices on the left, for any suggesting consideration, let alone dissent, have been expelled, vilified, and canceledthey are thus no longer on the left. Perhaps in this the disease starts to proclaim itself.

Leo Marks was a British codebreaker at Bletchley Park, during the Second World War. In his book Between Silk and Cyanide (1998), he writes about the codebreakers disease: Engaged as they are in trying to break the code, it is their last thought at night, and their first on awakening. Many of them became illphysically or psychologicallyfrom the strain.

Marks was in charge of decrypting the messages sent by Allied agents parachuted into Nazi-controlled Holland. He was, he writes, driven mad by the suspicion that the Allied agents had been captured and turnedthat is, that they, and so their codes, were being manipulated by the Nazis. He could find no error in the transmissions, but his suspicions would not go away. One morning he awoke and realized that the problem (that he could find no errors) was, of course, the solution: It would have been impossible for an Allied spy in Nazi Holland to transmitin haste and in hiding, risking deathwithout errors in the transmission. The agents had been captured or turned, he concluded.

There are no errors in the unity of the Left, which may be a key to the solution of their irrational, implacable loathing. Trump is hated as the most prominent example of one whos not afraid to employ reason. He has been canceled but ridicules their verdict.

It is not his plans (the Left doesnt hear of them) or his accomplishments (they are discounted, attributed to others, glossed over, or dismissed as nefarious) that are loathed, but the man himself, as he had the temerity to hold himself superior to the zeitgeist.

The zeitgeist is the Decline of the West, which had been sweeping the world since the American apogee, victory in World War II, and the advent of the most prosperous economy in history.

Things age, mature, and die. Fascism was a 20-year-long dictatorship, expanded through murder and terror. American exceptionalism and prosperity are the overwhelming story of the 20th century; it was not spread by the sword, and it will not die by the sword. Lincoln said that all the massed armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not take a drink from the Ohio, but American culture has been decaying throughout my lifetime, as must any organism. Mr. Trumps presidency has lengthened the American experience by some number of years. That number will be debated by the civilizations that succeed us, who will wonder at our fall, as the educated once did at that of Nineveh and Tyre.

Tragedy, to be compelling, must address a prerational experience or unity. A Hokusai painting of a wave makes us nod in recognition, as we do at a resolution of a Bach fugue. We cannot explain or dissect our experience of understanding, but it is undeniable. True art creates in us the same feeling of fulfillment, its possible description just beyond the rational mind.

The technician might explain it technically, the musician employing the cycle of fifths, or the painter some theory of color or proportion, but this merely puts the problem at one remove. For, after the technical reduction, even the expert cannot quite answer the question of why: Why, for example, is the eye so pleased by the golden mean? Like any great truth, our understanding of art must devolve into metaphysics or an assertion merely leading to an infinite regression.

The human mind will and must assemble phenomena into cause and effect. We will intuit or ascribe a causal relationship to two events that, to another, have no possible connection: Aunt Edna did not call on my birthday because shes furious I didnt sufficiently praise her new frock; Germany is troubled because of the Jews; we are suffering a pandemic because Trump did or did not act quickly enough, and an economic disaster because he did.

Psychoanalysis (and politics) attempts to address or capitalize on our human suggestibility, particularly on our frenzied willingness to assign our disquiets to another. Solutions offered thus flatter our ability to identify a problem, suggest its cure, and remind us to come back tomorrow for another dose.

Drama acts similarly, engaging us in the assurance that the cause of all problems is evident, and that our reason will suffice to cure them. The Bad Butler did it; Deaf People are People, Too; Love Is All There Is; and so on. If we enjoy the mixture, it must (and will) be taken regularly.

Tragedy provides not reassurance but calm through the completion of a mechanical progression. Its end is probative, for it is the disposition of all the variables (the code) stipulated at its beginningmathematically, there is no remainder.

The journey of Oedipus begins because there is a plague on Thebes; it is the kings job to conquer it. Without the initiating impulse (the stated problem), the play becomes merely a drama, it cannot be a tragedy, and we take away from it not that peace from recognizing the human condition but the lesson Do not sleep with your mother.

Can our current national emergency be viewed as perhaps a classical tragedy rather than as sordid drama? We see that the various factions are fighting over a disordered kingdom; each employs (to its own degree) the universal tools of indictment, incitement, appeal, reason, conspiracy, deception, and so on (assignment of these to taste). Considering ourselves as the dramatist, we can prognosticate an end: civil war, dissolution and chaos, conquest by a foreign power, return to a new and healthier polity actually based on the Constitution . . .

But such an end, to satisfy as tragedy, must be understood as the resolution of that specific problem absent the appearance of which we would not have a play. (Hamlets father dies.)

But in our case, what brought about the plague of Thebes?

The builders of the Tower of Babel suffered from hubris. They thought that they could aspire to heaven and raise themselves above human concerns, and that the various conflicting impulses of humanity would go away if we all spoke with one tongue. This tongue, of course, would be that of the builders, and I will leave comparisons with globalism to the reader. But it is no sin to be prosperous, and even the most committed Marxist wishes only to regularize (that is, reduce) the wealth and consumption of his neighbor.

What is the precipitating event or situation whose resolution would be one of those mooted above? We know our current pandemic came from China, and from trade with China. And every schoolchild knows that April showers bring May flowers, Mayflowers bring Pilgrims, and Pilgrims bring typhus.

The demagogues of the Left have discovered anew the ancient secrets of corruption, collusion, and decay, and, like all their predecessors, delight in their discovery: indicting their opponents for their own crimes.

We had, on April Fools Day 2020, two events warring for pride of place in our reconstruction of the tragic cryptogram: the pandemic, and the election of Donald Trump. But tragedy cannot have two precipitating events. (See the childs excuse I didnt do my homework because the dog ate it, and my mother has the flu.) Two explanations are none.

We must choose one, determine how the two are, if not identical, then conjoined (My mother has the flu, she usually feeds the dog, she could not, the dog became hungry and ate my homework), or discard them both and begin our work again, remembering Tolstoys admonition that the first or most apparent manifestation of an event is not necessarily the cause: The savage seeing the puffs of smoke first might conclude that they caused the locomotive.

The Left insists that our national disruption is caused by the election of President Trump, which affront would be resolved by his removal from office.

But if the successful results of their machinations brought us to civil war or economic collapse, then the effect would be out of adjustment with the supposed cause. (See the all too common explanation of spousal murder: You would have shot her too if you saw the way she looked at me.)

That message was fictionalized in Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand lived through the Russian Revolution, in St. Petersburg, and spent her working life, in fiction and nonfiction, writing about the horror.

Here is another report, by Alexander, Grand Duke of Russia, first cousin to the czar, from Once a Grand Duke (1931):

What was to be done about those princes and countesses who spent their lives going from door to door and spreading monstrous lies about the Czar and Czarina? What was to be done with that scion of the ancient family of Princes Dolgoruky who sided with enemies of the Empire? What was to be done with the president of Moscow University, Prince Troubetskoi, who turned that famous institution of learning into a radical campus? What was to be done with that brilliant Professor Milukoff, who felt it his duty to denounce the regime in foreign lands, undermining our credit abroad and gladdening the hearts of our foes? . . . What was to be done with our press who met with rousing cheers every news of our defeat on the Japanese front?

The message on Nebuchadnezzars wall was You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Trump Mania is not a message, but a key, serving to obscure an underlying message.

The key (the accusations of the Left) disguises an underlying terroroperating here just as the near-psychotic, immobilized by a terrifying, free-floating anxiety, extemporizes specific phobias in an effort to gain some control.

It is not that I am losing my mind in unnameable panic, he thinks, but that Martians, or mice, food additives, or Jews are trying to destroy me.

The Lefts loathing of Trump differs from their other attempts at constructive phobia in this: He is not an event, a phenomenon, an attitude, or a group, but an actual human being.

He has supplanted previous attempted solutions to panic, but universal and vicious loathing comes close, in its virulence, to revealing the key, and thus the presence of an underlying code.

He is a mere human being who has the temerity to disregard the taboo.

In the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, some brave soul might speak up for one accused of witchcraft; but no one would have dared to say, and few to think, There is no such thing as witchcraft.

The Lefts hatred of Trump reveals their code. They here are like the ghoul Rumpelstiltskin, whose power disappeared when the victim said his name.

Trump is loathed because he is feared, and he is feared because he named the monster.

The Monster is the zeitgeist, that is to say, the Left.

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The Code and the Key - National Review

The Science Fiction Writer John Scalzi Readily Quits Reading – The New York Times

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The author, whose new novel is The Last Emperox, says, Life is short and there are many other books.

What books are on your nightstand?

I made a New Years resolution to spend more time reading than I do staring at Twitter, so as a result the turnover on the nightstand (including the books on my phone, which has a nightstand charging cradle) is pretty rapid right now. Currently there: All This Could Be Yours, by Jami Attenberg; Docile, by K. M. Szpara; Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson (reread); and, on the phone, Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Im sooo late); Uncommon Type, by Tom Hanks; and the upcoming The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), by Katie Mack, which Im reading in PDF galley form because the end of the universe is professionally relevant to me.

Whats the last great book you read?

In terms of books already generally acknowledged as great, that would be The Face of Battle, by John Keegan, which was one of the first serious books of military history to take on the history of battle from a grunts-eye view of things. The book was incredibly useful when I wrote Old Mans War, and I come back to it whenever I start researching for a military-oriented work. Im very bad at guessing which contemporary works will be seen as great books, and often I am deeply surprised which ones get the label over time.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

I bounced hard off Jane Austen growing up, but so many friends are so deeply in love with her writing and I have enjoyed her filmed adaptations enough that I thought Id give her another try. So I picked up Pride and Prejudice, and soon enough set it back down again. The problem is not her, its me: The rhythms of writing and speaking and even just how commas are used have changed enough that for me reading most pre-20th-century work feels like sitting on a lurching train, getting knocked about. Shes a great writer, without doubt, and also, not for me. I love her films, though (and much prefer the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice over the 1995 BBC mini-series, which is heresy).

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

In my office, on my chaise longue, with one of my cats on me, on a spring or fall day where the temperature is nice enough to have the windows open, and there is a nice breeze (and also Ive taken my Claritin for the day; I live in rural Ohio and we have all of the pollen). But honestly I can read just about anywhere, and have, and will again, just watch me.

Whats your favorite book no one else has heard of?

In science fiction: Raising the Stones, by Sheri S. Tepper, a quasi-sequel to her novel Grass (also exceptional, with Dune-level worldbuilding), which has very interesting things to say about masculinity and society, and is very sadly out of print. Grass, however, is in print. Get it.

What book should everybody read before the age of 21?

There is no single book everyone should read before age 21; there is, I suspect, the one right book for each person which, if they read it at a young age, makes them fall in love with reading for life. I endorse doing what we can to find that one book for each person, rather than stuffing the same book down everyones throat. With books, one size does not fit all.

What book should nobody read until the age of 40?

I mean, I grew up in a house where the rule for books was if you can reach it, you can read it, and used that same rule for my kid, so, meh, theres not one? There are books you bounce off of at 15 that speak to you at 40, and vice versa. The only way youre going to find them is to try them. Im not in love with segregating out books by age. Let books speak to readers.

Which writers novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets working today do you admire most?

Today? N. K. Jemisin (novelist), Alexandra Petri (journalist), Daniel Lavery (memoirist), Pamela Ribon (screenwriter/novelist), Roxane Gay (essayist/editor). Ask me again in a year. There are so many writers to admire, for their work and for who they are in the world.

Sci-fi writers are often writing about the present even when their books are set in the future. Who do you think gets the present (or the future!) particularly right?

Oy. Well, William Gibson seems to be doing a depressingly good job of calling out where the world is and is going; Charlie Stross gets the future of today so right that sometimes he has to rewrite his work-in-production because current events overtake his fiction; Mira Grants Newsflesh trilogy seems to be on point right about now, too, in terms of the politics and culture of this exact moment.

What do you read when youre working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

When I write fiction, I read nonfiction and generally avoid other fiction, for the simple reason that my brain will attempt to absorb the voice of the author and then output it through my typing fingers. This is not great for anyone. Several years ago I read a book of China Mivilles and then sat down to write a new chapter; what came out was dreadful, and not the good sort of dreadful that Mr. Miville is so adept at. I had to write about 3,000 words just to get back to me.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?

No. If theyre not hurting anyone, why feel guilty about ones pleasures? Why condescend to your own desires and belittle yourself that way? I write in a genre that for decades people felt like they had to make excuses for reading who benefits from that? Read what you like; like what you read. If someone tries to give you crap for it, its their problem, not yours.

Any comfort reads?

I reread James Clavells Shogun a lot when I travel; I tend to think of it as epic fantasy as I am unsure of its historical and cultural accuracy. Speaking of epic fantasy, Katherine Addisons The Goblin Emperor is always a joy to reread; I leaned on it a lot when creating my own unready imperial ruler for the Interdependency series, the last book of which is out very soon now. And I always have at least one Susan Orlean book on my phone for when Im stuck in the airport and in the mood for nonfiction; the current one I have at the ready is The Library Book. She writes books that are comforting and fascinating at the same time. Thats a good skill to have.

Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?

When I was younger I would give Mark Helprins Winters Tale to people I wanted to be better friends with (and/or I had a crush on); its a book so lovely on a sentence level that it took me six reads to focus on the story. Im still friends with most of the people I gave the book to, and married one of them, so thank you, Mr. Helprin?

Whats the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

That Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the original nice guy (used in the internet sense of the phrase, which means emphatically not), falling in love with women who werent interested in him, then turning into a creepy abusive jerk when rebuffed. (See: Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, by Andrew Shaffer.)

Which books got you hooked on speculative fiction? Are there any science fiction books you would elevate to the canon?

As a kid the three authors who served as my entryway to the genre were Madeleine LEngle (A Wrinkle in Time), Susan Cooper (The Dark Is Rising) and Robert A. Heinlein (Citizen of the Galaxy), who were writing books aimed at younger readers. Authors writing for younger readers, and the books that captivate those readers, often get dismissed as being part of the science fiction canon, which I find problematic for all sorts of reasons (the canon of speculative fiction is itself currently in for massive revision). If I were nominating for canon, Id look at Y.A.: J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter), Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games) and Scott Westerfeld (Uglies) are obvious candidates from the last couple of decades. Mind you, my vote wont count; the future of the specific canon will be decided by people younger than me.

Do you distinguish between commercial and literary fiction? Wheres that line, for you?

Theres no line between commercial and literary fiction; its a Venn diagram with considerable overlap. The best approximation I can make for literary fiction is simply fiction written (intentionally or not) for other writers, who will be paying attention to fiddly nuances other readers might not care about. But you can do that and still be massively commercial (and likewise intentionally write for a wide audience and still sell nothing). Ultimately no one knows anything and some books hit and no one can tell you why. Luck matters more than we like to admit.

How do you organize your books?

Organize?

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

I would be surprised that anyone would be surprised at any book I have on my shelf. I read widely and also publicly and frequently endorse reading as many different things as one can, so it shouldnt be surprising to find lots of different books in my home. Maybe people might look at me askance for Atlas Shrugged, since Ive written about how Ayn Rand valorizes a genocidal sociopath in John Galt, and I think its a really bad sign when ostensible adults take her philosophy seriously (and even worse when theyre elected to office). But Ill tell you what, Rand could make a pot boil; theres a reason her brand of nonsense sells.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

Voracious. Would, could and did read anything I could get my hands on, which set the tone for the rest of my life. Aside from previously mentioned writers and books, probably the most important book for me growing up was The Peoples Almanac, by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, which I consumed when I was 6 and sparked a love of knowing a little about a lot of things. Learning how to find out more came later.

If you were to write something besides speculative fiction, what would you write?

When I sat down to write my first novel, I couldnt decide between writing a science fiction novel and writing a crime/mystery novel, la Gregory Mcdonald (Fletch) and Carl Hiaasen. So I flipped a coin, and it came up heads, which was the side I chose for science fiction. I frequently wonder what my life would be like now if it had landed on tails. The good news (for me, anyway) is that I like my life and the people in it. And anyway, I write science fiction crime novels now my Lock In series so I get to have my literary cake and eat it too.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didnt? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

When I was a teenager, friends swore I would identify with Holden Caulfield, so I read The Catcher in the Rye and was furious my so-called friends thought I had anything in common with that entitled jerk. And I absolutely remember the last book I put down without finishing; it was last week. I frequently put down books Im not enjoying. Life is short and there are many other books. I dont publicly say which books they are; thats rude and someone else may love that same book.

Youre organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

See above, regarding the writers I admire. With that said, I am sorely sad I did not meet and converse with Molly Ivins, Roger Ebert and Nora Ephron when they were alive. I imagine a dinner party with all three at their respective heights would be delightful in every sense of the word.

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The Science Fiction Writer John Scalzi Readily Quits Reading - The New York Times

Betsy DeVos Prevents Future Larry Nassars By Nixing Obligation To Report Sexual Assault – Above the Law

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(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The NCAA isnot impressed with the Department of Educations new rules to better protect students from sexual harassment and assault under Title IX. Apparently, the organization is not convinced that limiting the number of mandatory reporters will magically make student athletes safer from sexual violence. And if the billion dollar non-profit that hoovers up cash selling athletes images while excommunicating them if they accept a free pair of sneakers is recoiling in horror, chances are the DOEs new rule is pretty bad.

As ESPNs Paula Lavigne notes, the changes finalized last week relieve coaches and athletic staff of the pesky obligation to report allegations of sexual abuse or assault the schools Title IX coordinator. Last year the Department fined Michigan State $4.5 million for systemic failure to address horrific abuse of gymnasts by Dr. Larry Nassar, and yet the new regulations seem to have been designed to create more people who can look the other way with impunity.

But Secretary DeVos has a perfectly good explanation for a rule that would have allowed Jim Jordan to (allegedly) chortle about wrestlers being molested by the Ohio State Universitys team doctor with no obligation to do anything about it, and it is AUTONOMY.

Every situation is unique, and individuals react to sexual harassment differently. Therefore, the Final Rule gives complainants control over the school-level response best meeting their needs. It respects complainants wishes and autonomy by giving them the clear choice to file a formal complaint, separate from the right to supportive measures. The Final Rule also provides a fair and impartial grievance process for complainants, and protects complainants from being coerced or threatened into participating in a grievance process.

Perish the thought that an athlete whose scholarship and athletic career are dependent on staying in the good graces of the coaching staff be coerced or threatened into participating in the grievance process by mandatory reporting requirements!

The new regs only impose the reporting obligation on staff who have authority to institute corrective measures, a power which schools can optionally confer on athletic staff. Clearly the Departments curriculum includes fantasy novels where organizations voluntarily increase the pool of staff members who can incur millions of dollars in federal fines and civil damages. Nevertheless, NCAA rules will still impose a reporting requirement on all collegiate athletic staff.

The campuses will retain the responsible employee mandatory reporter standard that they have because thats the better practice, W. Scott Lewis, co-founder of the Association of Title IX Administrators told ESPN.

The department is not under an obligation to conform these final regulations with NCAA compliance guidelines and declines to do so, sniffed the Department in its response. And then it went back to discussing a plan to protect students from sexual assault by passing out millions of copies of Atlas Shrugged, useful as a weapon to fend off an attackerand a paean to the vaunted autonomy Secretary DeVos values above all else.

New Title IX regulations change how colleges must respond to sexual misconduct complaints [ESPN] New Title IX regulations no longer require coaches to report sexual misconduct [Yahoo]

Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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Betsy DeVos Prevents Future Larry Nassars By Nixing Obligation To Report Sexual Assault - Above the Law

Marbled crayfish that reproduces by cloning added to Michigan’s prohibited species list – Detroit Free Press

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Associated Press Published 10:16 a.m. ET May 18, 2020

Marbled crayfish are named for the streaked or marbled appearance of the shell and claws.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Ranja Adriantsoa)

LANSING, Mich. A crayfish that reproduces by cloning has been added to Michigan's prohibited species list.

All known specimens of marbled crayfish are genetically identical females that can produce up to 700 eggs per reproductive cycle without the need for fertilization, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

The species' reproductive capacity and aggressive nature may allow them to dominate lakes, ponds and rivers quickly.

In captivity, marbled crayfish can exhibit a range of colors including blue or red. Most specimens found in the wild are olive to brown in color.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Mari-Liis Komets)

They have not been detected in the wild in Michigan, but the state said a single marbled crayfish that escapes captivity or is released into open water could have the potential of initiating an entire population. They feed on plants, snails and amphibians, limiting food sources for fish and other aquatic species.

Marbled crayfish, also known as virgin crayfish, are popular in the aquarium trade. They range from 4 to 5 inches long, have slender claws and feature a marbled coloration pattern on their backs.

More: Michigan DNR: Be careful when riding on off-road trails this spring

More: Yogi the black bear struck, killed by vehicle in western Michigan, police say

As part of Michigan's prohibited species list, they cannot be owned, introduced, imported, traded, sold or offered for sale as a live organism in Michigan, with few exceptions. Also, they shouldn't be flushed down the toilet.

"Disposing of marbled crayfish by releasing them into the wild should not be considered," said Lucas Nathan, DNR aquatic invasive species coordinator. "Their ability to move across land also increases their risk of spread."

The species' addition to the list aligns Michigan with the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers' list of "least wanted" aquatic invasive species that pose a serious threat to the environment and economy in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River region.

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Marbled crayfish that reproduces by cloning added to Michigan's prohibited species list - Detroit Free Press

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – How To Clone Any Item In The Game – TheGamer

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YouTuber BLAINES has discovered a method to duplicate any item in Animal Crossing: New Horizon sans bugs, fish, and similar items.

For players who want to speed up their Animal Crossing: New Horizons progression and dont mind using hacks, YouTuber BLAINES has discovered a method to duplicate any item in New Horizon sans bugs, fish, and similar items.

The hack utilizes the postbox glitch and requires having three users on your island and two Joy-Cons, so Switch Lite users might want to find another guide for duplicating items. To start BLAINESs method, make or use a second and tertiary player account so that there are three avatars on your New Horizons island.

Related: Animal Crossing: 15 Tips For Using Nook Miles

Send a letter to the secondary player from your primary account and attach the item you want to clone. This is where the two Joy-Cons come into play; control your primary character with one Joy-Con and your secondary with the other.

Go to the Call Resident app on your phone and call your secondary character. Once youve finished the initial calibration to get both characters moving independently, make the secondary character the leader and enter any building. This will refresh the secondary characters postbox.

Leave the building and collect the letter from the secondary characters postbox. Dont open the package yet! Make your primary character the leader, open up menus with the minus button and select the option to invite more residents to the game. This option only shows up with three or more users on the island, so make sure you have a tertiary character even if you dont use them in the course of this hack.

Invite the secondary character again. After the game reloads, change your leader back to the secondary character and wait for the autosave icon to pop up in the top right corner of the screen. Make sure youre not in your menus while waiting, as autosave doesnt work when the menus are open.

Once the autosave icon appears, hurry and claim the duplications from the secondary characters postbox because they can only be accessed within a time limit of about five minutes.

To continue duplicating, change your leader back to the primary character, go to menus to invite the secondary character to the game once more, and repeat as needed.

Happy cloning!

Source: YouTube

Next: When Each NPC Will Visit Your Island In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Codes For Naruto Outfits

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons - How To Clone Any Item In The Game - TheGamer

The Libertarian Party Critique of Justin Amash – Reason

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With less than two weeks left before 1,000 or so Libertarian Party delegates select their 2020 presidential and vice presidential nominees in an unprecedented online-only vote, you could probably forgive Jacob Hornberger for being a little irritable.

Hornberger, the 70-year-old founder of the Future of Freedom Foundation, has, after all, won a clear majority of the party's presidential primaries and caucuses, nonbinding though they may be. He has been in and out and back in Libertarian politics for more than two decades now. And yet ever since Rep. Justin Amash (LMich.) threw his hat into the ring on April 28, Hornberger has been all but ignored by the mainstream media, while Amash galivants on cable news networks and HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

So it came as little surprise Saturday night that when the formerly Republican and independent congressman participated in his first Libertarian presidential debate, it was Hornbergerauthor of an eight-part blog series titled, "Justin Amash, LP Interloper"who came out swinging hardest.

"Even the libertarian-leaning conservative members of Congress have websites that direct children to the website of the CIAthe most evil agency in U.S. history," Hornberger charged in his opening statement, reiterating his critique of a student resource page at amash.house.gov. "Conservatives love free enterprise, but have long supported the evil, immoral, socialist, central-planning, Republican/Democratic system of immigration controls, which has brought death and suffering to countless people, as well as a brutal police state consisting of highway checkpoints and other initiations of force against innocent people."

Running as he is a "campaign of principle for the party of principle," in a cycle where many Libertarians seem particularly eager to shed their image as a refuge for ideologically alienated and/or politically opportunistic ex-Republicans, Hornberger portrayed Amash as someone merely tinkering around the edges of the welfare/warfare state.

"Conservatives love to 'reform,'" he said. "But reform of tyranny is not freedom. Freedom is a dismantling of tyranny.In this election Libertarian Party members are asked to trade away our principles for a conservative/progressive/libertarian mush, all for the sake of big publicity and the hopes of garnering votes. If we make that trade, we become like them. We become conservatives and progressives. We become the party of expediency."

Those who assume Amash will waltz to a first-ballot nomination over Memorial Day weekend should take a look at the Libertarian Party of Kentucky's post-debate voting exercise among one-quarter of confirmed L.P. convention delegates. In the first round of polling, Amash received just 33.3 percent of the vote, compared to runner-up Hornberger's 21 percent. (The party requires winning candidates to earn 50 percent plus one vote, using an instant runoff process in which the last-place finisher in each round, and everyone under 5 percent, gets lopped off for the next.)

Amash eventually won the informal vote, but it took him six rounds. Here's how the totals went, as reported:

Round 1: Amash 33.3 percent, Hornberger 21 percent, Jo Jorgensen 16.6 percent, Vermin Supreme 7.7 percent, Judge Jim Gray 6.6 percent, Adam Kokesh 6.2 percent, John Monds 5 percent, Arvin Vohra 1.5 percent.

Round 2: Amash 35.1 percent, Hornberger 23.3 percent, Jorgensen 18.5 percent, Supreme 9.3 percent, Kokesh 7.7 percent, Gray 7 percent.

Round 3: Amash 37.3 percent, Hornberger 22.4 percent, Jorgensen 21.6 percent, Supreme 10.1 percent, Kokesh 8.6 percent.

Round 4: Amash 39.3 percent, Jorgensen 24.8 percent, Hornberger 22.9 percent, Supreme 13 percent.

Round 5: Amash 43.8 percent, Jorgensen 30.5 percent, Hornberger 25.7 percent.

Round 6: Amash 55.6 percent, Jorgensen 44.4 percent.

Jorgensen, the 1996 Libertarian vice presidential nominee who caught Hornberger from behind in Round 4 and eventually elbowed him out, is campaigning in a sort of third lane between the no-holds-barred radicalism of Hornberger and anarchist Adam Kokesh, and the more pragmatic approach favored by Amash and Judge Jim Gray. "I'm offering something that's principled and practical," she said in her closing statement Saturday night.

Jorgensen was the only other debate participant to significantly challenge Amash, albeit in a much less abrasive way than Hornberger (who said that he could not commit to endorsing the congressman should he win the nomination). In her opening statement, she asked Amash a series of questions, most of which he didn't address.

"Would you use your authority as commander-in-chief to end our involvement in foreign wars, stop subsidizing the defense of wealthy allies, and bring our troops home? I will," Jorgensen said. "Would youuse your pardon power to free people convicted of exposing government corruption, violating unconstitutional laws, or committing so-called crimes when there's no victim? I will. Would you immediately stop construction on President Trump's border wall boondoggle, and work to eliminate quotas on immigration so that anyone who wishes to come to America could do so legally? I will. And last, where do you stand on one of the most divisive issues in America: abortion? Do you support the Libertarian Party platform? I do. It's not enough to be better than Trump or Biden. Our nominee must be deeply principled with a long commitment to our party."

Amash did address abortion in the debate, saying at first: "I'm pro-life. I believe that the pro-life position is a Libertarian position, and my goal is to work outside of the Libertarian Party to convince people of that. I work with pregnancy resource centers, for example, here in West Michigan, to try to get the message out and spread the message about life. I don't think that the government is most effective at doing that sort of thing. As a president, the Libertarian Party supports the idea of not funding abortion providers. So, the Libertarian Party is aligned with my position on that."

Hornberger then grilled the congressman further:

Hornberger: You of course pride yourself on being a strict constitutionalist, a supporter of the Constitution. And you supported a bill that calledI think it was in the past couple of yearsthat called for a nationwide criminal ban on abortion, in which people who were caught engaging in an abortion would be convicted of a federal felony involving a five-year jail sentence. Can you tell me where in the Constitution you rely on to support this federal felony offense for abortion?

Amash: So I'm not sure about the particular bill you're referencing, because it was in the past and I don't know exactly which bill

Hornberger: It's House bill 36.

Amash: But I can answer the question. The 14th Amendment provides the power to have the federal government address state violations of people's rights. And as someone who's pro-life, I believe that a baby inside the womb is a life. And if I believe that that person is a life, then I think it's appropriate for the federal government to tell states that it is not okay to discriminate against these lives.

Now, as a presidential candidate, as a presidential nominee, I won't be making the legislation; the legislature will decide that. Congress decides on the legislation and sends things to my desk. With the parties very divided over this issue, nothing's going to come to my desk that does that.

That's my view of it, and when I'm voting in Congress, that's how I would vote. But as a presidential candidate, with respect to people who are concerned within the party because there is a split within the party between pro-life people and pro-choice people, the president will have very little opportunity for that kind of thing, because there is a huge divide within the party. So the only thing that is likely to come to my desk as president is a bill to not fund abortion providers, no federal funding for abortion providers, and that is something that all Libertarians within the party agree on. At least, the vast majority of them agree on that.

Hornberger's most influential backers, at the Libertarian Party Mises Caucus and on the podcasting airwaves, have dinged Amash for backing the "Deep State" in the impeachment of President Donald Trump (despite Amash's lead role in nearly de-funding the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations back in 2013), and for potentially being another in a lengthening line of ex-Republicans who fail to ignite a lasting ideological fire.

"I even think that in some scenarios 1 percent might be better than 4 percent," libertarian comedian Dave Smith said to Hornberger on an episode of his Part of the Problem podcast last month. "I think those votes are worthless if you didn't actually convert people or introduce them to liberty or change their way of looking at the world at all."

Or as Ludwig von Mises Institute senior fellow and popular podcaster Tom Woods, with whom Smith taped an Amash-criticizing podcast last week, said at a Mises Caucus-sponsored event down the street from the 2018 Libertarian National Convention: "So yeah, we won't get the 70 million votes, but maybe we get 1 million people who say, 'I never looked at the world the same way again after I listened to those people.'"

Amash's answer to the broad critique is to remind people that most Americans are not self-identified libertarians, no matter how intrinsically libertarian they may be without knowing it, and that political actors wishing to have any kind of influence need to acknowledge the fallen world around them.

"I've been a libertarian my entire life, a small-l libertarian," Amash said Saturday. "And I believe that when you work within government, you have to make those changes that will convince people to come to your side.You have to present libertarianism to them with the issues that they care about or are concerned about right now. It can't be some kind of overnight experiment where we re-work all of society or re-work all of our government."

"In fact," Amash continued, "that's arrogance in the form of central planning of another sort, to come in and say, 'We're just going to throw out everything we have overnight and start anew.' We have to do things gradually and carefully, and we have to trust the people to make decisions through our constitutional system of government."

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The Libertarian Party Critique of Justin Amash - Reason

Libertarian Group Sues Ohio Again On Behalf Of Closed Gyms – WOSU

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A group of 35 independent gyms and fitness centers is suing the state, saying they could reopen for business safely but theyre not being allowed to.

In a May 11 filing with the Lake County Court of Common Please, attorney Maurice Thompson argued that gyms "pose a significantly lower risk of harmful infections than nearly any alternative operation."

He said the gyms maintain private memberships, control who can come in and often operate by appointment. He added that, while "nearly 100% of deaths" from COVID-19 are people over 60, the same percentage of his clients' customers are under that age.

Thompson argued these gyms should never have been closed because they could have been operating safely all along.

"In prohibiting healthy behavior through exercise at Ohio gyms, Defendants continue to obstruct rather than advance Ohioans health, all the while having continuously overinflated the risk of harm to the general public," the complaint reads.

The lawsuit names Ohio Department of Health director Amy Acton and the Lake County General Health District as defendants.

Thompsons libertarian 1851 Center for Constitutional Lawfiled an earlier suit for a Columbus bridal shopclaiming it was unfairly shut down as a non-essential business. Thompson lost that case, but says this one is even stronger because the original stay-at-home order has changed.

The newStay Safe Ohio order, in basically opening80% of the economyand leaving gyms out, is much more arbitrary and much more unequal," Thompson says.

Asked about the lawsuit, Gov. Mike DeWine said he gets "sued a lot." On Thursday, the governor announced that gyms and fitness centers would be able to reopen May 26, with new guidelines developed by a state working group.

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Libertarian Group Sues Ohio Again On Behalf Of Closed Gyms - WOSU

Prisons and class war – Workers World

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This is a slightly edited version of a talk given during the What Road To Socialism? webinar held by Workers World Party on May 16.

Abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore lays out in her book, Golden Gulag, the political climate in the state of California that gave rise to prison expansion. California had an incredibly huge and diverse economy preceding its prison boom, in which the number of people behind bars increased 450 percent between the 1980s and early 2000s.

Prior to this prison boom, California in the 1970s saw heavy policing and the end of the Vietnam war. There was high unemployment and high inflation. The series of crises coming out of this period produced all kinds of surpluses of workers, land, finance capital, as well as a surplus of state capacity that was rapidly shifting from social welfare to domestic warfare.

Even as crime began to slow, societal production was being arranged around prison expansion. Republicans and Democrats alike were being elected on the false premise that they could keep people safe by locking up criminals. But we know that just exacerbates existing inequalities, disappears people and destroys communities.

According to the Sentencing Project, 70 million people in the U.S. are living with criminal convictions. Simply because theyve been convicted of a crime, the majority of these people are barred from holding most jobs. Added to this are the 10 million workers, estimated by Pew Research, who are not documented to work in the U.S. because they are migrants. The sum total, 80 million people, is nearly half of the U.S. labor force, mostly people of color, but also one-third white, who are criminalized in ways that are detrimental to all working people.

New Orleans: historic strike

In New Orleans, sanitation workers are now on a historic strike asking for hazard pay and protective gear. Instead of having their demands met, they have been replaced by incarcerated workers who will be paid at most 13 percent of the sanitation workers hourly pay of $10.25, or $1.33 per hour under state law, and will likely not receive adequate protection either. (Payday Report, May 9) This effectively pits already exploited sectors of our class against one another.

Wilson Gilmore describes the structure of racism as vulnerability to premature death, which we see so starkly in this period of the global pandemic. Those with access to centuries of stolen resources are generally able to skirt spaces where they would come into contact with the virus and other life-shortening mechanisms like lack of access to health care.

In our organizing as the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, one of the only groups in our state that opposes the use of capital punishment on the political grounds that its use is structurally both racist and anti-poor, this phrase often comes up: Those who dont have the capital, get the punishment!

In places like Texas, the killing capital of the country, which leads in the number of legal lynchings, we feel the afterlives of enslavement embedded into the social order of control known as mass criminalization. From the plantations during slavery to convict leasing of labor to modern-day prisons, this oppression has existed.

While we acknowledge that people of color are disproportionately affected by these institutions, Wilson Gilmore said, [A]nti-criminalization and effects of perpetual punishment have to be central to any kind of political, economic change that benefits working people and their communities, or benefits poor people, whether or not theyre working, and their communities. (Prisons and Class Warfare, interview, historicalmaterialism.org, Aug. 2, 2018)

What has happened in California is different from what has occurred in Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere. And in the 38 countries where the U.S. has had its hand in shaping policing and prisons. These differences mean local assessments are needed.

Revolution and abolition are ongoing processes. We must not stop remaking ourselves and the world. Otherwise, we risk shifting or mutating the means of colonial and capitalist world-making further into the future. Abolition of these institutions is about presence and the connections and structures we build with one another along the way. Abolition is a theory of social change; it is a strategy, and its about making things.

Abolitionists use tactics like divestment campaigns, prison moratoriums and building a caring community, by shifting the fruits of our labor to address the root causes of harm and suffering.

United struggle blocks new prisons

One of the many ways California abolitionists were able to halt the states self-described biggest [prison system] in the history of the world was by aligning against powerful governors and prison guard unions and by organizing the California State Employees Association, which is part of an enormous public sector union in the state.

Together abolitionists and workers slowed down a state that had opened a prison every year for 23 years almost to a halt where it only opened one prison between 1999 and 2011. They made it impossible for new jails and prisons to be constructed.

All the different sectors of our collective class are bound to one another. Our liberation lives on in our ability to use all levers and all tactics to work across and with the things that make us different. Our liberation is bound to unemployed people, undocumented workers, incarcerated workers and to each other.

A broad understanding of class and the myriad interlocking oppressions working against us is necessary in our fight to resist mass criminalization and the further categorizing of people into more easily conquerable sectors. An injury to one is an injury to all.

As Audre Lorde said, Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instance, it is learning to address each others differences with respect. (Learning from the 60s, speech, Malcolm X commemoration weekend, Harvard University, February 1982)

Crissman (they/them) is a member of the WWP Houston branch and a co-editor of Tear Down the Walls, the prisoner page of WW newspaper. They write and organize around prison abolition, anti-imperialism and the environment.

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Prisons and class war - Workers World

From the Archives (May 19, 1970): Keep pace with the times, says PM – The Hindu

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The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi has initiated discussions on a strictly personal basis with the leading princes who are being called to Delhi one by one to meet her on the abolition of their purses and privileges. She has already met more than 20 top ranking princes and the Maharaja of Mysore will be seeing her to-morrow [May 19]. The Nizam also is expected to be summoned after she has done the necessary spade work for coming to grips with the question of compensation.

In her talks, Mrs. Gandhi has been taking the line that the princes should appreciate the compelling political circumstances that led to the decision to abolish their privy purses. She has also been trying to impress upon them that in their own interest they should fully co-operate with her in ensuring that there was a strong Government at the Centre which was capable of taking a generous attitude on the question of compensation in the face of political opposition.

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From the Archives (May 19, 1970): Keep pace with the times, says PM - The Hindu

Australian university union agrees to unprecedented pay and job cuts – World Socialist Web Site

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Australian university union agrees to unprecedented pay and job cuts By Mike Head 13 May 2020

After weeks of backroom negotiations with the employers, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) today released a heads of agreement that allows university managements to cut wages by up to 15 percent and destroy thousands of jobs, including by forced redundancies.

The agreement shatters the NTEUs claim that it volunteered sacrifices of wages and conditions to protect jobs from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In giving carte blanche to the employers, the deal goes far beyond anything previously suggested to NTEU members.

The outrage of university workers, already shocked by the NTEU rushing in to these talks, behind their backs, will intensify as the full details of the unions deal become known and as individual universities and their NTEU branches move to inflict its terms, institution by institution.

In a media release, the NTEU claimed a great victory: Landmark agreement preserves 12,000 jobs and hard won university conditions.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Wages can be cut by up to 15 percent, even exceeding the 10 percent cuts previously mentioned at an NTEU national council meeting. So-called Category B universities only have to claim a 10 percent reduction in revenue to inflict a 15 percent cut, while Category A institutions that claim a 5 percent fall can cut wages by 10 percent. Only $30,000 of a wage is exempt from these reductions.

In an email to NTEU members this morning, national president Alison Barnes claimed that the Jobs Protection Framework will: Save at least 12,000 jobs nationally, Limit redundancies and prevent stand-downs without pay and Help casual and fixed-term staff to regain and retain their work.

These are all patent lies. According to point 2 of the National Memorandum of Understanding: The Parties estimate that this package will save in the vicinity of 10,000 to 12,000 jobs of university employees if implemented in full across the Australian university sector.

That is, if the union foists on its members all the cost-cutting measures permitted by the deal, perhaps in the vicinity of 10,000 jobs might be savedout of an estimated 30,000 being eliminated.

The same goes for mass sackings. By paragraph 44 of the heads of agreement, forced redundancies are permitted due to a reduction in work. This can include where a university is permanently abolishing a substantial work function (such as the abolition of a discipline) or closing a campus, or where there is a surplus of employees due to insufficiency of work in a particular work unit or function.

Likewise with the axing of casuals and contract workers, thousands of whom have already had their jobs eliminated over the past six weeks. Paragraphs 33 and 34 of the agreement say that where their work has reduced as a result of the impact of COVID-19, they will have first order of preference to resume that work. Yet, many of these jobs will never resume because of the long-term impact of the global pandemic and because universities are pressuring full-time employees to work overload, in violation of workplace agreements, in order to replace casuals and contract workers.

Contrary to Barness email, large-scale stand-downs are also permitted. Paragraph 36 accepts the use of section 524 of the Fair Work Act to stand down employees due to an alleged stoppage of work, and allows managements to cut their pay by up to 50 percent for the duration of the stand-down, as long as the university has supposedly exhausted all options for other work to be performed.

Many similar clauses exist, for example, allowing universities to increase workloads and force the taking of annual and long service leave.

The NTEU, which has collaborated with university managements for decades, will become fully integrated at all levels as a formal partner in policing this agreement against its members. Both parties will nominate three people to form a National Expert Panel to oversee the deals implementation. Local NTEU branches will join COVID-19 Temporary Measures Committees to approve change management processes, that is, wholesale cuts.

The NTEU claims that these concessions are time-limited, with an end date of June 30 next year, but the crisis triggered by the pandemic and the response of governments will last far longer. Universities Australia has predicted losses totalling $19 billion over the next three years alone. This is primarily due to the loss of income from international students, whom universities have exploited as cash cows for years to offset punishing cuts in funding by Labor-Greens and Liberal-National governments alike.

For weeks, the NTEU has blocked all action by university workers to fight this onslaught, including by invoking the threat of huge fines under the Fair Work Act, while holding out the prospect of a job protection framework.

This fraud is now fully exposed. Universities are already moving to exploit the heads of agreement. La Trobe University vice chancellor, John Dewar, one of the signatories to the deal with the NTEU, sent an email to staff declaring that up to 800 jobs, or nearly a quarter of the workforce, will go, depending on how the management saves by pay cuts, voluntary redundancies and restructuring.

Having spent two years locking university workers into the latest round of enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs)which the NTEU also hailed as victoriesthe union is working hand-in-glove with individual managements to tear up anything in these EBAs that stands in the way of the unprecedented attack on pay and conditions.

While variations to EBAs must go to ballots under the Fair Work Act, there is nothing democratic about this process. University workers and students are being presented with a fait accompli.

This is not an aberration. The NTEUs agreement fulfills the pledge offered last month by Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus that the unions would give employers everything they want in response to the pandemic. These are not working class organisations but thoroughly pro-capitalist apparatuses enforcing the requirements of the corporate elite.

Barnes told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Our union intervened to prevent the collapse of tertiary education in Australia and secure the livelihoods of 12,000 university workers. Far from the livelihoods of workers, the NTEUs concern is to prop up the tertiary education industry, which is one of Australian capitalisms biggest money-spinners, worth more than $30 billion a year in revenues.

Even before todays announcement, there was widespread opposition to the unions betrayal, partially reflected in several NTEU branch resolutions opposing concessions. Pseudo-left groups are trying to head off a revolt against the union by circulating petitions and calls for an NTEU day of action. They are peddling illusions that this same union will lead a fight against the federal governments funding cuts.

These groups are trying desperately to prop up the NTEU and keep workers trapped in the pro-capitalist framework of the trade unions. Their petition advises the NTEU to at least put up a show of resistance. The union cannot be seen to be bargaining away our pay and conditions, it has to fight for them, it states.

In order to defeat this wholesale assault, Committee for Public Education (CFPE) and Socialist Equality Party members have spoken at union branch meetings to expose the role of the NTEU, oppose all concessions and outline the necessity for a totally opposed perspective: The struggle to completely reorganise society along socialist lines, including the allocation of billions of dollars to public education, instead of big business and the wealthy elite being bailed out by huge rescue packages.

This means breaking from the NTEUs pro-capitalist straitjacket and forming new rank-and-file committees of workers and students. To take forward this discussion and organise a fight against the NTEU sellout, the CFPE is holding an online forum this Sunday, May 17, at 4 pm: The COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in the universities.

To participate contact the CFPE Facebook page or email the SEP at sep@sep.org.au, or click on this Zoom link just before 4 pm on Sunday: https://zoom.us/j/94447278547

The author also recommends:

Australian university union continues sellout talks despite members anger [27 April 2020]

Australian university union in backroom talks to slash jobs and conditions amid COVID-19 pandemic [14 April 2020]

A socialist program needed to halt assault on university students and staff [14 May 2019]

We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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Australian university union agrees to unprecedented pay and job cuts - World Socialist Web Site

Keeping options open, UP migrants hope CM gives them jobs at home – Economic Times

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LUCKNOW: Back to their native state in Uttar Pradesh, migrant workers from different parts of the country stare at an uncertain future. At the Charbagh railway station in Lucknow, where hundreds of workers had just de-boarded trains running from Maharashtra and Gujarat, most said they would stay put in their villages at least till the pandemic is not reined in even though the lockdown is easing and industries are allowed to resume work selectively. Others, who had been ill-treated in the states they worked in, swore to never go back even if they earn less in UP.

Returning to their home state after a long time, they were also open to new employment opportunities that perhaps did not exist when they had left their villages for a better future in western states. Their decisions would also be affected by whether they had a security net at home a farm land they owned or any other small business that their family was engaged in and their respective prospects. What tied the experiences of everyone together, however, was an obvious drying up of resources that pushed them to head home.

Sohan, hailing originally from Kannauj, worked at the Maruti Suzuki factory at Mehsana in Gujarat. For him, the two months of lockdown spelt an ordeal that has made him decide not to go back, ever. After 60 days of hunger and no help from the government, I have decided I will not go back ever to Gujarat. If I have to go I may go to nearby cities like Delhi but never to Gujarat, he said.

Sohams family comprises his parents, wife, kids and a brother, and the family owns 3 bigha land where they grow potatoes and wheat. After making Rs 12,000 a month on average, he would send Rs 8,000-9,000 every month home. But the lack of help from contractors affected him and the final nail was struck by the government which charged him and others Rs 800 for their ticket back. I had two cheap phones I managed to sell one as nobody was even willing to buy and sold other utensils that I had to a kabadi wala to arrange for the tickets, he said.

Others who did not own any land or farm, like Rohit Kumar from Fatehpur, who worked as a fabrication worker in Pune, now look upon the UP government to provide some work. If the UP chief minister gives us work, we would never want to go back, Kumar said, even as he kept the door open to return if things normalise. Manoj Kumar , who had a tea stall in Pune for last 6 years said even if they earn 10 in UP instead of 15 elsewhere it would be nice to stay in their own state and work. Rohit also particularly mentioned that while the Maharashtra government did not charge them for tickets, all the food packets distributed on their journey would get exhausted at the doors of the compartments and would rarely reach the middle of the train coach where they sat.

Squeezed of the last of their little savings, returning would also require building some buffer they can dip into to pay rent, especially for cities in Maharashtra.

Mahaveer Varma, who hails from Unnao and has been working in Mumbai since 1981 in a private firm, said in a matter of fact way that at least for the next four-six months there is no sign of returning. He said there is a reason why people flocked to these cities and if there is no option one would have to head to those towns again but not before one can earn some money in their native states that would take care of the rent there when they go back. Varma said apart from 5 kg of rice that was given only once in two months, there had been no help forthcoming from the government.

Meanwhile, the UP government, which has received more than 16,00,000 workers since March 1, is preparing to employ them in large numbers, for which abolition of labour laws has been one step, besides measures such as work under MGNREGA, boosting micro, small and medium enterprises to employ more and encouraging women self-help groups.

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Keeping options open, UP migrants hope CM gives them jobs at home - Economic Times

Fraser adapts to new reality as innovation is born from crisis – Press and Journal

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Each week we ask small businesses key questions. Here we speak to Fraser Campbell, founder and managing director of Drumnadrochit company Cobbs.

After working as a kitchen porter at Kingsmills Hotel in Inverness I followed my parents into hotel management, going on to buy Glenavon Hotel in Craigellachie and then a business in Perthshire.

My old friend Willie Cameron, aka Mr Loch Ness, then pointed me in the direction of the Drumnadrochit Hotel and a small bakery business in the village. I started supplying Urquhart Castle visitor centre and Cobbs Cakes was born.

By focusing on quality and value for money, giving my all to my work and seizing great opportunities that come my way, even if it means diversifying away from the core business. Diversification has never been more important than now.

Over the years we have transformed Cobbs Cakes into the Cobbs Group and, in addition to the bakery, we now own four hotels, 20 coffee shops and seven tourist retail businesses.

Everything was growing and developing smoothly until Covid-19, when a business that had taken 25 years to build crashed overnight, with turnover hitting zero almost instantly.

It quickly became apparent to the executive chef and general manager at our Loch Ness House Hotel that while foodservice companies supplying tourism and hospitality businesses were being left with massive stocks of unsold food on the one hand, supermarkets were selling out of key items on the other.

Also, many people especially the elderly and infirm were having difficulty shopping safely.

We quickly set up home-cooked meal and affordable hamper delivery services and now sell meat, fish and fruit packed and ready for safe collection at agreed times and for less than customers would pay in supermarkets.

This week, we are also launching both our new Spar grocery store in Loch Ness Clansman Hotel and very proudly our new online shop, allowing people to buy our hampers, takeaway meals and vouchers to be used with us next year once everything has opened up again.

This will keep the business afloat and some staff in employment, while serving the community and supporting local businesses and producers.

Out of crisis comes innovation and the creation of a business that benefits all.

Our new mantra is a few small steps every day.

My family and fellow directors are extremely supportive and Cobbs is very much a family affair, with my wife Jackie and son Daniel both heavily involved.

Federation of Small Businesses membership has given me the opportunity to share and learn from the experiences of other self-employed people and I am proud to have some great older, highly experienced hotel managers as mentors.

There is no doubt that our biggest crisis is Covid-19 and the biggest mistake imaginable would be to sit back and fail to adapt to changing circumstances.

In Ireland on business, I overheard the couple in front of me in a coffee shop queue ordering afternoon tea and asking the server for a portion of Cobbs Date Slice by name. That recognition was a tremendous achievement and made me very proud.

I would not relish being in government right now but, if I was, my immediate priorities would be: The abolition of the 51,000 ceiling for grant assistance; a reimbursement of last years rates to all businesses; the establishment of a landlord fund; the abolition of VAT and rates for 12 months; councils being obliged to work more closely with private enterprise in the running of their commercial facilities; and insurance companies being obliged to give payment holidays during lockdown.

To survive the current crisis, changed but in good heart and ready to face the challenges of tomorrow.

Enjoy quality time with my family.

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Fraser adapts to new reality as innovation is born from crisis - Press and Journal

Ensure That Changes to Indian Labour Laws Adhere to Global Standards: ILO – The Wire

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New Delhi: The International Labour Organisation (ILO), responding to the sweeping changes in labour laws proposed by state governments, has asked the authorities to ensure that all such relaxations adhere to global standards and are effected after proper consultation.

Certain states in India are moving towards relaxing labour laws with a view to revitalise the economy from the impact of COVID-19. Such amendments should emanate from tripartite consultation involving the government, the workers and the employers organisations and be compliant with the international labour standards, including the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (FPRW), the ILO said in statement released on Wednesday, in response to a set of questions sent by Business Standard.

The ILO added that labour laws protect the well-being of both employers and workers and called for collective efforts and solidarity between the government, employers and workers. They (labour laws) are an important means to advance social justice and promote decent work for all, it said.

The ILO had in April estimated that around 400 million workers were at a risk of slipping into poverty because of a stringent nationwide lockdown implemented to control the spread of coronavirus.

Subsequently, some states announced relaxing or doing away with major labour laws to attract investment. The Uttar Pradesh government has proposed an Ordinance exempting firms from almost all labour laws for the next three years. The Gujarat government has announced that it will follow in UPs footsteps and allow new companies setting up shops over the next 1,200 days to be exempt from major labour laws.

Also read: Crushing Labour Laws Amidst Successive Industrial Accidents Is Serious Insult to Injury

The Madhya Pradesh government has notified changes in labour laws to do away with the need to avail multiple licences for hiring contract workers and setting up factories. It has exempted firms from various welfare provisions under the Factories Act, 1948, along with replacing inspections with third-party certification and giving exemptions from industrial relations laws.

India is one of the founding members of the ILO, which came into existence in 1919. The Indian parliament has ratified 47 conventions of the ILO, some of which relate to working hours, labour inspections, equal remuneration, and compensation in case of injuries, among others.

Central trade unions in India had termed states changes an inhuman crime, which they said was in gross violation of the ILOs conventions, including that on holding tripartite dialogues. The unions said that they were seriously considering lodging a complaint with the ILO. Trade union leaders have said the ILO has the power to impose sanctions on a country for violation of its conventions.

COVID-19 has jeopardised the health and safety of millions of people across India, and put immense pressure on businesses, jobs, and livelihoods. The country is making efforts to flatten the upward curve of infection. National and state-level measures to provide income and social security support to workers, and to revitalise businesses and the economy have been advanced on priority, the ILOs statement said.

The ILOs declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work was adopted by India in 1998. All members of the ILO have to respect and promote the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced or compulsory labour, the abolition of child labour and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Watch: UP Labour Law Ordinance: An Attempt at Labour Exploitation, India Pushed Back to 19th Century

The ILO advised that any policy response should ensure recovery through fiscal and monetary stimulus measures, support to enterprises, jobs and income through social protection, retention and financial relief to companies along with ensuring that workers needs be protected by strengthening occupational safety and health measures. It further said the most important element was to strengthen the social dialogue, collective bargaining, labour relation institutions and process for implementing solutions.

In UP, provisions related to minimum wages, timely payment of wages and safety provisions under the Factories Act, 1948 and Building (and Other Construction Workers) Act, 1996 will continue to apply to all firms, according to the draft ordinance, which is pending approval from the president.

By arrangement with Business Standard.

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Ensure That Changes to Indian Labour Laws Adhere to Global Standards: ILO - The Wire

Large areas of London to be made car-free as lockdown eased – The Guardian

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Large areas of London are to be closed to cars and vans to allow people to walk and cycle safely as the coronavirus lockdown is eased, Sadiq Khan has announced.

In one of the biggest car-free initiatives of any city in the world, the capitals mayor announced on Friday that main streets between between London Bridge and Shoreditch, Euston and Waterloo, and Old Street and Holborn, will be limited to buses, pedestrians and cyclists.

Officials said they were working with boroughs to implement similar restrictions on the minor roads they manage within the area. Cars and lorries may also be banned from Waterloo Bridge and London Bridge.

Experts say it is crucial to encourage walking and cycling as people return to work because physical distancing is impossible on crowded transport and a surge in car use would cause gridlock and an increase in air pollution.

Khan said Covid-19 posed the biggest challenge to Londons public transport network in Transport for Londons history.

He added: It will take a monumental effort from all Londoners to maintain safe social distancing on public transport as lockdown restrictions are gradually eased.

That means we have to keep the number of people using public transport as low as possible. And we cant see journeys formerly taken on public transport replaced with car usage because our roads would immediately become unusably blocked and toxic air pollution would soar.

Work on the road closures will begin immediately and officials say it should be completed within six weeks.

As part of the plans to limit car use, Khan has also reintroduced the congestion charge, which will go up from 11.50 to 15, and Ultra Low Emission Zone and Low Emission Zone. To support NHS staff, the congestion charge reimbursement scheme is being extended and will also be open to care home workers.

Transport for London is also to temporarily stop free travel for children and charge over-60s to travel at peak times as well as increase fares as part of a deal to secure a 1.6bn bailout from the government.

Angus Satow from Labour for a Green New Deal warned this would have a big impact on some of Londons most vulnerable residents.

Its great to see parts of London going car-free. But the Tories are forcing a TfL bailout which hikes fares, removes travel for under 18s and reduces the rights of disabled and elderly people ... The demand should be for full public funding of TfL and lowering or even the abolition of fares.

Khan warned people the changes would be disruptive. If we want to make transport in London safe, and keep London globally competitive, then we have no choice but to rapidly repurpose Londons streets for people.

By ensuring our citys recovery is green, we will also tackle our toxic air, which is vital to make sure we dont replace one public health crisis with another. I urge all boroughs to work with us to make this possible.

He said he fully appreciated the difficulties the move may cause for some Londoners. It will mean a fundamental reimagining how we live our lives in this city. And this transformation will not be smooth. But I promise to be as clear and upfront with Londoners as possible about what we are doing, why and exactly what we need from you in order to keep us safe.

Many cities have already announced measures to improve walking and cycling and support a low-carbon, sustainable recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

Milan has introduced one of Europes most ambitious cycling and walking schemes, with 22 miles of streets to be transformed over the summer. In Paris, the mayor has allocated 300m for a network of cycle lanes, many of which will follow existing metro lines, to offer an alternative to public transport.

In Bogot, the Colombian capital, a 75-mile network of streets usually turned over to bicycles one day a week will now be traffic-free all week, and a further 47 miles of bike lanes are being opened to reduce crowding on public transport and improve air quality.

In the UK, the Scottish government has announced 10m to create pop-up walking and cycling routes, and Manchester has unveiled plans to pedestrianise part of Deansgate in the city centre.

But David Miller, from the C40 Cities Climate Leadership group, which has been coordinating much of the response, said Khans plans stood out.

Congratulations to Khan for showing the world what is possible when we reimagine our cities for the benefit and health of everyone, he said.

These measures announced in London today, including major car-free zones, will clean the air that Londoners breathe, improve public health both during the Covid-19 pandemic and long into the future, while also helping to avert the climate crisis. This is the future we want.

Doug Parr, from Greenpeace, welcomed what he said was an ambitious project.

Not only will transforming our streets in a way that prioritises pedestrians and cyclists, and makes it safer for people to move about as lockdown restrictions are eased, but by permanently restricting car use we can keep toxic pollution from filling our air once again, he said.

Theo Highland from Sustrans said the initiative was a potential game-changer in efforts to encourage walking and cycling. He called on boroughs across the capital to follow suit. All boroughs must now make the changes our streets need to give Londoners space to move around safely and build our spirited citys resilience as we begin to bounce back from this pandemic.

Air pollution campaigners also welcomed the initiative. Jemima Hartshorn, founder of Mums for Lungs, said she was delighted. We need pollution levels to stay reduced because pre-corona levels, caused primarily by traffic, stunt lung growth and are linked to many illnesses, from cancer to diabetes.

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Large areas of London to be made car-free as lockdown eased - The Guardian

Coronavirus spotlight: has Britain (and the world) really learned anything from this crisis? – HeraldScotland

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Will things ever be the same again? Do we want them to be? When the pandemic passes and the wind has blown away the last discarded streamer and speck of confetti from the street parties, do we return to the way it was? Has death and our brush with it changed anything and do we even want it to?

The world as it is came about through a long process of thinking, of ideas, often competing ones, and the only way it will change is by thinking a different one. As someone said, a new world is possible.

Political animals, like the feline one, dont willingly change their spots or colours. But some new truths have been rammed into the ruling ideology, that there are essential workers without whom the masters of the universe would plummet to the Earth, the captains of industry would run aground. Its the nurses, the doctors, the cleansing workers and cleaners, the drivers, the transport and agricultural workers, those on minimum wage and below who make it all work. This much is now a given. They wont put up with being overlooked again.

Another truth to emerge is that state intervention, much derided and abjured in the past, is crucial to any economy. Trillions of dollars poured into businesses and pockets in the US, the crucible of capitalism, billions of pounds here, the absence of which would have made the Great Recession, or Black Monday seem like VE Day. Massive public investment is keeping people alive and, without it, it is very probable there would be open revolt.

In the last few days the UK Government has suggested there will have to be a new austerity, that the same people who always pay those same ones who make it work will have to do so again. That surely would be a grave miscalculation. Boris Johnson will be reminded that hes only here because of those people although the promised 350 million a week for the NHS emblazoned on that red bus he sprang from will be parked somewhere.

There are historical precedents for pandemics and the changes they brought. The Black Death in the 14th century swept through Britain, Europe and Asia, killing around 60% of the population. Because of our climate and sparse population we werent badly hit by comparison with the rest of the UK. We were quick to take advantage of it, however, raiding Durham in 1349 and perhaps bringing the disease back with the booty.

But the decimation of the population gave agricultural workers strong bargaining powers, enhancing their rights and leading to the abolition of feudalism. Workers wages rocketed even as GDP fell.

The influenza epidemic of 1918, in the wake of the First World War, may have killed 100 million worldwide but again the shortages of labour led to wage hikes, a baby boom and a jump in life expectancy. It also heralded the creation of the National Health Service. A new Ministry of Health in Britain after the war commissioned a report from Lord Dawson which, in 1920, recommended a single health system, which was to take almost 30 years and a Labour government to come to pass.

As the Canadian historian Susan Smith has said about the present one: A crisis like this is a reminder of why a universal healthcare system is so essential.

There was a different kind of pandemic in 2007-08, a global financial one. Again states pumped massively into financial institutions, leading to increased government borrowing. This was a political stick the Conservatives used to beat the then Labour government and win power. In the unlikely event that is tried again it will turn out to be a rubber one.

It led to nearly a decade of austerity which, in the last few days, the UK Government has hinted may be reintroduced, so far without committing to tax increases on the wealthy. It is difficult to believe that the ones who bore the brunt of it before, the poorest, will accept it again.

The crisis has also shown the weakness, the unpreparedness and the lamentable lack of action by the EU in helping its member states. It was only two days ago that an agreement was reached for a 100 billion loan fund to keep workers in their jobs. National borders have gone up as countries have dealt with their own internal traumas and who can say how that will play out politically? Whatever your view on Brexit, the EU now appears a less desirable destination.

So what now? The SNP, in what will surely be a plank in any forthcoming referendum campaign, are working on a universal basic income for all an idea that might have been ridiculed in December but now looks of its time.

An influential group of almost 200 Dutch economists have also proposed a new, and radical, economic model, with five main strands. Instead of GDP growth they propose a model which distinguishes between sectors, with the beneficial and public clean energy, care, education and so on to be allowed to grow with direct investment and the unsustainable (oil and gas, mining etc) shrunk.

They also call for an economic policy based on redistribution, a universal basic income, taxes on income, profit and wealth, the bolstering of health and care services, and education. Agriculture would embrace biodiversity and sustainability, trade would be reduced and debt cancelled, not just for employees but to debt-laden developing countries.

Blue sky, or just wishful thinking? Interestingly, and perhaps a faint signal of change, the arch-capitalist investment group, Macquarie Wealth, told its investors: Conventional capitalism is dying, or at least mutating into something closer to a version of Communism.

Well, probably not. What are some safer predictions about our post-virus world (at least until the next one emerges)?

There will certainly be considerably more working from home, which will slightly mitigate transport pollution, as well as a boost in online education. The pace of the introduction of robots in industry will also surge, and we will become even more tech-dependent in the home.

The high street will take further blows as more shopping is done online. Jeff Bezos and Amazon arent going to suffer any time soon.

Airline travel will decrease, certainly in the medium term, and several airlines may go under. Checks at airports will be even lengthier and more involved which will also be a disincentive. Prices, too, will probably rise.

The lockdown on industry, with less travelling, has reduced the levels of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere, and if anything advances the case for a carbon-free future this is the evidence. However, there are powerful vested interests, particularly in the States, who will fight this to the last gasping breath, aided by Donald Trump. Greta Thunberg will be dipping out of school again soon.

Global trade will survive but companies will try to shorten their supply lines as much as they can. Trade could shrink by up to one-third and whether it bounces back is complicated by Brexit, if a trade deal is struck with the EU, and with the United States.

Notwithstanding the physical casualties of Covid-19 it hasnt killed off global tensions. The US administration is becoming even more belligerent to China, Venezuela is in the firing line, as is Iran, and the Middle East could erupt once more.

When the present crisis is over we might simply be back in the old one.

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Coronavirus spotlight: has Britain (and the world) really learned anything from this crisis? - HeraldScotland

Pizzas and haircuts back on the menu, but with warnings – Hindustan Times

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Venice geared up to receive tourists, Milans pizzerias prepared for hungry customers and Australians went out to eat for the first time in weeks Saturday, but the reopening of restaurants, pubs and cafes came with a warning: Dont overdo it.

Public health experts urged caution as governments eased restrictions on eateries, shops and parks in many countries and rolled out measures to restart dormant factories. The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 300,000 people worldwide, has slowed in many places but could pick up again if precautions are not taken or officials move too quickly to get people back to work.

The message is, yes, appreciate all the efforts, appreciate the opportunity to release some of those measures, but lets not have a party, lets not go to town, said Tony Bartone, president of the Australian Medical Association.

Most restaurants are limited to 10 customers at a time, and Bartone said people must maintain social distance, follow coughing etiquette, wash their hands regularly and stay away from others if they are ill.

In New Zealand, even Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her fiance, Clarke Gayford, were initially turned away for Saturday brunch by a restaurant in the capital city, Wellington, because it was too full under coronavirus guidelines.

There was a happy ending: A spot freed up, and staff chased down the street to call the couple back.

Italys tourism industry is focused firmly on June 3, when both regional and international borders reopen, allowing the first prospect of tourists since Europes first lockdown went into place in early March. In tourist-reliant Venice, occupancy of the citys 50,000 hotel beds has hovered around zero ever since.

Venice lives on tourism, period, said Claudio Scarpa, head of the citys hotel association. All the economic structures that operate in the city, including the port, are tied to tourism.

While Venice hopes for some kind of restart, it may have to wait a while yet. Germany its border about a four-hour drive from Venice is instructing citizens not to travel abroad for tourism until at least June 15.

France was also being cautious, calling for a coordinated European effort on opening. At the same time, French officials could make decisions that protect the French regarding countries where the virus is still active, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Saturday.

As hundreds of French beaches reopened, Castaner warned that the government would not hesitate to close them again if rules are not respected, including a ban on sunbathing.

Local authorities were charged with deciding which beaches would reopen as part of a staggered plan to end a strict two-month lockdown that began March 17. Under the rules, beachgoers can take a dip but cannot lay in the sun or picnic in the sand. Social distancing rules must be maintained, and groups must be limited to 10 people.

The virus is still there, Castaner said. It moves around with our movements

In Milan, Italys financial capital, 3,400 restaurants planned to open Monday, along with 4,800 bars, 2,900 hairdressers, 2,200 clothing stores and 700 shoe shops.

After a long period at home, we will all want to go out and have a good coffee in a bar, eat a pizza in a pizzeria, buy a pair of jeans, or go to the hairdressers, Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said Saturday in a Facebook video.

Many restaurant owners complained that the new rules for reopening were unclear and that the entire sector including suppliers and food producers was suffering. Dozens protested outside Milans main train station and called for an abolition of taxes and more help.

In Britain, officials and tourism boards discouraged people from visiting popular tourist spots like beaches or country parks on the first weekend since lockdown rules were eased in England. Stricter rules remain place in other parts of the U.K., and English daytrippers have been warned against crossing into Scotland or Wales.

Hungarys government said stores, restaurants, parks and other venues in Budapest can reopen on Monday, though the use of face coverings will be mandatory in stores and on public transportation. and restaurants must serve customers outdoors. The capitals reopening lagged behind the rest of the country because it had more infections.

Pakistan on Saturday reopened its two key border crossings with Afghanistan to allow for trade and movement of people between the two countries, though no decision has been made about reopening the border with hard-hit Iran.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Snchez said he would ask Parliament for what he hopes will be the last extension of the countrys state of emergency to battle the coronavirus pandemic, until around late June.

Spain is slowly scaling back confinement measures, but the tourism industry, which accounts for 12% of GDP, looks set to lose its critical summer season.

Spain needs tourism, but tourism needs security. It needs health guarantees, Snchez said Saturday.

In the U.S., New Orleans took its first steps Saturday to loosen restrictions that have been in place for two months.

The rest of Louisiana took that step Friday as many businesses and houses of worship were allowed to reopen at 25% capacity. New Orleans is slightly more restrictive. In addition to the 25% capacity restrictions, restaurants and certain other businesses such as nail salons are required to take reservations. The city has also imposed caps designed to keep houses of worship and movie theaters at fewer than 100 people. Casinos, video poker, live entertainment and bars are still closed.

Some restaurateurs in the city famous for its cuisine decided to try reopening. Others planned to stick to takeout or stay closed all together.

Kirk Estopinal, one of the owners of Cane & Table in the French Quarter, said the restaurant will open Saturday. Guests can order their food when they make a reservation online and are asked to wear masks. Cleaning will be stepped up, and bathrooms cleaned after every use.

Were going to trial run what it is to operate in the new normal, he said. Were looking at a restaurant experience that is almost touch-less for our guests.

In South Korea, which has one of the highest levels of virus testing, a Health Ministry spokesman said Saturday that the country may have dodged a major outbreak after finding 162 cases linked to nightclubs in Seoul, the densely populated capital.

Son Young-rae said 46,000 people have been tested in the club-related outbreak.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis government was due to announce this weekend a decision whether to extend the 54-day-old lockdown.

China planned to shorten its annual legislative session next week in Beijing as small clusters of infections pop up elsewhere in the country. The spread of the disease has largely stopped in the country where the pandemic started, but Jilin province in the northeast has reported 28 cases over nine days, the latest two on Friday.

(This story has been published from a wire agency without modifications to the text)

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Pizzas and haircuts back on the menu, but with warnings - Hindustan Times