Thomas Piketty, Time For Socialism

 

- I've been an enthusiastic fan of French economist Thomas Piketty ever since his bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century was released in 2013. It was a remarkable tome, a totally absorbing 700 pages read. It galvanised global debate about inequality. He followed that blockbuster up with another one, Capital and Ideology in 2020. That was a far more difficult and rather tiresome read, mainly for academic economists. 

- His newest release however, Time For Socialism, is much more accessible. It is a collection of his articles published over the last five years in the French newspaper Le Monde. Its subtitle is Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016-2021.

- The blurb inside the dust jacket summarises it well: Piketty argues that the time has come to support an inclusive and expansive conception of socialism as a counterweight against the hyper-capitalism that defines our current economic ideology. 

- What I found refreshing was his critique of the radical path capitalism has taken over the last fifty years in America and throughout the West, including Australia - the removal of government power and control from the marketplace; the massive lowering of personal and corporate tax rates thus requiring substantial cutbacks in government spending; the abolition of property and inheritance taxes, and more. The result has been a huge increase in inequality and poverty, and government services that are starved of sufficient funding. (Our current Australian government's fetish for maintaining a taxing and spending ratio to GDP of 24% is a case in point. It's infantile.)

- I skimmed quite a few of the pieces that concentrated on French issues, and Macron's failures in particular. But the majority are focussed on the US economy under Trump, and the issues surrounding the 2020 election. Piketty is not so much a fan of Biden. He's a Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren enthusiast.

- There are tables and charts littered throughout and they're very enlightening. 

- He's a clear thinker, an excellent communicator, and this book, like his others, is well translated into English.

- Highly recommended if you're at all interested in our current economic and social challenges.

- (By the way, Australia would be a far more prosperous and egalitarian nation if our tax/spend ratio was 30%).  

 

Elizabeth Strout, Oh William!

- This is a delightful book and such a pleasure to read. Lucy Barton, an author, is telling the story of her former husband William, who she is still very fond of. Lucy was William’s first wife and they had two daughters. They divorced after twenty years and William married twice more. Lucy also remarried but her new husband David died after seven years. It's a drama of parenthood, childhood and marriage.

- Lucy’s writing style is quirky and light. She has a certain flavour which is always on show. …is what I mean is common, as is so there was that. 

- Catherine was William’s mother. She was a lovely person but with a complicated past. She had a daughter, Lois, from a prior marriage, which she never disclosed because, shamefully, she deserted her after just twelve months. She later married a former Nazi soldier now a US citizen. Their son William became an academic microbiologist and has a rather cold and restrained personality. He was never told about Lois, his stepsister. 

- Halfway through this short novel I wondered whether it is was all a little trite. Every person on earth has dramas in their lives - marriage issues, kids and wider family issues, wrong decisions made, ambitions unfulfilled, careers gone nowhere, etc, etc. There is no big stuff in this story - no crime, no rape, no sexual abuse, no drugs, no school expulsions, no sackings, or anything extra significant.

- According to Lucy William had 'authority', and that's what attracted her. ‘We crave authority’ she writes. 

-The story of Lois is eventually told. Lucy and William travel to the small town to meet her, but she will only talk to Lucy. She's turned out to be a lovely and generous person.

- Lucy's meanderings go on and on but her final realisation is important to her: …in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves...We are all mythologies, mysterious. We are all mysteries, is what I mean.

Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway

 

- I have to say this - I'm so sick of thick, brick-like books. Why are so many novels these days over 600 pages? The problem is unless the prose is captivating or the narrative exhilarating you're wasting days of your life.

- After thoroughly enjoying Amor Towles' last novel A Gentleman in Moscow I was really looking forward to this one. It would surely be a perfect January read. 

- Well it wasn't. Towles has written a classic American story in the tradition of Mark Twain. It's a bit The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, a very modern YA trope. The hero, Billy, is a very likeable and sympathetic boy, as is his older brother Emmett. They embark on a road trip across America in search of their missing mother and father. Odd characters are met along the way. 

- As a narrative style road trips are generally a pain in the arse. New characters keep popping up, unconnected things keep happening, etc. All the characters are wanderers and lost souls, or innocents who've been wronged. They're seeking connection or they're seeking retribution. Every bit of evidence would suggest that the will to be moving is as old as mankind.

- Towles imbues this tale with a very patriotic, American tone. He takes every opportunity to celebrate America's heroes and founding principles. The boy Billy is captivated by American history, especially Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence. The fourth of July is of particular significance.   

- Of course there is a lot of charm in this novel. It's saccharine-like, piled on and on. Although there is violence and tragedy sprinkled throughout, the sentimentality rules supreme.

- Read something else. 

Colm Toibin, The Magician

 

- I've long been a great fan of Irish writer Colm Toibin. He never disappoints. His writing is subtle and sensitive, and his characters and their lives and times are brought vividly to life. He never shies away from exploring the sexual, social and political stresses and strains that matter in any person's universe. 

- His latest novel, The Magician, is quite simply one of his best. It is just magnificent. Its focus is the career of Nobel Prize winning German novelist Thomas Mann and his large and supremely talented family.

- Mann was born in Germany in 1875 and died in 1955. He lived through the First World War and the subsequent rise of fascism in Germany in the following decades, leading of course to Hitler's rise, his vicious Nazi regime, and the Second World War and its aftermath. 

- Mann was a scholar of German art, music, literature and culture, and highly lauded in Germany and around the world for his fairness, generosity and insights. He found himself torn however by what Germany was becoming between the wars and through his books, essays and speeches made many powerful enemies in the process.  

- Over the years he and his family were forced to flee to France, Switzerland, and eventually the United States. After Hitler's defeat and the establishment of East Germany ruled by communists, life in the US also became impossible because of his refusal to condemn the communist regime. He and his family were continually pestered by US officials, particularly the FBI.

- Mann's famous novella Death in Venice about an older gentleman's sexual attraction to a young man he encounters during a beach holiday, mirrored Mann's personal struggle with his sexuality, and Toibin very deftly describes this longing that tormented him throughout his life.

- Mann's wife and children were all passionate and well known anti-fascist writers, artists and celebrities all through their lives. Toibin's depiction of their dinners and debates is exhilarating. 

- This all makes for an engrossing read. Highly recommended.