Thursday, August 20, 2020

Book Review: Bronze Age Mindset

The book is Bronze Age Mindset, written by somebody who self-identifies as Bronze Age Pervert. Published in 2018, it has become a cult classic, and perhaps the defining text for the alt-right. I’m in debt to Michael Anton, whose comprehensive and excellent review of the book got me interested.

I hesitated reading Mindset, partly because Mr. Anton’s review led me to think my college education in Greek classics (45 years ago) left me unprepared, and then also because I was afraid I might actually agree with the book.

I was wrong on both counts. No doubt Mr. Pervert definitely knows his Herodotus, Thucydides and Plato, and much else besides. But he imposes little on his readers--you don’t need to know anything to read his book. If you can read my blog, you’re educated enough to enjoy Mindset.

I have come to three counter-intuitive conclusions about Mr. Pervert--speculations, really--that I’ll explain in due course.

As you might expect, the book is proudly racist, sexist, homophobic and illiberal. A typical excerpt:

Should the tyranny that has descended on our age ever gain the power it seeks and then be challenged enough to feel itself in danger, the mass annihilations that will be carried out by homosexual, transsexual, and especially lesbian commissars will exceed in scale and cruelty anything that has yet happened in known history. Imagine lesbian mulatta commissars with young Martin Sheen face and haircut manning the future Bergen-Belsens, installations that will span tens of miles.

It’s in-your-face political incorrectness, and many will be angered by it. Definitely written to prick your nose. A more over-the-top, entertaining, funny, put-down of gay people is hard to imagine. And it contains just enough truth that the gullible, Superman sorts are bound to swallow the whole yarn.

I found Mr. Anton’s review frustrating because he never explained Mindset’s hierarchy. Who, for example, are the oppressors in charge of the tyranny? Who are the oppressed? Who are the men--young, beautiful men, whom I dub supermen--who are tasked with rescuing us?

It turns out Mr. Anton’s confusion stems from the original text. Even after reading Mindset I don’t understand the sociology.

Start with the tyrants--all we’re really told about them is that they remain hidden. “I don’t think we can ever know who these individuals are, but I suspect they walk among us like average men.” It’s possible they’re not even people: the tyranny could be an emergent phenomenon arising from modern complexity.

Whoever they are, they’re not the obvious suspects.

Please remember that these small people like Bill Gates, Zuckerface, and Bezos are entirely dependent men. They can’t really do with their wealth what you think they can...for example, they could never just kill a man and take his wife, but even the ruler of the smallest African country has this power, this is true wealth. (ellipses in original)

So both the tyrants and the tyranny remain hidden (this is one doozy of a conspiracy theory--nearly schizophrenia-worthy). Even the victims--he calls us bugmen--are mostly blissfully unaware. Here I’m living happily in retirement not yet realizing that I’m really a slave to Leviathan (the term Mr. Pervert sometimes uses).

Yet cracks do appear in the edifice revealing the depths of our slavery. Those slits of light show through in places where polite society falls apart. Mr. Pervert knows about this, because true to his name he’s spent much time in the fleshpots of Southeast Asia. He’s familiar with the drug-dealing prostitute, the vicious bar bouncer, the filth of the yeast-like city.

He knows all about feminine homosexuals--the poorest, most miserable victims of the tyrant. They--uniquely--see through all the playground games of their male school chums, and realize how useless and empty they are. For, according to Mindset biology, the goal of life is to occupy space. Yeast, for example, grow until the petri dish is full, and then they’ll start growing on top of each other.

Men, also, want to occupy space, and when space is full, they try to steal it from others. This is the goal of schoolyard antics--boys try to steal each other’s space. It’s just a game, but a serious game.

But the feminine homosexual realizes the futility, for the tyrants already own all the space. No matter how much you practice conquest, you’re doomed. All you’ll get are the left-over dregs. Most of us bugmen imagine we’re satisfied with a house and lot, and even Mr. Bezos thinks he’s a member of the ruling class! But we’re all bamboozled by the tyranny.

The feminine homosexual sees through the scam. He knows he can never resist, so he gives up. He retreats into a yeast-like existence--the most miserable form of life for a man. He becomes gay, or ghey, as Mindset often spells it.

How different this is from what you’d expect from the alt-right. Instead of being the scum of the earth, they are instead the tyranny’s chief victims. We’re supposed to feel sorry for them.

Speculation #1: Mr. Pervert is gay, maybe even ghey. His very name suggests as much.

Yeast deserve further attention. Women and Chinese have one thing in common--they are both yeast-like. There are two forms of life in Mindset’s framework: yeast and higher life. Yeast are all the same--they just grow and grow until they occupy all the space. Higher beings, on the other hand, specialize, and evolve different skills for different purposes. Some are soldiers, others peasants, more are slaves, and a few are tyrants. None of this variation happens among the yeast.

Women are yeast-like because all they usefully do is drop babies. (Mr. Pervert discounts the latter-day entry of women into the professions.) Above all women are ill-equipped to do what in Mr. Pervert’s Mindset is most important--kill people, steal their wives, and grow their space.

China is a yeast-like culture, demonstrated by its unchanging character--it’s maintained the same society for 5000 years. There’s neither progress nor regress in China.

Places of higher culture (e.g., medieval towns in northern Italy, Switzerland and Germany) can give birth to Superman. That’s Nietzsche’s term that I’ll use, which Mr. Pervert only uses twice and then not as a general category. But they’re the elect group that will eventually defeat the tyranny. It is to that potential elect that Mr. Perverse addresses his treatise--he calls it “an exhortation.”

The task of the Supermen is to save us from the tyranny by installing either an absolute monarchy or a military dictatorship. To what end? You might reasonably ask, and here the story of the Jews is revealing.

The problem with the Jews--according to Mindset--is they’ve become nerds. They’re too obsessed with logic and rationality for their own good. Preoccupied by numbers and money, they don’t understand that they’re slaves to the tyranny. It wasn’t always this way:

Spinoza explains the corruption of the Jewish people in just this way: the Hebrew “Republic” was in fact a military regime of the type I say here, a rule of the captains. But the priests took this power away and corrupted the nation to weakness.

They’ve let themselves go. They’ve become obese and ugly. Unaesthetic.

This, actually, is the extent of Mr. Pervert’s antisemitism--the Jews are ugly and out of shape. They’ve let themselves become nerds in service of the tyranny. Like the feminine homosexual, they are a people to be pitied.

How far is this from the Global Jewish Conspiracy? Whatever happened to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Indeed, neither “Zion” nor “Zionism” are ever mentioned in the book. Nothing about BDS. Assuming the above Bergen-Belsen quote is any indication, Mr. Pervert isn't even a holocaust denier. If this be antisemitism, it’s as pale a version as I’ve ever encountered. Sheesh--I have Trotskyist friends who are more antisemitic than this--they support Hamas!

Speculation #2: Mr. Pervert is Jewish.

The story of the Jews reveals the true nature of the cosmic conflict. It is this: the tyranny is ugly, and Superman’s task is to restore beauty. Superman is to fight and win great battles, to be a hero, and to die a glorious death. He is above all supposed to be physically beautiful--physically fit, sculpted, strong--like a Greek god. Mindset raises the young, beautiful king, Conradin, beheaded at age 16, as an example.

This book is all about aesthetics--and that’s all it’s about. Reason and rationality are dismissed. For example, 

Could it be, as some have said, that the Jews are actually themselves a recent invention, a sect of Arabs in Cordoba, and that this group made up parts of Plato or of Aristotle…?

Or,

I’ve heard other less strange, though still wild theories: that the New Testament was written by a Jewish woman, as a parody of Greek tragedy. It was an effort to overturn Roman life and power.

He even doubts geography.

I believe it needs to be investigated, for example, if Mexico City is not in fact the same as Bangkok, and the so-called Baja peninsula not the same as Malay. …

I’ve heard rumors that as you go inland from Port-au-Prince you start to see the lights of Manila, and that the Caribbean islands are no different from the Philippines.

And you thought 9/11 trutherism was wacky? So you condemn his political theory as kookiness--for that is what it is. It makes no sense at all. But that just misses the point. The point isn’t reason--it’s beauty. Mindset is a book about aesthetics.

And that’s just it. Mr. Pervert has written a marvelously beautiful book. It’s an absolute joy to read. Very literate, very erudite, definitely not boring (as Mr. Anton says). I recommend it highly. It’s just crazy as hell--and possibly dangerous, too.

The book is addressed to teenage boys, perhaps not least because they’re the objects of Mr. Pervert’s lust. The following tells give it away.

First, Mindset purports to be secret knowledge, reserved for the elite few. By reading it you enter into the kingdom.

Second, while he claims to address an elite--the rare Superman--he rarely uses that term. In practice the book is offered to any boy who is inspired. So it makes you feel special while reading it, without in any way being exclusive. (Though you won’t like it if you’re a girl. Mr. Pervert isn’t interested in girls.)

Third, the book is transgressive. The pugnacious political incorrectness is certainly that. Then Mr. Pervert distorts grammar (he dislikes articles) and spelling, which along with violating the rules, gives it a fresh rhythm. Your lady grammar teacher will hate it.

Fourth, you don’t need to know anything to join the club. History and geography are obviously not necessary. So on the one hand you’re reading a very learned book, but also a book that denigrates learning. Weird.

But you do need to be literate. Mr. Pervert showcases his learning--and it is considerable and impressive. You won’t get through this with a sixth grade reading level. That limits his audience among teenagers, but attracts readers like Mr. Anton and me.

At the end Mindset offers advice to these teenage, future supermen. I’ll summarize in bullet points:
  • Be physically fit. Spend as much time in the gym as possible.
  • If you can, join the military. Prepare for war. But don’t argue with the “eunuch brass”--the time is not ripe. Just suck it up and follow instructions like a good little superman.
  • Make sure you have good friends--ones with whom you can conspire. Ultimately it’s the band of brothers that will rule.
  • Outside of your friend circle, hold off on the racist rhetoric. That will just get the “normies” upset and cause the tyranny to turn on you. The time is not yet ripe.
  • Speaking of successful people, such as Sebastian Kurz in Austria, he says “You don’t see these people marching around in hotel bellboy’s uniforms with a Sonnenrad and talking about the “Jewish Question” and this other kind of role-play.” In other words, quit the silly cult stuff.
It’s all pretty tame--even lame. Beyond being part of the elect and joining the secret band of brothers, this resistance against the tyranny is consequence-free. It’s a charade.

Which leads to Speculation #3: the book is a hoax. We're being pwned just as Sokal did with Social Text.

So you’re a Jewish faggot--wonderfully literate, very widely read, hopelessly imaginative--and you want to make some serious money. Best thing to do is to write a bestseller. But how do you that when your expertise is Greek history and philosophy? Mr. Pervert figured to fake it as a phony fascist--and the ruse is working.

Whatever its provenance, it’s a beautiful book. Read it. Enjoy it. It will become a classic, much like Atlas Shrugged.

Just don’t give it to your teenage son.

Further Reading:

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Is Jeff Mackler a Racist?

Jeff Mackler writes a long article (3000+ words) published in the July print edition of Socialist Action, entitled U.S. Fight Against Racism and Repression Reaches New Heights (pdf). Despite Mr. Mackler being a talented writer, it's one of those that I've read so that you don't have to. Frankly, it's boring.

Setting the tone, in the lead paragraph he writes,

Unprecedented, multi-racial, daily mobilizations against the ingrained institutional racism that permeates every aspect U.S. society have exploded in scope and intensity. Recent surveys estimate that 15 million to 26 million Americans have taken part in the widespread demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd. They continue to this day.

The exaggerations are stunning. Taking the obvious first--that 15 to 26 million people have participated in the protests--my back-of-the envelope calculation comes to about 600,000 demonstrators. Perhaps that's a low estimate--multiply by two or three if you want--but Mr. Mackler's is 25 times bigger--in other words, just way out of line.

Then he says the demonstrations were over the murder of George Floyd. That's rather like protesting child abuse--everybody is against it. Everybody from across the political spectrum--from Steve Bannon to Jeff Mackler--agrees that Mr. Floyd was murdered, and that his killer should be brought to justice. Even the police unions--who almost always stand up for cops no matter what they do--agree that he was murdered! So I don't know who the demonstrators are protesting against.

Even Mr. Mackler indirectly admits that the fuss was not about George Floyd's murder, which by all accounts was a once-off crime committed by a rogue cop. But in his view it is symptomatic of "ingrained institutional racism that permeates every aspect [of] US society." He offers some statistics revealing the depth of the problem.

About 63 percent of those shot and killed by police in Minneapolis between 2000 and 2017 – 19 people – were Black, while only 17 percent – 5 people – were white.

So--to fill in the missing data--over a 17 year period 30 people were shot and killed by police in Minneapolis. That's less than two per year--police shootings are not a major cause of death in Minneapolis or the country. Most of those shootings were justified in the sense that the police's mandate to protect public safety sometimes requires them to use force.

On the basis of this small, statistically meaningless dataset, Mr. Mackler infers a giant racist conspiracy. He offers no other evidence.

Though it is true that Blacks are stopped, arrested and prosecuted at a rate exceeding their fraction of the population. Mr. Mackler will attribute that to "racism." Like most Republicans, I think it's because of higher crime in Black communities, as illustrated here.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Though the reasons for higher crime might in part be racism, surely the actual causes are far more complicated than that. Racism is likely only a minor contributor.

Which is not to say there aren't any problems with the police. The police department in Ferguson, MO, for example, was running an extortion racket. The Black residents of that city had every right to be upset--though burning down stores in your own neighborhood is not an especially helpful tactic. Likewise, a Black woman from Minneapolis interviewed on Fox News was all in favor of the police, but she wished they better represented the neighborhood. According to her most cops didn't even live in Minneapolis, and no matter how good their intentions they didn't really understand what was going on.

While there is certainly room for improvement, polls show that Black people do not support defunding the police. This recent Gallup poll  reports that 81% of Black citizens want the police present in their community. This makes sense--like the rest of us, Black people are civilized and want to live in a civilized world.

Here is what Mr. Mackler proposes instead of the police:

The right of Black, Brown and Native American people to control and govern their own lives and communities, free from white racist police brutality and corporate exploitation, can only begin with a fundamental change in relations of power. The struggle to disarm, defund, and disband the racist institutions of police power begins with the emergence of new organs of democratic control of the communities of the oppressed themselves.

Civil order requires a "well-regulated militia" (as the 2nd Amendment puts it). Today we call that the police department, and it has a monopoly on violence in civil settings. Well-regulated means subject to civilian and ultimately democratic authority, for otherwise it becomes just another street gang (which is always a threat, see, e.g., Ferguson).

Absent the police, chaos ensues. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of a well-regulated police department, one gets only street gangs. We can call this the Mogadishu solution, in honor of the city which, for the past several decades, has been unable to field a well-regulated militia.

Mr. Mackler definitely has "Trump" on the brain. Indeed, I think The Donald has built a golf course inside his head. The president is mentioned 19 times in the article. Some examples:

"...the posturing, chin up egomaniac President Trump..."
"...the racist bigot President Trump..."
"...fearful, bragging bigot Trump and his family..."

One concludes that Mr. Mackler doesn't like Trump very much, but aside from name-calling he presents no evidence that the man is especially racist. By comparison, George Floyd only earns four mentions.

Nevertheless, let's take Mr. Mackler seriously and take an example of what he would call "racism." Let's consider Chicago--a city I know well, and where my son currently lives. Chicago is really two cities in one--on the North Side it is a wealthy, global, cosmopolitan place--a slightly smaller version of Manhattan or San Francisco. On the South and West Sides it's a mostly Black, very poor, third world city.

My son is part of the global city. He earns six figures working in IT for a major financial institution. His salary is so high because people with his skill set are scarce as hen's teeth and there's a bidding war for his services. The man is entirely self-taught--he never got any formal education in IT--in fact he never attended college at all. Instead he worked toward certifications demonstrating the necessary technical skills. Anybody can do that--there are no admission's criteria, no interviews, nobody cares what race you are, nobody cares where you live or how old you are. Indeed, the certifying companies are often not located in the US.

Get one of these certificates and you will almost certainly get a job--the market is that tight. You'll have to start at the bottom, earning only $80K annually, but after a couple years experience you too will be in the top 10%.

Of course easier said than done. My son worked hard studying for the exams, and then often didn't pass the first time he took them (or even the second time).

So why can't people on the South Side of Chicago do the same? I admit--this is a variant of Hillary's advice to coal miners--that they should all learn to code. And certainly only a minority of South Siders could do what my son did, who is himself only among a small minority of his high school classmates. That said, the number of South Siders working in high-skilled IT professions for major financial institutions borders on zero. Why?

It certainly isn't Trump's fault. Even if the man were a racist, the problem is long-standing and predates him by decades. It's also not the banks' fault--they'd love to hire skilled African-Americans. I actually don't think it's any individual's fault, but if I were to blame one person, that would be Jeff Mackler.

Because my son had the advantage of an at least decent public high school education (nothing fancy--he grew up in small-town Indiana). The Chicago Public Schools, meanwhile, are execrable--basically glorified babysitting clubs. This is substantially the fault of the teachers' unions--who run the schools primarily for the convenience of the teachers and not for the students.

Jeff Mackler is a retired teachers' union hack. So if you gotta blame somebody, he's as good a fall guy as anybody--much better than Trump.

The unions blame parents and the community for their pupils' poor performance. They perennially claim they don't have enough money, despite the fact that Illinois spends $14,000 per student per year. Effectively, the unions believe that South Side children are ineducable. In other words, the unions--including Mr. Mackler--are racist.

You can't get any IT certifications if you're illiterate and innumerate, thus excluding most graduates of the Chicago Public School system.

The looters--who Mr. Mackler claims were only a "small percentage" of the protesters--destroyed Walmart stores, including those at 83rd St. just off the Dan Ryan Expressway, and in Austin on the West Side. Walmart--as an act of charity--promises to reopen the unprofitable stores. People do, after all, need to get their groceries and medicines. The city committed to help.

Ensuring competent police protection seems like the least they could do.

Further Reading:

Saturday, August 8, 2020

The New Aristocrats

Note: It's astonishing in this age of plague and turmoil that my Trotskyist friends write nothing that interests me. So I offer this piece instead, which is mostly fiction based on a shred of reality.

My neighborhood is very diverse. Of the 150 odd homes in the subdivision, perhaps 50 are occupied by white Americans. The rest are from all over the world. There are at least a half dozen Filipino families, probably similar numbers of Chinese and Koreans, and a smattering of South Asians. 

But by far the largest demographic are folks from the West Indies and West Africa. Not all are new immigrants--I think many are second generation. But I believe the African-American population--narrowly defined as descendants of slaves brought here during colonial times--is small. One of my occasional walking buddies--I walk around the neighborhood every day--is from The Gambia. Indeed, he has several friends (perhaps relatives) living here--there are at least three houses full of Gambians. Other neighbors--acquaintances from work--are from Jamaica. I often hear Jamaican brogues while wandering around.

Occasionally I see a truly elegant couple on the street. I've never spoken to them and I don't know which house they live in. I'm pretty sure--from appearance--that they're from West Africa, of which Nigeria is the most populous country. Searching the web for common Nigerian names, I'll name the standout pair Musa and Aisha.

Musa is very tall--at least 6'5"--a full head taller than me. He's very athletic--I see him holding impromptu fitness classes on the street for neighbors. Not one to smile often, he has a proudly erect, regal bearing. Clean-shaven, he looks to be in his early 40s.

Aisha is not as tall, nor as slender, but still taller than I am--perhaps 6'. She's incredibly beautiful--buxom and full-bodied, but not at all fat. Rather, she's pure muscle--very strong and just as much in to fitness as her husband. I typically see her clad in skin-tight sweats--and it flatters. Perfect posture, proportions, features.

If people with straight backs ruled the world, Musa and Aisha would be king and queen. I'm quite intimidated by them--which is why I haven't introduced myself.

I don't know if Musa and Aisha have any children--but it would be a damn shame if they didn't. Let's award them two, and name them Prince and Princess--just to keep the genders straight. Perhaps grandma tends to them during their parents' walks.

Musa and Aisha clearly got some good genes. (Nobody in my family ever grew to 6'5", and we're definitely not known for athleticism.) That said, the pair have made the most of their endowment. Had they chosen instead a diet of french fries and ice cream coupled with a couch-potato lifestyle, perhaps Musa would still be over six feet tall. But he'd have a slouch and a pot-belly, and nobody would take him seriously as a fitness instructor. Aisha, rather than strong, would just be fat. She'd look like a pig.

These people work hard. They know they have a gift, and they haven't squandered it. In addition to physique, they're endowed with self-discipline.

Houses in my neighborhood sell for about $300K. That's well below the median cost of housing in the New York City metro region, but then we're a 90 minute commute to Manhattan. (Pre-Covid, my Gambian friend made that trip every day. Now he gets to work from home.) On the other hand, our neighborhood is more expensive than the surrounding town--partly because the houses are newer, and also because of our superb location.

So poor people don't live here. And neither do aristocrats.

To live here, Musa and Aisha need middle class jobs. Perhaps, like my Gambian friend, they work on Wall Street. To get such work they must have some education--whether learned in Nigeria or here, they have a marketable skill. For which self-discipline certainly helps, but there has to be some level of smarts besides.

I think they're relatively new to the neighborhood--I've seen them around only recently. Likely they've skimped and saved to put together the down payment. As immigrants they needed to establish a credit rating from scratch. All of which is evidence of self-discipline, smarts, and a serious work ethic.

Now imagine the lives of Prince and Princess. Children get their genes from mom and dad, and it's hard to see how this pair goes wrong either way. Something bad could've happened--birth defect, disease, accident--but most likely the kids will be like their parents: tall, dark, and exceedingly handsome. With luck the children will inherit the self-discipline trait--but even if not, they'll be taught it from an early age. I doubt slouching is tolerated in the Musa/Aishi household!

The schools around here aren't very good, but I'm not worried for Prince or Princess. Mama will certainly teach them how to read, and daddy will school them in arithmetic. Many other things they'll pick up on their own. What they'll learn from school will not be taught by teachers, but rather by their classmates. They'll learn how to earn the respect of their peers. It will be a class in Aristocrat 101.

Prince and Princess will have more advantages. Instead of growing up relatively poor in Nigeria, they'll come of age in middle class America, with all the opportunities that offers. And not being slouches they'll take advantage of them. They'll probably go to college (or whatever replaces college), and they'll likely inherit some money. If nothing else, Musa and Aisha will have paid off the house for them.

Will Prince or Princess become true aristocrats? Probably not yet. Likely it will take another generation of wealth-building before that status is reached. If they marry well--not necessarily into other Nigerian families, though that's certainly a good option--Musa and Aishi's grandchildren may well aspire to the aristocracy. By which I mean they will have the wealth, authority and wisdom to decide the fates of others.

Fortunately, America does not have a formal, hereditary aristocracy, complete with titles. But we do have aristocratic families, e.g.,

[Kenneth] Arrow was a brother to the economist Anita Summers, uncle to economist and former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers, and brother-in-law of the late economists Robert Summers and Paul Samuelson. In 1947, he married Selma Schweitzer, graduate in economics at the University of Chicago and psychotherapist, who died in 2015. (Wikipedia)

Unlike in bygone eras, the path to aristocracy includes more than just military talent. Today one can be a family of academics, artists, businessmen, politicians, sports stars, etc. Whatever the field, the talents required to be a leader of men and women are in significant part hereditary, which is why aristocratic rank follows from parents to children.

And so here we are. In Trump's America, a family of West African immigrants are founding a new aristocratic dynasty.

My story is mostly fiction. But I hope it's true.

Further Reading:

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Forthcoming Book: Sustainable. Resilient. Free. The Future of Public Higher Education

The book is by John Warner and it hasn't been published yet. Which means I haven't read it and therefore don't presume to review it. But Mr. Warner, a regular columnist over at InsideHigherEd, uses the platform to advertise his impending tome. The title's adjectives refer to colleges and universities--he calls them "aspirational". He writes:
If you share this vision and would like to play a part in bringing it further into the mainstream so we can have a conversation about the future of higher ed that goes beyond “Let them eat pixels,” please consider preordering directly from the publisher, Belt Publishing. Belt is an independent outfit located in the Midwest (Cleveland), and ordering directly from them has an outsize positive effect on their bottom line. 
If you don’t share this vision, please consider preordering directly from the publisher, Belt Publishing, so you can be prepared to tell the world what a fool I am.
If you go to the link you'll discover the book costs $16.95! Wow! That's a lot of money for a book that may only be 200 pages long. The webpage gives no vital statistics, so I don't know how long the book actually is. I also don't know what format it comes in: paperback or hardcover? In other words, I'm asked to buy a pig in a poke. I do know it's not available on Kindle since it's not being sold on Amazon at all.

Trotsky's First Law of academic literature is that the value of the product is inversely proportional to the price. My most recent book purchase was $0.99 for a 438 page, very readable account of medieval German history, Kindle edition--a much better bargain.

I don't understand why Mr. Warner's book costs any money at all. He does, after all, say that a college education should be free. Indeed, he claims that free college "will have genuine, broad-based macroeconomic benefits." But doesn't the same hold true for his book? Why should college be free, while his book costs an exorbitant $16.95? Note that part of the purchase price is charity for the publisher, who is too selfish to forego his bottom line.

Then he touts "sustainability" as a virtue, which surely should apply to his book as much as any college. Not having read his book, I'm not exactly sure what he means by "sustainable," but let's suppose it's environmental as opposed to financial. (Colleges are obviously not financially sustainable.)

In which case the book should be distributed solely in an electronic format. Paper consumes trees, subjecting them to chemical processing. Physical books have to be shipped in diesel-burning, fume-spewing trucks! Mr. Warner, by countenancing only dead-tree editions of his book, is certainly not acting sustainably.

Here, at least, Mr. Warner is consistent. Obviously the most sustainable medium for college instruction is on-line. No more commuters, buildings, parking lots, traffic--on-line is as carbon-neutral as you'll ever get. Yet for some reason Mr. Warner is against on-line. I haven't read the book so I don't know why, but it seems at odds with his demand that colleges be "sustainable."

Then there's "resilient." Again, I can't tell what Mr. Warner means by the word, but to me it sounds very much like a synonym for "fossilized." Faculty should never, ever be laid off--not even when they're 90 years old and teach accounting the way it was done in 1925. Even rapidly changing subjects--e.g., computer science--have to keep the superannuated sorts on staff, despite the fact that they know nothing about any relevant technology. All because of "macroeconomics," or whatever.

Old age isn't the only reason to fossilize the faculty. The history department, for example, only graduates 12 majors per year--out of a class of 553. Of course that means that all 22 faculty members have to remain employed forever--never mind that they outnumber the students.

A "resilient" book perhaps is one you'd like to reread 5 or 15 years from now. Those are books that might justify the dead-tree price--they deserve shelf space in your study. Does Mr. Warner's book rise to the occasion? I think not--rather than "resilient", it's likely journalism. Read it once, and then use it to line the bird cage. I'm not against journalism, but it should be distributed electronically.

Mr. Warner writes: "A good portion of the book will cover how students became customers and some of what it will take to undo this problem." One often hears this complaint from academics--whatever else students are, they shouldn't be customers.

What should they be instead? How about rats in a rat race? Academics today is not much more than a huge bureaucracy: check this box, write that paper, regurgitate the opinions of your teacher, pay money in that office, unless it's for this expense in which case you have to pay it in another office. Jump through all the hoops and you'll end up with a diploma--a result achieved by only 33% of public college and university students.

Or perhaps students are suckers? After all, they're easily scammed into taking out ruinous loans from which at least 67% will never derive any benefit at all. This all supposedly for the good of "macroeconomics." That doesn't count the time and opportunity cost to students in not getting a diploma.

Mr. Warner's solution to the student loan problem is to have taxpayers pay for it. What this ultimately reduces to is that people who don't go to college should subsidize the people who do go to college. Or, to phrase it more colorfully, minimum wage Walmart employees are paying for the education of highly-paid engineers at Google. I hope Mr. Warner's book explains the justice in this arrangement.

Much fairer would be a rule where the colleges themselves have to reimburse the government for defaulted student loans (at least in significant portion). Or better yet, abolish the student loan program altogether, which would force colleges to lower their price.

Or maybe students are a blank canvas upon which faculty can paint their egos. Conservatives frequently complain that the overwhelmingly progressive faculty are brainwashing students to be radical Lefties. I think the case is overstated, but it remains true that if you want to graduate you have to pretend to agree with the teacher--no matter how ridiculous she is. Fortunately, upon graduating (or flunking out) most people come to their senses and make up their own minds. But this does not count as an education.

Among the many "macroeconomic" benefits of universities are the army of grad students and freshly-minted PhDs, most of whom are under- or unemployed. Often they work for sub-minimum wages as teaching assistants or adjuncts. Collectively they're a true lumpen proletariat. Or put another way, they're the ultimate victims of the college scam--spending years sucking up to the faculty after which they graduate with a useless diploma and no viable career path.

Seriously, I'm happy to read Mr. Warner's book. I'll try hard to give it a respectful and honest review. This means I'm spending my most precious commodity--time--on it. But there's no way I'm paying $16.95 for the privilege!

Further Reading: