LIST OF CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY:

 Sherlock Holmes
Dr. John H. Watson
George Murchand, Shipping company owner
Inspector Lastrade of Scotland Yard
Teddy Volter, the assassin
Marie Hitchens, Trevor’s wife
Jason, desk sergeant
Kirk, constable

 SYNOPSIS:

 Scene 1.  Holmes rooms at 221 Baker Street, London; the year, 1897

Scene 2.  Volter’s cell in Bow Street Station, one day later

Scene 3.  Reenactment in front of Murchand’s villa, recounted same day

Scene 4.  Latrade’s office, same day

Scene 5.  Marchand’s property, two days later

Scene 6.  Holme’s rooms, one month later

SCENE 1

 (Holmes study.  Holmes seen sitting in a comfortable chair and reading a newspaper.  Pipe at hand.)

 WATSON:  (entering) There’s a young woman waiting downstairs, Holmes.  Said that you refused to see her.

 HOLMES: (absentmindedly continues reading) Oh, hello, Watson.

WATSON: Would you please put down that paper for a moment.  I said…

 HOLMES:  I heard what you said.  (putting down paper) You know it never fails to gratify me the lengths to which the world goes in order to enliven my morning.

 WATSON:  What lengths are you talking about?  The massacre of Armenians?  The assassination of the shah?  The Russian declaration of war?

 HOLMES:  And the Zionist congress, the Klondike gold rush.  The vast stage of human strife.  The pageantry of it all, Watson.  Captured on paper and delivered to my doorstep. (slaps newspaper) Endlessly fascinating.

 WATSON:  Fascinating?  You make it sound as though our soldiers are dying in the Sudan to amuse you.

 HOLMES:  I’m sure they’re not.  But I didn’t put them there, did I?  I’m not responsible for what’s going on in the world, Watson.  If I were, I’d hang myself.  But since I’m not, there’s no reason why…

 WATSON:  Dash it, Holmes.  There is a reason.  It’s called ‘propriety.’  You can at least express some regard for the brotherhood of man, you know.

 HOLMES:  I don’t recall having joined.  Tell me, would the world be one whit better off if I did not take pleasure reading the paper?

 WATSON:  (resignedly)  No, I suppose not.

 HOLMES:  Then there you are.  (picks up paper, pauses, then sets it down again)  I don’t know why she’s still here.  I distinctly told Mrs. Hudson to send her away.

 WATSON:  Didn’t work, apparently.  She pleaded with me for a chance to see you the minute I walked in the door.  Said she won’t budge until you do.   Did Mrs Hudson tell you who she is?

 HOLMES:  She didn’t have to.  The young woman is Mrs. Trevor Hitchens.  Reasonably attractive.  Twenty-six or so.  And about five foot three, I would imagine.  Decently, but not expensively, attired.

 WATSON:  You did see her then?

 HOLMES:  No, between Mrs. Hudson’s mention of the young woman’s desperation and the newspaper’s account of her husband’s crime it wasn’t hard to guess the young woman’s identity.  Ha, I’d be desperate too if I were in her shoes.  With her husband in the dock and as good as hanged.

WATSON: But her height and all the rest…

HOLMES:  Merely supposition based on the paper’s description of her husband.  Nothing like a sordid crime to excite the press’s interest in details.  Handsome chap from the newspaper’s sketch, well built, average height, thirty years old and, until recently, a respectable member of our underpaid clerical class.  What sort of woman would a chap like that marry?  The young woman downstairs I would imagine.  Send her away, Watson.  For all her bluster, Mrs. Hudson is too soft hearted to shoo a cat off her threshold.

WATSON:  I gather she’s been here the better part of two hours, Holmes.  It wouldn’t do any harm to see her for a few minutes.

HOLMES:  Of course, it would do harm.  It’d be a waste of my time and hers.  I can’t help her.  According to the papers, the case against her husband is airtight.  Police put it together less than a week after the murder.  Inspector Lestrade must be strutting around like a stupid peacock.

WATSON: Lastrade’s been wrong before.  Nobody knows that better than you.

 HOLMES:  Not this time, I’m afraid.  Too few suspects.  Too much evidence.

 WATSON: Oh, come on, Holmes.  This is just the kind of crime you would have relished a few years ago.  You can’t leave her camped in the vestibule forever.  And you can’t pretend you’re too busy. You haven’t taken on a new case in weeks.

HOLMES: Because I’m fed up with detective work.  With the whole idiotic criminal business.  You may not have noticed, Watson, I’m getting old.

 WATSON:  I’m afraid I lack your powers of observation.

 HOLMES: We’ve proven that often enough.  (laughs)  But you’re not blind, man.

 WATSON: No, and what I see is a fifty-two year old man-practically in the prime of life-down in the dumps.  And I’ve got just the right prescription. Talking to that poor woman downstairs.  She swears you’re the only one who can help her.

HOLMES:  She’s right about that.  For all the verbiage that’s been spewed out the last ten days, not one word about its most puzzling aspects.

WATSON:  Ah, you have taken an interest in this affair.

HOLMES:  Only as a disinterested observer.  Couldn’t help but be curious why a trusted shipping company employee-a bookkeeper, no less-would suddenly plunge into crime.  All those dark deeds from a member of our stalwart British, churchgoing, excruciatingly dull middle class?  What in the world got into the man?

WATSON: Maybe our middle class is more interesting than you give them credit for.  The papers seem to think so.

HOLMES: Nonsense.  If George Murchand hadn’t been so rich and his wife so beauteous, they would have squelched the story after the first day.

WATSON: If you’re so puzzled, why don’t you talk to the woman downstairs.  Maybe she has an explanation.

HOLMES: If she has, she’s certainly kept it to herself so far.  No, I won’t get any more  out of her than the reporters did.  Vacuous suburban wife, two kids, and zero interest in anything outside her flat.  It’s what she hopes to get out of me.  People think me capable of miracles.  No miracle is going to save her husband, I can tell you that.  Even Lestrade can’t be wrong one-hundred percent of the time.  Though, God knows, he tries.

WATSON: Then at least send her away yourself.  That’s the only way you’ll be rid of the poor woman.

HOLMES: And your persistent carping on the matter.  (resignedly waving his arm) Show her in, Watson, show her in.

(Watson exits and returns with Marie)

MARIE:  Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Holmes.  I can’t tell you how grateful I am.  You see, I’m Marie Hitchens, the wife of…

HOLMES: Yes, yes.  We know all that.  I’d be happy to offer you a seat, Ms. Hitchens, but you must understand that I can’t be of service to you.  I take on very few cases these days, madam.  Indeed, I’m thinking of leaving London and retiring altogether.  Besides my research…

MARIE: But you must, sir.  Trevor’s entirely innocent.  I know he is.

HOLMES: May I ask how you arrived at this certainty?

MARIE: You can’t be married to a man for nine years without knowing what he’s like.  If you saw him at our church socials, helping the parson with his charities…

HOLMES:  Oh, do sit down then, please.  This is Dr. Watson, my associate.  You may rely on his discretion.

MARIE:  Pleased to make your acquaintance, doctor.

WATSON:   Mam.

HOLMES:  I’m afraid, Ms. Hitchens, we mortals all have our weaknesses.  Could not a sudden impulse have overtaken him.  To pay off some debt, perhaps?  Those six £100 gilts were so accessible to him…

MARIE: That’s what I can’t make anyone understand.  But you’re so smart Mr. Holmes, you’ll listen I know.  No man on earth was less concerned for more than what he already had.  We’re plain folk what knows its place and don’t live above its means.  Neither of us has any use for fine stuff.  And we don’t owe a farthing to anybody.  It’s all I could do to keep Trevor from putting too much in the collection plate.  Does that sound like a thief to you?

WATSON:  Certainly not!

HOLMES:  May I ask how Mr. Hitchens was getting along at work?

MARIE: That’s just it.  He was Mr. Murchand’s favorite.  Been with him for God knows how long.  Eleven years at least.  Bonus at Christmastide and everything.  Treated Trevor like they were in the same class almost.  The poor man suffered bad flareups of gout-more so as times gone on-and it was Trevor who’d bring papers to the house so’s he didn’t have to go out.

HOLMES:  The firm, I understand, had a branch in Bristol.

MARIE:  Yes sir, Mr. Murchand had to take himself there every month, gout and all leaving Trevor to handle all the bookeeping.  You see what I’m saying, Mr. Holmes?  To hear how the late Mr. Murchand accused Trevor of stealing…why I never…(starts crying)

WATSON:  May we offer you some tea, Ms. Hitchens?

MARIE:  No, no.  I’ll be all right.  Thank you kindly sir.

HOLMES:  Your support of your husband is admirable, madam, but I’m obliged to inquire further.  Mr. Hitchens is not only being accused of theft but, as you know, of being complicit in Mr. Murchand’s murder.  Hiring a hit man to be exact.  Can you throw any light on that?

MARIE:  All the light in the world, sir.  If you saw Trevor playing with the children you’d feel exactly the same way.  Never lifted a finger agin’ me in all our years of marriage.  Nor agin’ anyone else to my knowledge.  He’s the most peaceable man on earth.

WATSON:  Not the profile of your typical murderer, Holmes.

HOLMES:  Husbands don’t always reveal to their wives every facet of their characters, Ms. Hitchens.  Might not he have had some contact with people possessed of less attractive qualities?  London is home to a very variegated set of ruffians.  A neighbor, an odd acquaintance of some sort at his tavern?

MARIE:  Tavern?  Trevor wouldn’t set foot in such a place.  And when he went out to the market and the like, don’t you think I’d be with him.  If Trevor had an acquaintance, I’d know o’ him too.  And there was none of our friends who weren’t churchgoers same as us.

HOLMES:  And, forgive me, Mrs. Hitchens, I don’t mean to pry into your personal affairs, but if I am to look into this further…

MARIE: I told you.  The most gentle man that ever lived.  When I hear other women how they’ve been beaten and all…

HOLMES:  Yes, I understand.  But you’re marital relationship…I mean no family tiffs?

MARIE:  I won’t lie to you, Mr. Holmes.  No arguments, but we weren’t as close as before.  You know what I mean?  It’s all my fault.  He’s been rising in station, no doubt, what with his friendship with Mr. Murchand, his being a bookkeeper and reading up on accountancy and all.  And me as uneducated as a block of wood.  There’d be company parties he’d go alone.  For my sake, he said.  But a little ashamed of me I think he was though he’d never say so.  Distracted sometimes at home, you know, when I wished I knowed what he was thinking.  But that says nothing against him, you understand.

WATSON: Perfectly, madam.

MARIE: Well, there I’ve told you everything.  If you’ll just talk to him you’ll see everything I’ve told you is God’s truth. 

HOLMES:  I’ll admit you have piqued my curiousity, Mrs Hitchens.  This paragon of virtues of yours, on the surface at least, does not agree with the reportage I’ve read.

WATSON:  Hardly!

HOLMES.  (rising)  I appreciate your candor, Ms. Hitchens.  To be truthful, the circumstances surrounding your husband’s arrest do not appear to be auspicious.  Indeed, they look grim as I’m sure you know.  So I would not want to convey any unwarranted optimism.  I will, however, look into them further to see if I can be of some use. 

MARIE:  Oh, thank you, sir.  We’ll manage somehow to pay you for the trouble.  Once he’s free and all.  It may take us a while, but…

HOLMES:  We’ll discuss my fee, Mrs. Hitchens, if and when I decide to take up the case.  I promise nothing, you understand.

MARIE:  Yes, sir.  Completely, sir.

HOLMES:  (showing her the door)  Very good.  You’ll have my decision within a week.

MARIE: (shaking their hands)  Thank you, Mr. Holmes.  Dr. Watson.  (exits)

WATSON:  Well, Holmes, you surprised me.  Agreeably, I must say.  Don’t tell me her pleas evoked your better nature?

HOLMES: Hmph!

WATSON:  I rather thought not.  Or is it our Simon-pure accused, who hasn’t a fault in the world aside from thievery and murder that’s the conundrum?

HOLMES:  That and one other rather interesting point.  I’ll have to think about it.

WATSON:  Good!  Should be right up your alley, Holmes.  Overconfident police and overwhelming evidence against an innocent man.  Everything’s just waiting for you to turn matters upside down.

HOLMES:  Not likely not this time.  Too few suspects, for one thing.  I’ll be going down to the Bow Street station tomorrow to hear the other side of the story.  Care to join me?

WATSON:  Can’t Holmes.  I’ve a full schedule.  Which reminds me I’ve house calls to make this afternoon.  So I’ll leave you to your thoughts.

HOLMES: (patting Watson on the back as he exits)  Good bye, Watson.

SCENE 2

 (The following morning.  On one corner of the stage, a spotlight illuminates the front desk at Bow Street Police Court)

 HOLMES:  (entering)  Jason, good morning. 

 JASON.  (brightly) Mr. Holmes, sir.  Inspector Lestrade said we were to expect you.  He asked that you drop by his office when you’ve completed your interrogations.  It’s Volter you wanted to see first?

 HOLMES: Yes, the inspector had no objection to my chatting with him for a time.

 JASON.  HAppy to oblige, sir, if you don’t mind sharing his accommodations.  The interrogation room is tied up at present.

HOLMES: That would be perfectly satisfactory.

(center stage is now illuminated to reveal Volter’s cell.  Prisoner sits on the edge of his bunk.  Holmes is seated on a stool facing him.)

VOLTER:  No need to introduce yourself, Mr. Holmes.  You have quite a reputation among the sort I pal around with.

HOLMES:  Not altogether unfavorable, I hope.

VOLTER:  Neither favorable or unfavorable, exactly.  Just somebody it’s best to stay away from.

HOLMES: I’m pleased you’re willing to make an exception this morning.

VOLTER:  Kills time.  Nothing to lose.  What do you want from me?

HOLMES.  I’m thinking of representing Mrs. Hitchens and you may have information that could help exonerate her husband.  The poor woman is very distressed as you might imagine.

VOLTER:  Help em!  Damn Hitchens and his missus.  I’ve already told the police everything I know and I hope they hang the bastard with it.  That’s all I got to look forward to.  The one that put me here swinging along side me.  (forced laugh)  How’s that for ambition?

HOLMES:  I can understand how you feel, Volter.  But my investigations will either cement the case against Hitchens and satisfy your understandable animosity toward the man or…

VOLTER:  Not animosity.  Hatred.  I was a free man, minding my own business, before he…

HOLMES: (sharply)  Allow me to finish, sir.  Or, if the facts point the other way, my investigations will bring to justice the real instigator of the crime.  How would you feel swinging, as you put it, alongside an innocent man while the real cause of your misfortune went merrily about his business?

VOLTER:  Hold on.  You’re saying there’s some doubt about Hitchens?  The police are dead certain he’s the one.

HOLMES:  I wouldn’t be here, Volter, if I didn’t have reason to question some of their assumptions.

VOLTER:  Now that’s a real worry, ain’t it?  If Sherlock Holmes has his doubts then so have I. 

HOLMES:  Then give me whatever information you can.  Please leave nothing out.  It’s the details I need.

VOLTER:  It’s the details I don’t have.  Not about the guy behind the scene who was runnin’ the show.  But I’ll do my best.

HOLMES:  That’s all I can ask.  What was your first contact with our mysterious friend?

VOLTER:  I’m not one for steady employment you understand, so there’s always need for money.  So about four weeks ago there’s this advertisement in the Chronicle for part time work over a brief period.  Good pay, it said.  Reply with employment history.  Well, part time work never hurt anyone especially if its brief enough.  So that part was all right.  But it was the last line what caught my eye, all right.  ‘Employer a believer in God’s power of redemption.’  Those exact words.  Funny thing in an ad, ain’t it?

HOLMES:  Yes, indeed.

VOLTER:  Struck me somebody’s fishin’ for sinners and he ain’t Saint Paul.  So sin being my strong point, so to speak, I applied the very next day.

HOLMES: You mentioned your prison record.

VOLTER: Some of it, anyway.  Had a hunch it might help.

HOLMES: Which it did, obviously.

VOLTER:  Not more than a few days later-Monday it was-here comes this letter in the post.  The first thing that pops out is a £10 note.  That’s getting things off to a good start, I think to myself.  Then the letter says that my application was read with interest and there’s a job for me well suited to my experience.  The payment being very substantial.

HOLMES:  £10?  For just applying.  Your correspondent was very generous.

VOLTER:  Money was no object to him in the whole damn affair.  Privacy was, though.  Whoever I was dealing with was a shy bugger.

HOLMES:  How so?

VOLTER:  His letter says that there’s a second ten pounder to be had.  All I had to do was wear a red scarf and stroll into Regent’s Park Hanover Gate Thursday morning at seven o’clock sharp.  I was to look for a park bench with a Scottish Terrier tied to it.  Then I was to take a seat on the bench and take out what’s in a pouch tied to the dog’s neck.

HOLMES:  Ah!  Fascinating.  We’re dealing with a clever scoundrel.  I take it your interest in this part time employment remained keen.

VOLTER:  Not my style getting’ up early, but another £10 was a powerful inducement, you understand.  So I did what it said and there’s this dog friendly as could be.  And, sure enough, there’s the pouch with the money inside what was promised.

HOLMES:  Along with more instructions, I assume.

VOLTER:  That took me back some.  I figured ahead of time that it’d be some kind of job Her Majesty wouldn’t exactly approve of.  Nobody throws away twenty quid for nothing.  But…

HOLMES:  Excuse me, Volter, for interrupting.  Tell me, as you approached the bench did you notice anyone in the vicinity?

VOLTER:  Just for an instant.  The minute he saw me coming, he made a dash toward some dense bushes nearby.

HOLMES:  You keep referring to this shy figure as ‘he.’  You’re quite certain it was a man?

VOLTER:  He was wearing trousers, I can tell you that.

HOLMES:  (now pacing excitedly back and forth in the cell)  Of course.  Please go on.  The message that would earn Her Majesty’s disapproval?

VOLTER:  Like I said, it took me back some.  Committin’ murder wasn’t in my regular line of work.  But it wasn’t altogether unknown either.  It says that there’s five-hundred to go along with the twenty for knocking off some bloke.  It’s to be while he’s taking a stroll in the garden of his suburban villa.  The job’s to be done five days later.  Details to follow if I was to go ahead.  There was a pencil in the pouch.  ‘Aye, or ‘nae’ was at the bottom for me to decide on.

HOLMES:  The aye had it, apparently.

VOLTER:  It sounded like something I could do pretty easy.  And no complaints about money.  If the truth be known, I’d done much the same for a lot less.  And with him sayin’ the money’d be in advance, it looked okay.

HOLMES:  In advance, you say?

VOLTER:  He’d of knowd that’d have to be part of the deal.  And he’d of knowd too I wouldn’t cop out on ‘im.  He made it clear that’d be unhealthy for me and I believed him.  Anyway, I thought it over just a bit-couple of minutes is all-drew a big fat circle round the ‘aye,’ put the message back in the pouch, said good bye to the dog, and walked off casual like.  Like I signed on a job like that practically everyday.

HOLMES:  Did you glance back by any chance?

VOLTER:  And queer the deal?  The gentlemen had his way of conductin’ business and I had no argument with it.  Not then, anyway. 

HOLMES:  What was the next…no wait.  The dog.  I can imagine it barking and jumping about the whole time?

VOLTER:  Not at all.  A little petting was all it took to keep him as quiet as you please. 

HOLMES:  “Him,” you say?  It seems this well-scripted little drama called for an all male cast.

VOLTER:  (smiling) You do like details, don’t you, Mr. Holmes.  Now I really can’t say about the dog.  I didn’t take any notice.  It not wearing trousers or anythin’.  To me all dogs are a ‘he’ unless proven otherwise.

HOLMES:  I understand.  When did you get the ‘details’ he spoke of?

VOLTER:  Let’s see, it was Thursday in the park.  Not more’n a few days hence-Monday, I reckon-here comes a nice fifty pounder in the mail to serve as a deposit on an account I was to open at the Capital and Country bank in my real name.  That was his hook on me, see.  If he turned me in, I’d have a lot of explaining to do.

HOLMES:  Didn’t that worry you at all? 

VOLTER:  Some, I guess.  But I intended to carry out my part of the bargain and I figured he’d carry out his.  He’d likely be even shyer after the killin’ than before.  So the next day I did like I was told.  Walking into banks like an honest man and setting up accounts wasn’t exactly what I was accustomed to.  But why not?  If somebody asked, I hadn’t done a thing except patting dogs and opening letters.  And my money was as good as the next man’s, wasn’t it?

 HOLMES:  It was, indeed.

VOLTER:  My instructions were to go back to the park the day after that.  Like before, you know.  Same time, same scarf, same bench, same dog.  No message this time, though.  Just an empty pouch so I popped my new passbook into it like I was supposed to and walked off.

HOLMES:  You’re a wonderful raconteur, Volter.  Haven’t heard as interesting a story for a long time.  Brings me back to some of my earlier adventures.  Do go on.

VOLTER:  Well, wouldn’t you know.  The very next day a messenger brings a package to the flat.  There’s my passbook back but now showing a new deposit of £450.  Makes me a rich man, Mr. Holmes.  Me who’s never had more’n a few crowns in his pocket his whole life.

HOLMES:  And your new instructions?

VOLTER:  The heat was on now.  Tomorrow I was to withdraw my money in the morning and get the job in the afternoon.

HOLMES:  This was about two weeks ago.

VOLTER:  Yes, sir.  To the day.  The package contained everything I’d need for the job.  Except for the revolver, of course.  He’d know I had my own.  Like a carpenter havin’ his hammer.

HOLMES:  Of course.

VOLTER.  There was the address of the villa outside town and directions getting there.  A picture of the bloke I was to do in.  A Mr. Murchand it was.  Name didn’t mean anything to me.  A very regular gentlemen, the letter said.  Goes on his before-tea constitutional stroll around his property like clockwork every evening at 4:45.  Takes a gravel walk going right by a tool shed that had a window facing the house he comes from.  Walks slowly on account of the gout he had.

HOLMES:  Your correspondent seems to have been on intimate terms with the family.

VOLTER:  Not intimate enough, as it turned out.  The way it was supposed to work, there was this garden gate in the high stone wall running in front of the villa.  Always kept unlocked.  All I had to do was slip inside the property, walk straight ahead about fifty yards along a path leadin’ to a gravel walk-the same one Murchand takes-go left on it around a bend to a tool shed I’ll spot just aways farther down.  Then I was to get in the shed, close the door behind me so’s not to attract attention, sit by the window, and wait for him to come by from the house.  Then after the shootin,’ hightail it back through the gate I come in by and onto the road before anybody was the wiser.

HOLMES:  Sounds like a straightforward plan.

VOLTER:  Supposed to be like shootin’ ducks in a pond it was.  To make sure, he even sent a sketch showing the whole layout just so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding.  Shouldn’t have a bit of trouble at all.  Very specific he was about followin’ his instructions exactly.  (pauses, stands, and paces back and forth in an agitated manner for the remainder of the scene)  That’s a laugh, ain’t it.  No trouble at all except for my ending up in this bloody cell.

HOLMES: What went wrong?

VOLTER:  That’s all I’ve been thinkin’ about ever since they threw me in here.  Found the villa and the shed, all right.  No problem there until I went inside.  Didn’t like the setup from the beginning.  Too closed in for my taste.  Boxed in, you know.  Spider webs all over.  Dark and smelly, it was, too.  Only view I had of what was going on was through that one little window.  And havin’ to scramble out after the shootin’ would slow me down some.  Didn’t want to hang around any longer than I had to.

HOLMES:  I can understand your apprehension.

VOLTER:  Another thing.  I figured whoever it was what planned this job knows a lot about all sorts of things.  But not about my line of work, he doesn’t.  You can bet on it.  If I’m going to do a job, I’m going to do it my way.  You understand?

HOLMES: Perfectly.

VOLTER:  Thing was, just outside the shed was a big trash cart backed up into some dense bushes.  I could just as well hide behind it, have a good look down the path and all around besides.  The cart was there to steady my arm when the shootin’ took place, and I’d be out of there in no time.  So I got out of the tool shed about as fast as I got in and took to waiting for my man in the brush.

HOLMES:  That was in violation of your instructions.  Turned out to be a mistake, I take it? 

VOLTER:  My mistake was getting involved in the bloody scheme to begin with.  Mr. Regular-as-clockwork got himself wound down somehow cause when he came down the path it wasn’t from the house like he was supposed to but from the opposite way.  To the house.  You follow me?  I wouldn’t of even seen him comin’ if I was still in the shed.  I’d of only seen his back moving away from me and then I couldn’t be sure who the hell he was.  Not seeing his face at all and going the wrong way besides could be anybody.  Bein’ in outside the bush and bein’ able to see both ways I got a good look at ‘em. It was Marchand, all right.  So I shot him just like I needed to, thanking my lucky stars I was in the right place to do it.  Course if I’d aknowed what happened next I wouldn’t be so quick with my appreciation.  Well, I can’t tell you more of the rest than what was in the papers.

HOLMES:  Just one last question.  How long, would you say, did you wait in the bushes before your mark presented himself.

VOLTER:  I don’t know exactly.  Weren’t long, that’s for sure.  Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe.  Time for just one smoke.

HOLMES:  Quite so.  Thank you, Mr. Volter, you’ve been a tremendous help.  (stands and shakes the prisoner’s hand) It’s a pity that a scheme so brilliantly executed at the beginning should have ended so…em…awkwardly at the end.

VOLTER:  My thoughts exactly.  And Mr. Holmes, sir…

HOLMES:  Yes?

VOLTER:  Find the bastard for me.  The real one what put me here.

HOLMES:  I’ll do my best.

VOLTER:  And seein’ as I’ve done you a favor, maybe you’ll have ‘em do me one.

HOLMES:  What’s that, Volter?

VOLTER: Hang me second.

SCENE 3

(Same time and place.  Illuminated corner of stage reveals constable at the front desk.  Holmes standing alongside.)

JASON:  I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes, Trevor Hitchens absolutely refuses to speak to any visitors.  Even his wife.  Too ashamed, is my guess.  Anyway, we can’t force him.  The constable who was at the scene is still on duty, if you’d like to chat with him.

HOLMES:  Kirk?  I know him.  Yes, by all means.

JASON:  I’m sure he’ll find the time for you, Mr. Holmes.  (goes off)

(Curtain opens on the suburban road fronting the Murchand villa.  The stone wall running the length of the forestage is, as Volter described, pierced on the far right by a garden gate.  Behind the wall, treetops and part of the roofline of the two-story Victorian house can be glimpsed on the far left.  As the scene progresses, Sherlock Holmes can be heard off stage exchanging comments with Kirk.  On these occasions all action on stage freezes during the discourse and returns to life immediately after.)

KIRK: (standing motionless in front of the set as he addresses the unseen Holmes)  I was on my regular beat, you know.  Street was quiet as it normally is.  Not much going on this end of town.

 HOLMES:  (off stage)  How regular, Kirk?  Pass by the Murchand Villa, for example, about the same time every evening?

KIRK:  Pretty much, sir.  Maybe ten minutes plus or minus.  Unless something’s come up to change things.  Like it did that night.

HOLMES:  A memorable occasion I can imagine. 

KIRK:  That it was, Mr. Holmes.  All of a sudden, here comes Mr. Murchand stormin’ down the road toward me as best he can with his limp.  I know him all right by name.  Exchanged pleasantries now and then through the years. He’s flustered some but coolheaded, you know, as a man in his position needs be.

MURCHAND: (running on stage from the left) Thank god, I found you, Kirk.

KIRK:  (advancing toward him) What’s wrong Mr. Murchand?

MURCHAND:  Somebody’s on my property.  Inside the tool shed.  I heard noises.  Something’s going on inside there. 

KIRK:  All right, don’t be too alarmed, sir.  We’ll take care of it.  Were you seen?

MURCHAND:  I don’t think so.  I would have been if I’d taken my usual route along the gravel walk that goes around the property.  The tool shed is right on the walk and its only window faces the house.  But this evening, I wanted to take a look at some geraniums the gardener had just planted in the flower beds by the brook.  So I went down the hill behind the house, admired the flowers, and then looped around back up the hill heading for the gravel walk I always take.  By the grace of God, I went a way that took me on the far side of the shed-the blind side, so to speak.  That’s when I heard sounds coming from within.

KIRK:  Could you tell how many voices there were?

MURCHAND:  No.  All I could make out through the walls were muffled noises.  Could have even been crates being pushed around for all I know?  You’re thinking there may be a number of men in there?

KIRK:  Yes sir.  Very likely vagrants looking for a roof over their heads for the night.  Usually travel together.  Won’t be the first time we’ve run into them drifting into town.  I won’t try to tackle them until I get help.

HOLMES:  (off stage)  Pardon me for interrupting, constable, but I’m trying to get a clear picture of your run in with Mr. Marchand.  He came onto the road from the carriage drive and then ran towards you, right?

KIRK:  Yes, sir.  He said he was too frightened to go out the gate because of the noise his footsteps would make across the gravel.  So to get out of there without being noticed, he went back the way he came.  Down the hill, around to the house, and then out the drive.

HOLMES:  That’s a good deal of exertion for a man with a bad case of gout.  He must have been quite out of breath?

KIRK:  I don’t remember, sir.  Too concentrated in what he had to say, I guess.  He always was a little red-faced, you know.  Not surprising for one of his age and size.

HOLMES:  Thank you.  Those are my only questions for now, constable.

KIRK:  (turning to Marchand as action renews)  Don’t trouble yourself, sir.  I’ll summon some help and we’ll get them off your property before you know it.

MARCHAND:  (irritably) I don’t want to just get them off my property.  I want them arrested.  My villa is not going to be thought of as a hostel for vagrants-beggars, gypsies, and thieves everyone of them.

KIRK:  I understand, Mr. Murchand.  We’ll collar as many as we can.  They’re liable to scatter though.

MURCHAND:  (more angrily than before) Taking my tools with them, no doubt.  I’m not going to have it, you hear!  There’s a slide bolt on the outside of the shed door.  The door’s good and stout too.  I’m going to lock them in and then we’ll see where they scatter to.

KIRK:  (sternly)  I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Murchand.  There’s some rough characters among them and if….

MURCHAND:  Nothing to worry about, constable.  There’s lots of brush around.  I can sneak back…

KIRK:  No sir!  With all due respect you’re not to go back in there.  I want you in your house locking all the doors and staying out of our way.  I can’t spend time arguing with you.  Those are police orders.  Is that clear?

MURCHAND:  (apologetically) Yes, constable.

(Murchand watches Kirk run offstage to fetch help, then, when the officer is some distance away, hurriedly enters garden gate and disappears from view leaving stage empty)

KIRK: (off stage to Holmes)  About halfway down the block, I got suspicious somehow and glanced back to see if the fool man was following my instructions.  Instead I see him stepping through the garden gate.  He was going to try to lock them in like he said.  Like catchin’ those ruffians was the most important thing on earth.

HOLMES: An audacious gentleman.

KIRK: Too audacious for his own good as it turned out.  For a moment I didn’t know what to do.  I needed bobbies alongside me but there’d be hell to pay if I let a toff like Mr. Marchand risk his neck.  What if they had somebody posted outside to keep guard?  Only thing I could do was swing right around and rush back.

(Just as Kirk, now rushing back onstage nears the garden gate Murchand’s voice is heard from backstage shouting “No, no, I…”  His pleas are immediately followed by the crack of a revolver and screams of pain from the struck victim.  Two more shots ring out.  Kirk is just about to enter the grounds when he hears running footsteps approaching the gate.  Kirk quickly backs out and flattens himself against the wall.  After a few suspenseful moments filled by ever louder footsteps, Volter, revolver in hand, emerges from the gate and stops momentarily to look up and down the road.  At that instant he is clubbed violently from behind by Kirk.  Volter falls to the ground.  Kirk drags him close enough to the gate to secure him to it with handcuffs, blows his police whistle, and dashes onto the property.  At this point, center stage darkens and a spotlight illuminates Holmes and Kirk talking to each other in the police station’s anteroom)

HOLMES:  Quick thinking and well done, constable.  I was glad to see the papers give you due credit for your heroism.

KIRK:  Mightn’t have been so heroic if it was a fair fight, Mr. Holmes.  He was a big, ugly brute.

HOLMES:  ‘Not engaging in fair fights’ is a law enforcement maxim, constable.

KIRK:  I don’t recall hearing that during our training, Mr. Holmes.  But if you say so.

HOLMES:  Please go on with your story.

KIRK:  My hair practically stood on end, I can tell you that.  I didn’t know what I’m dealing with when I ran in there.  More men?  More guns?  But I had to see to Mr. Marchand.  What I found was what I was afraid to find.  Poor man lying dead on the grass.  One hole in his chest and two in his head.  As horrible a sight as I’ve seen on duty.  Then help arrived to secure the grounds, look for evidence, and book the murderer.

HOLMES:  I assume Mrs. Marchand was asked to identify the body.

KIRK:  Yes, sir.  There was no way around it.  Couldn’t stand to see him like that, poor woman.  Just turned away and hid her face in her hands.

HOLMES:  A terrible shock, indeed.  Excellent report, constable.  Anything you’d like to add?

KIRK:  Only my remorse in leaving Mr. Marchand alone.  I should have seen that being so angry like that he was not in his right mind.

HOLMES:  It seems to me that your conduct was commendable in every instance.  You were trained as a policeman.  Not a soothsayer.

KIRK:  Coming from you, Mr. Holmes, that comes as a relief.  Thank you, sir.

SCENE 4

(Same morning.  Inspector Lastrade’s office at the Bow Street Station.  He is seated at his desk when Holmes enters)

LASTRADE: (standing) Sherlock, come in. (pointing to a chair)

HOLMES: You asked to see me?

LASTRADE:  Right.  You’ve helped us on any number of occasions and I thought we ought to try to reciprocate somehow.

HOLMES: Oh?

LASTRADE:  It seems you’ve taken an interest in the Marchand case.

HOLMES:  A passing interest, yes.  Mrs. Hitchens is not a client of mine, but she did come by and I promised to look into the matter in a preliminary way.  She was very distraught as you can imagine.

LASTRADE:  She had good reason to be.  Her husband’s stuck his neck in the noose and in short order the law will do him the favor of tightening it.  That’s why I wanted to see you, Sherlock.  There’s no use your getting any deeper in this thing.

HOLMES:  That will be my decision.

LASTRADE:  Of course.  It’s just that I hate to see you wasting your time, is all.  Wanted to be sure you had all the information you needed.  Then you can draw whatever conclusions you will.  If you’ve read the newspapers, you know mine.

 HOLMES: Without a doubt.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so certain about a thing, Lestrade.  May I ask how you came about this fixed attitude?

LASTRADE: Let’s start with Hitchen’s motive.  The very next morning following the murder, I went to Murchand’s office and interrogated a number of people on his staff.  Impressive place it was too.  Bustling with trade and all.

HOLMES:  What impression did you get as to how they felt about their employer.  Well liked, was he?                                                                          

LASTRADE:  Respected would be a better word.  They all said he knew his business,  that’s clear.  And he treated them fairly on the whole.  Not over generously, mind you.  Wasn’t one to throw money about, but I suppose that was to be expected of a man in his position.  Their main complaint was that he could display a rather nasty temper from time to time.  Gout, maybe.  Who knows?  Anyway, they were pretty clear about that too.

HOLMES:  And I would guess that temper of his was on display when he discovered the theft.

LASTRADE.  You’re right about that.  None of them had seen him quite so furious as when he got them all together and told of the missing £500 gilts.  Six of them, it was!  Stolen from the office safe.  Didn’t name names but he was sure it was one of them, and he had a pretty good idea of which one and that man would be sorry the rest of his natural born days.  He’d see to that.  Those bonds had to be turned into cash and there were only so many places in London set up where a thief could bring them.  And he already had a private detective checking out that angle.  Wound up his talk saying it’d save everybody a lot of time and trouble if the thief confessed now.

HOLMES:  No one spoke up, I suppose.

LASTRADE:  No, but it was Hitchens everybody had on their mind.  And that’s what they thought Mr. Marchand had on his mind, too.  Being bookkeeper, Hitchens had access to the safe all the time.

HOLMES:  Did anyone else?

LASTRADE:  That’s hard to say.  They admitted being careless about leaving the safe open sometimes.  And there were always a lot of comings and goings.  Thing is, though, they swore that nobody but Mr. Marchand and Hitchens knew about the gilts being there.  Matter of fact the gilts disappeared the very day Mr. Murchand was to take them to the bank for safekeeping.

HOLMES:  What did Hitchen say about this?

LASTRADE:  What you’d expect a man accused of hiring an assassin to say.  Saw the bonds themselves safe and sound in the safe that very morning.  Wasn’t worried about their not being there at closing time assuming his employer took them.  It was only the next morning, he said, when Mr. Marchand asked for them.  The truth is Hitchens sallied off with them that night and stashed them somewhere.  You can be sure we’ll find out where before too long.

HOLMES:  I assume you searched his flat?

LASTRADE: Nothing there.  Hitchens’ too clever for that.  But we found something just as incriminating at Volter’s place.  Take a look at this. (reaches into his desk drawer and hands Holmes a sketch)  Shows a layout of Murchand’s villa.  Volter told us-you too, I suppose-how he got ahold of it.  The paths, the toolshed,  flower beds, everything he needed to know.  And guess who drew it.  (sarcastically)  That poor, innocent man Marie Hitchens married to.  I’ll warrant even you, Sherlock, couldn’t figure out how that piece of paper mysteriously flew out of Trevor Hitchen’s hands, floated around in London’s fog, and then sailed into the window of a complete stranger who was so inspired by the sketch that he went out and murdered the property’s owner.  Shows the power of artwork to move a person.     

HOLMES:  What did Hitchens say about it?

LASTRADE:  Inasmuch signed his death warrant, he did.  Admitted right off he drew it.  In front of three witnesses too.  I made sure of that.  Claims Mr. Murchand asked him to draw it up for some gardening project.  Turns out no one else in the house knew anything about it.  Or the gardener either for all that.

HOLMES:  Did Hitchens know where the sketch was found?

LASTRADE:  He learned soon enough.  After he confessed drawing it.  Then he acted shocked as could be.  Hadn’t the faintest idea in the world how it got into Volter’s hands.  Then shut up like a clam and wouldn’t say another word.  Hardly blame him.  Every one dug him deeper.

HOLMES:  Obviously you have a strong case, Lastrade.  But I still don’t understand  why Hitchens would want to have Murchand killed.  There was no proof against him.  He had no fear of being arrested.

LASTRADE:  Put yourself in Hitchen’s place.  If Murchand fired him and word got around, his bookkeeping career in London-in all England, for that matter-was over.  And when he learned all the fences had been tipped off, he wouldn’t dare try to sell the gilts.  Not for years anyway.  Might as well use them for wallpaper.  So what’s left?  A factory job?  Spade work in the fields?  Poor choices for a man seated at a desk all his adult life.  But with Murchand out of the way, it’s a different story.  He’d be sorely needed by the owners, wouldn’t he?  Maybe be promoted.  Oh, there’s plenty of motive there all right.

HOLMES:  I take your point, Lestrade.

LASTRADE:  And I’m not even finished.  There’s more.

HOLMES:  Go on.

LASTRADE:  There’s the dog for another.  Hitchen’s dog to be exact.  One of the first things we looked at.  Volter said it was an Scottish Terrier tied to the park bench, and, guess what sort of a pet our friend Hitchens has?  Right, a Scottish Terrier. 

HOLMES: With identical paw prints, I presume.

LASTRADE: This is serious business, Sherlock.  We showed the dog to Volter who recognized it right off.  I’ll go on.  Volter had a lithograph of Marchand with him the night of the murder, right?  Cut out of a company advertisement.  How’d he come by it?  It all adds up, piece by piece, doesn’t it?

HOLMES:  It does.  No question about it.  By the way, did you happen to interview Mrs. Murchand.

LASTRADE: No stone left unturned, Sherlock.  Not that it was of much use.  The poor woman had nothing new to add.  Her husband had no enemies, she said.  Even his competitors spoke well of him.  Aside from business, kept pretty much to himself.  Health problems and all.  It’s all been a terrible experience for her.  Taking several months on the continent to try to restore her spirits.  Can’t say I blame her.

HOLMES:  Nor I.  Thank you for bringing me up to date, Lastrade.  I appreciate your taking the time out of a busy schedule. 

LASTRADE:  Happy to do it, Sherlock.  I’ll be honest with you.  It was you who solved this case in a way.  The whole time I was thinking what would my friend, Mr. Holmes do next, where would he look, whom would he talk to?  Wrapped the whole thing up rather neatly, if I do say so.  I’ve learned a lot from you through the years.

HOLMES: Thank you, Lastrade.  That’s very…

(their conversation is interrupted by a knock on Lastrade’s office door)

LASTRADE: Damn.  I told Jason our conversation wasn’t to be disturbed.  (steps outside)

(In Lastrade’s absence, Holmes stands and paces back and forth energetically, hands behind his back, in contemplative pose.  Lastrade returns shortly.)

LASTRADE:  Well, if I haven’t convinced you, Sherlock.  No doubt Mr. Hitchens will.  He just signed a confession.  Knew he would.  Hasn’t told us yet where the money is, but he will.  Just a matter of time.

HOLMES:  That changes things, doesn’t it?

LASTRADE:  You mean this little meeting we had?  Not much point in it was there?  (laughs)  I don’t mind.  Not at all.  Always enjoy talking to you.  This case wasn’t your cup of tea from the beginning.  Too much evidence.  Too few suspects.  Anyway, it’s all over now. 

HOLMES: (Goes to window, presses his palms on its sill, and looks out.  Several moments of silence follow.  Lastrade drums uneasily on his desk, looks up at Holmes from time to time, and then busies himself shuffling papers around.  Holmes finally swings around to face the detective)  On the contrary, my dear Lestrade.  It’s just begun.  It appears another character has entered the scene.  A very cleverly concealed one.  I’m taking the case.

 SCENE 5

(Two days later, same location as Scene 3 except that the stone wall has disappeared and that views of the house and tool shed are no longer obstructed.  In the foreground is a gravel path with tall hedges planted alongside suggesting extensive landscaping.  It is dusk)

HOLMES:  Thank you for coming, Watson.  Mrs. Murchand could not see me when I called yesterday, but in response to a note I sent up with her maid, she graciously consented to our prowling around the estate this evening.

WATSON:  Dash, it Holmes.  If I didn’t know you better, I wouldn’t be here.  What do you hope to find?  I imagine the police have gone over the area very thoroughly.

HOLMES:  I’m sure they have.  Within the confines of their fixed state of mind.

WATSON:  About Hitchens you mean?  It’s not only the police who think he’s guilty, the rest of the world does as well, including, by the way, myself.  Even Hitchens himself says he’s guilty.  As far as I know, you’re the only holdout.

HOLMES:  Not only me, my dear Watson.  My friend logic has raised doubts on the matter.  We shall see.  I do appreciate your overcoming your understandable doubts and joining me.

WATSON:  If I can be of some use to you, Holmes, I’m happy to oblige.  Although I’ll be deuced if I see any point in it.

HOLMES:  The point is the same as it has been in every investigation.  To satisfy my curiosity.  I have my suspicions but its certainty I’m after.  A little industry here should decide matters.  So let’s get started, shall we?

WATSON:  I’m at your disposal.

HOLMES:  We’re standing on the estate’s circumferential gravel walk that starts at the main entrance, proceeds past the toolshed, and then loops out of sight among those trees.  We can’t see it from here, but the walk continues along the brook at the bottom of this rise and terminates back at the house.  All of that is on this copy I made of Hitchens’ sketch of the place.  Are you pretty well oriented to the layout?

WATSON:  I think so, yes.

HOLMES:  Good.  Now I’m going to ask you to retrace Mr. Murchand’s footsteps the night of the murder.  He told the constable, Kirk, that he left the house and went down to the brook at the back end of the property to admire some newly planted geraniums.  Then he climbed up the rise and past the far side of the tool shed to regain his accustomed route along the gravel walk.  But as soon as he overheard some kind of sound emanating from the tool shed, he rushed back down the hill and returned to the house by way of the far end of the walk.  At the house, he took the carriage drive to the road where he met up with the constable.  And that’s where I’ll be when you’ve finished your jaunt.  Is that clear?

WATSON:  Perfectly.

HOLMES:  Mimic Murchand’s pace as best you can.  I should think he rather sauntered his way along until coming to the shed.  After that he must have hobbled as fast as he could.  Bear in mind he was a fairly stout man with a case of gout.

WATSON: Right.  I’m off then.  (exits in direction of house.  Holmes checks the time on his pocket watch)

(While Watson is so occupied, Holmes strides into the bush, positions himself behind the trash cart described by Volter, looks right and left, and then extends his arm pretending to fire in all directions.  Scrambling out of the brush, he flings himself down on the ground in front of the shed and scrutinizes it intently.  Jumping up, he strides vigorously to the tool shed, operates its sliding bolt a few times, wipes his hand with his handkerchief, and ventures inside closing the door behind him.  Lights then dim and brighten again suggesting a lapse of time at the end of which Watson joins Holmes on a corner of the stage.)

WATSON:  (wiping his brow with his handkerchief as Holmes again ascertains the time)  That rise is steeper than it looks.

HOLMES:  Relax Watson, we have all the time in the world.  Did you hear anything when you passed the shed?

WATSON:  No, I’m sorry.  I wasn’t paying attention.  You hadn’t said I should be listening for something.  We could do it again if you like once I catch my breath.

HOLMES:  That won’t be necessary.  You’ve been a big help as it is.  Well, that completes our little exercise here.  I have all the information I need.  (lights are extinguished)

SCENE 6

(Holme’s rooms approximately one-month later.  Sherlock comfortably seated and reading the Chronicle with the requisite pipe on an end table at his side.  Watson enters carrying his own copy of the newspaper.)

HOLMES: (continuing to focus on his newspaper) Good morning, Watson.

WATSON: Morning, Holmes.  I know he deserved it, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him for all that.  (slaps his newspaper)  I thought you might have been a bit moved yourself as his former champion and all.  However, I see your usual imperturbable self.  I should have guessed as much.

HOLMES:  You’re speaking of Trevor Hitchens, I assume.  Lately departed through the good offices of Her Majesty’s government with the assistance of Dr. Newton’s force of gravity. 

WATSON:  That’s one way of putting it.  Plucky chap. No last words. Just strode up and took his medicine like a man.  Volter too, surprisingly.  Even had a faint, fleeting smile on his face according to one report.  Must have dawned on them these last days what they’d done and reconciled themselves to their fate.  That’s what the newspapers quoted Lastrade saying at any rate.

HOLMES:  Yes, that sounds like him all right. 

WATSON:  Do I detect a bit of surliness on your part, Holmes?  Not miffed that he handled this thing on his own?  Pretty competently by all accounts.

HOLMES:  (snorts)

WATSON:  Damn it, Holmes.  You’ve bested him a hundred times.  Give him credit for winning one, for God’ sake.  May not have been the most difficult case in the world, but he put two and two together, proved his case in court, and saw that justice was done. (assaults his newspaper again)  What more do you want?

HOLMES:  (Dismissively)  Nothing.  Nothing at all.

WATSON:  It’s no good talking to you. You’re in one of your moods.  I had a few questions about Murchand’s murder.  Some minor loose ends that occurred to me recently, but I’ll come back tomorrow. (approaches the door and starts to leave)

HOLMES: (mumbling to himself)  There was no murder.

WATSON:  (stopping at the door)  What was that, Holmes?

HOLMES: (loudly, almost shouting) I said there was no murder.

WATSON: (reentering the room and moving aimlessly around ) What would you call it then?  I take it there was some reason for their being hanged yesterday.

HOLMES: (irritably) Yes, of course.  Absolutely.

WATSON: Then what are you grumbling about?

HOLMES:  Nothing.  Nothing worth talking about.  If you’re going to leave, Watson, (emphatically) leave.

WATSON: I’ll leave when you do me the courtesy of explaining why there had not been a murder when there are three dead bodies that would argue otherwise.

HOLMES:  Convincingly, I’m sure.  Dead men don’t lie, do they?  Forget what I said.  Grumbling is all.  You’re right.  I’m not in a very hospitable mood.

WATSON:  I’m worried about you, Holmes.  Are you quite well.  Not just physically, I mean, but…

HOLMES:  Quite well, Watson.  In all respects.  May I ask what prompted your sudden concern for my state of mind?

WATSON: Well, frankly, you have behaved a little erratically of late.

HOLMES:  Specifics, Watson.

WATSON:  Your having trumpeted Trevor’s innocence for one thing.  I can imagine some emotional commitment once you promised Marie Hitchens you’d look into her wifely intuitions but persisting in the matter after his confession strikes me as, well…

HOLMES: Delusional?

WATSON: Don’t take offense, old man.  I’m a doctor you know and we look at signs out of habit.  I’ve told you long before that you’re due-long overdue, as a matter of fact-for a vacation.  Forever coping with base criminality would get anyone down.  I don’t know how you’ve stood it so long.  A good rest is what you need.  Lastrade, if you want to know, is of the same opinion.  He still can’t get over your going on-raving was the way he put it-about some cleverly concealed participant of your own imagination.

HOLMES: (abrupt laugh)  Not of my making, Watson.  Lastrade should be more careful in his choice of words.

WATSON:  Whose making then?

HOLMES:  You’d have to ask Mrs. Murchand for a definitive answer to that.  But I have my suspicions.

WATSON:  You’re talking in riddles, Holmes.  Obviously, you have a slant on this case you haven’t deigned to share with me.

HOLMES:  For your sake.  You wouldn’t want to hear it, believe me.

WATSON:  Why not let me be the judge of that?

HOLMES:  Because I know you.  Take my advice and return to your intention to leave.

WATSON:  I wouldn’t dream of it.  Not with that sort of introduction.  You’ll have to force me out bodily.

HOLMES: All right, but trust me, you’ll be sorry you insisted on it.  You’ll have the whole story from beginning to end if (raising his voice) you would be so good as to stop standing around like an idiot with your hat in your hand and sit down.

WATSON: (sets down his hat takes a seat facing Holmes)  At your pleasure, Holmes.

HOLMES:  The story-indeed the whole affair-starts with Christina Murchand.  You’ll recoil, no doubt, at my assumptions, but, mark my words, they’ll be borne out when Mrs. Murchand’s stay on the continent is extended considerably-let’s say nine months or more.

WATSON:  Nine months?  Why…

HOLMES:  When, I might add, she returns with the no-longer-cleverly-concealed babe in her arms.

WATSON:  Really, Holmes!  I’ve never known you to so jump to wild conclusions.  All we know is that she needed to get away from it all for a time.  And who could blame her?

HOLMES: Not altogether wild surely.  Isn’t that the reason women commonly give before they earnestly desire to disappear from public view?

WATSON:  Well, if you’re right-and I doubt that you are-it will at least be of some consolation for the good lady to look on her child and be reminded of the husband she was so violently deprived of.

HOLMES:  Not, I’m afraid, if it reminds her of someone else.  Oh, don’t look so shocked, Watson.  From the very first I suspected our clean-cut, respectable Mr. Hitchens of a liaison with his employer’s wife.

WATSON: Hold on.  You’re jumping from one unwarranted assumption to another.  That’s a terrible accusation to make.  And not at all like you Holmes.  I can’t imagine you have any grounds for it.  Other than, if I may say so, your morbid mental state of late.

HOLMES: Logic, Watson, logic.  The ingredients that make up such affairs were all there.  A woman of her beauty and spirits neglected by a man twenty years her senior, partially crippled by gout, and totally absorbed in his business.  At the other end, a somewhat faded wife who admitted to having little of common interest with her husband.  And, in that murky region between the two women, a handsome young man who incidentally happened to be a frequent visitor to the villa.  And, I might add, lurking in the wings, a jealous husband.  Haven’t you attended enough operas to realize the portent of such dramatic elements? 

WATSON:  We’re talking real life, Holmes.  Not opera.  You can’t take a few unfounded insinuations and…

HOLMES: Even if I called upon the human heart as an expert witness?

WATSON:  Be serious, Holmes.  I pray you’ll keep your suspicions to yourself.  Even the hint of such an affair would ruin the lady’s reputation and destroy her chances for a second favorable marriage.

HOLMES: Assuming the first was as favorable as you say.  But yes, Watson, I’ll not breathe a word to anyone else.  Mind you, the possibility of such an affair was just a tentative starting point in my investigation.  Like coming upon the loose end to an incredibly tangled length of string.  Trust me.  I have not abandoned my strict reliance on facts.

WATSON:  I sincerely hope so.  Go on with your story.  In the meantime I’ll withhold judgment, if you don’t mind.

HOLMES:  You are free to withhold it as long as you like.  Let me go on to the universal rush to judgment as to Trevor Hitchens’ guilt.  I asked myself what possible motive could he have?  Stealing those bonds struck me as a inexplicably stupid thing to do for a presumably bright young man.  He had to know he would be a prime suspect.  He was under no particular financial pressure.  Why for God’s sake would he take the chance of sacrificing a promising career on such a hazardous venture?

WATSON:  A sudden overwhelming impulse, perhaps.

HOLMES:  Possibly, but one he must have resisted successfully many times before.  Gilts flowed regularly in and out of the office.

WATSON:  You’re saying then that his real motive for wanting Murchand killed was replacing him as Christina’s husband?  Not about the bonds, at all?

HOLMES:  Possibly, but then why steal them to begin with?  As her husband he’d have money aplenty.  Assuming she’d marry him.  Not that he really could be confident of such an alliance.  A lower class secret lover in bed was one thing, trotting him out in the drawing room was another.  And don’t forget he would have had to divorce Marie first.  That would have made him even less eligible in society as a suitor.

WATSON: Not for money?  Not for matrimony?  Not out of pure hatred, surely.  By all accounts he got along as well with Murchand as anyone.  Before the robbery, that is.  What reason can you give for his arranging for Murchand’s death?

HOLMES:  None whatsoever.  And an even better question, why would he confess to it?  That was a defining moment in the case for me, Watson.  It confirmed his innocence of the crime.

WATSON:  More riddles, Holmes.

HOLMES:  Not when I understood his mindset.  I imagined him sitting in his cell day after day pondering the disastrous turn his life had taken.  It all must have seemed grievously unfair and inexplicable.  The only thing he could be certain of was that he had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of his employer.  And brooding on that one fact known to him, he arrived at a heart-rending conclusion.  You can guess what it was.

WATSON:  I’m afraid not.  The more you explain, the murkier the case seems to be.

HOLMES:  I’m sorry but it will be less so at the end.  We’ve agreed from the beginning that this case has been cursed by the paucity of suspects, have we not?  And that’s the curse that weighed on poor Trevor Hitchens’ mind.  If he wasn’t responsible for the murder of Murchand, who else possibly could have?  In his mind, there was only one possible answer.  His beloved Christina.  She so desperately wanted to have him at her side for life, she abandoned every scruple, every sensibility, and every precaution.

WATSON:  You’re making the whole affair sound more and more macabre.  I pray you are not right about these speculations of yours. 

HOLMES:  Well, we shall see.  Hitchens must have concluded that an attempt to defend himself, even if unsuccessful, would expose their affair, ruin her life and that of his unborn child.  Worse, God forbid, were his defense successful, it could very well mean that the noose lifted from his neck would be laid around hers.

WATSON:  But why fall on his sword so soon?  If I were him, I think I’d sit tight and see where the police investigations led.

HOLMES:  And I’ve no doubt that’s what he intended provided he could count on a bungling Scotland Yard investigation.  And, in fact, he did hesitate for a few days.  Not many of us take aggressive steps to hasten our demise.  But mark the timing of his confession.  He learned that very morning that I was on the case and realized that logic and the ultimate truth were now bound to prevail.  As he saw it, the love of his life was as good as behind bars.  Her life and that of his son were in the greatest jeopardy.  He had to seize control of the investigation before it was too late.

WATSON:  What other conclusion could he possibly have reached?  I’m glad to see that your innate modesty has not prevented you from focusing on the reality of the situation.

HOLMES:  Thank you.  It never has.

WATSON:  You’ve argued the psychological aspects of the affair pretty convincingly, I must say, but what of the facts you dote on?  What of all the hard evidence against Hitchens?

HOLMES:  You’re right, of course.  I sympathized with the man from the first but I could not rule him out completely at the initial stage in my investigations.  However, the evidence against him was not nearly as strong as Lastrade made it out to be.

WATSON:  What of Volter’s identification of the dog, for example?

HOLMES: The dog by all means.  Or the same breed dog.  It certainly wasn’t Hitchens’.  Can you imagine any animal lying contentedly still while his master was only yards away.  What dog wouldn’t be straining at his leash to be at his owner’s side and barking his head off to boot.  No, I’m afraid the dog did more to clear Hitchens than to indict him.

WATSON:  Then there was Mr. Marchand’s picture that Volter carried with him.

HOLMES:  Anyone who had the company’s circular and a pair of scissors could have managed the same thing.

WATSON:  Every case leaves a residue of disputable aspects, Holmes.  You know that better than anyone else.  On the other hand, the missing bonds and the drawing of the villa’s grounds were indisputable, were they not?

HOLMES:  Good question.  Initially, I had no explanation for either of them.  So I set them aside for the moment and addressed the larger issue of the possible involvement of Christina Marchand.  My assumption was the same as Hitchens’.  If he didn’t do it, she did.  Moreover, her motive made more sense to me than his.  This would not be the first time that a boundless woman’s love led to violence.  I tried to talk to the woman but she refused to see me.  This increased my suspicion until I realized that her dilemma was much like her lover’s.  She too was possessed of only one certainty: her own innocence.  If so, then anything she said to me would only further implicate Hitchens who, she must have been convinced, was her husband’s nemeses.

WATSON:  Good lord, Holmes.  What a twisted tale you weave.

 HOLMES:  Indeed.  As it turned out the presumption of her guilt raised perplexing questions as well besides the ones I’ve already mentioned.

WATSON:  I should think so.

HOLMES:  I asked myself how her social engagements and shopping at Harrod’s would have put her in contact with the likes of Volter? Would not her comings and goings preceding the murder caught the attention of a houseful of servants?  And then there was the distracting question of the missing bonds.  Could she have accessed the office safe without being seen and would she not have known their disappearance would have cast suspicion on the man she hoped to marry?  Finally, could she be sure that her gallant would be willing to desert his family for a life with a murderess no matter how rich and beautiful?

WATSON:  So you’ve exhausted your short list of suspects, Holmes, turning this into an unsolved mystery.  I can imagine how painful to you this must be.  I can see why you were so reluctant to discuss it.  You’re right about my being very sorry to hear it.

HOLMES:  If you please, Watson, I’m not quite finished.  There’s more.  Thinking over my interviews at Bow Street, I found a striking contradiction between Volter’s account and Kirk’s recital of Murchand’s statements.  Had Murchand actually walked past the tool shed as he claimed and had Volter actually been standing in the bushes where he said, then the murder would have taken place right then and there.  In other words, Murchand would never have made it to the road and Kirk never have been spoken to.

WATSON:  You’re saying either Volter or Murchand was lying.

HOLMES:  Exactly.  I had my notion which one it was, but I had to resolve the issue to my satisfaction on the property itself.

WATSON:  I wondered why we went out there.  It seemed nothing had been accomplished but a bit of exercise on my part.

HOLMES:  On the contrary.  It proved George Murchand’s veracity had to be questioned on several counts.  To begin with you heard nothing of the fearful racket I made while you passed by that sturdily-built tool shed.  It follows then that neither could have our respectable businessman have heard sounds coming through its thick, wooden walls.  Recall, too, the exertions you made following his traverse.  At the end you were breathing so heavily it was an effort for you to speak.  And much perspired.  Kirk’s failure to recall any such signs on the part of a less physically fit  Murchand after his supposed strenuous route suggests to me it was never made.  Finally the timing of these events favored Volter’s version.  After a most vigorous search, I found only one stub beneath his post as he said.  According to my calculations, had Murchand actually executed his junket, Volter could have been expected to smoke four or five cigarettes.

WATSON:  My word, Holmes, I’m glad our study was done discretely.  Any public notice of the famous Sherlock Holmes on his hands and knees groping through the grass for cigarette stubs would cause quite a stir.

HOLMES:  Then by all means use it to color one of your accounts.  I care nothing about what people think, you know that.  The point is it lent further doubt as to Murchand’s credibility.

WATSON:  What could possibly have induced him to make up such a story?

SHERLOCK:  And while pondering that question, ask two others.  Why had he recently installed a slide bolt on the tool shed of the very heavy, robust kind one would expect to see on a cattle pen?  And was it just a coincidence that Constable Kirk happened to be on hand just when needed or, more likely, a matter of careful timing? 

WATSON:  It is odd, I’ll grant you that.  We’ll never know, I suppose.

HOLMES:  But we can make a few surmises.  Imagine that you are Mr. Murchand, Watson, and your wife comes to you, as she must sooner or later, with the news that she is to have a child, and you know for a fact that it is not your own?  And that it does not take too many explosive outbursts on your part to obtain her confession that the natural father is none other than the employee you have conscientiously mentored through the years.  Terrible news for such a proud man as yourself.  Crushing news.

WATSON:  Indeed it would be.

HOLMES.  So what can you do to relieve your tortured mind?  It would provide some satisfaction to fire your employee and divorce your wife, but doing so would call attention to your own impotence.  Close your eyes for a moment.  Would you not hear the snickering of your employees?  The whispered amusements among your fellow club members.  The sly exchange of winks between your servants?  Intolerable thoughts for a proud man.  So what are you to do?  Would you not in your heart of hearts relish the thought of Hitchens lying dead at your feet and your pregnant wife, prostrated over his body, moaning her loss?  Your upbringing would not permit you to commit the deed yourself.  And there were, you knew, taverns where assassins could be found who would, for a price, exact your revenge.  But hiring one of these rough and unscrupulous men had hazards of its own.  Would they be satisfied with their front end compensation or would they later resort to repeated demands for blackmail?  How many accounts have you read in the newspapers of such undertakings gone awry?  Your mind is tortured by conflicting feelings of anger, hatred, revenge, betrayal, caution, and frustration.  You have money, prestige, and a formidable reputation built on your success in business, yet you feel powerless.

Then an innovative solution occurs to you.  A solution that leaves pride intact and torments relieved.  A solution that accomplishes all your objectives:  the death of Hitchens, the silencing of the your hired assassin, and the bestowal of great distress upon your unfaithful wife.  A solution, most ingeniously of all, that enlists the law, not as your feared adversary, but as your industrious partner.  Would not such a solution be a great temptation?

WATSON:  To Marchand, perhaps, but not to me.  Please go on with your story without my participation if you don’t mind.

HOLMES:  By all means.  So Marchand put his scheme to work.  His first step was to create the appearance of a grave conflict between Hitchens and himself which he did by filtching his own company’s bonds and throwing suspicion on his employee.  Then he hired an assassin with the ostensible purpose of murdering himself while taking the necessary precautions to thwart the assassin from carrying out his assignment.  Then it was just a matter of seeing to it that the assassin was apprehended and standing aside as the police dutifully uncovered the clues he had planted identifying Hitchens as the instigator of the plot.

WATSON: Good lord!  That’s positively fiendish.

HOLMES:  Not as Murchand would have considered it, surely.  Trevor would get no more than his just deserts.  London would not be poorer for the loss of a professional killer.  And his wife properly chastised for her infidelity.  Meanwhile he would have emerged as something as a hero in the eyes of his business associates for having survived an attempt on his life and playing a part in the culprit’s apprehension.  And then, at his leisure, he could decide to divorce his wife or, perhaps, better yet, have this lovely creature under his thumb for the rest of her dying days bearing the remorse for having indirectly endangered his life by her affair and shrinking from ever again disavowing her marriage vows.

 WATSON:  Have you any proof of these suppositions, Holmes?

 HOLMES:  None.  And that’s the rub.  Marchand was a clever devil.  He covered his tracks well.  I tried my damnest to garner some physical evidence to support my theory but without success.  All I can say is that no other interpretation of the events in this case fit the facts as well as the one I’ve described.

WATSON:  If Marchand was so clever, how did he manage to get himself killed in the process? 

HOLMES:  The one thing that Murchand did not factor in was his own fatal conceit.  His plot would have gone splendidly had he not made the grave mistake of considering Volter one of his groveling employees rather than the independent contractor that he in fact was.  Accustomed to being dutifully obeyed, it apparently never occurred to the man that Volter would do anything but follow his precise instructions.  Had Murchand humbled himself sufficiently to put on Volter’s shoes and spent thirty seconds in that filthy shed as I had done, he would immediately questioned the validity of detaining him there for any length of time.  Such are the consequences of pride, Watson.  It led both to the concoction of the scheme’s beginnings and to its mordant conclusion.

WATSON:  So, in effect, Marchand committed suicide.

HOLMES:  Involuntarily, yes.  As I said when you entered, there was no murder.

WATSON:  Good God, Holmes.  If you’re right, we’ve hanged an innocent man?

HOLMES:  It would appear so, yes.

WATSON:  What was Lastrade’s response to all of this?  Why didn’t he prevent the execution?  At least delay it until the matter was settled?

HOLMES:  I never mentioned it to him.

WATSON: (incredulously) You didn’t?  Why not?

HOLMES:  He would never have listened to my allegations.  They would have undermined the case that had brought him so much commendation.

WATSON:  (accusingly)  You couldn’t have been certain of that.  You could have at least tried.

HOLMES:  Why?  I’m afraid you’re not sufficiently familiar with the mindset prevalent in all officialdom, Watson.  On entering government, one becomes a cog in its machinery and consecrates himself to its perpetuation.  In exchange, he expects government to care for him now and in the future.  That interdependence, then, is vital to his ambitions.  To maintain it he will cover up the inefficiency of his subordinates, the incompetence and/or corruption of his superiors, and, above all, any failings of his own.  And to accomplish these ends, there is no shameful conduct to which he will not stoop be it dissembling, cheating, bootlicking, evasion, declare war if need be.  Do you think for a moment that Lestrade, as a member of this dissolute tribe, would listen?  Tell all those reporters that he made a mistake after all?  The same smug policeman who has just solved the most noteworthy case in his career?  Not a chance of it?

WATSON:  You shock me, Holmes.  You honestly do.  I would have thought it your duty-your moral obligation-to at least attempt to save Hitchens whatever the obstacles.  A human life is a precious thing!  I would think your conscience…

HOLMES:  (sharply)  Don’t preach to me, Watson.  What would I have accomplished by trying?  Right now Christina is regarded as a respectable widow.  She’ll have a good chance of marrying into society after a time and raising Trevor’s son under the best of circumstances.  But what sort of reputation would she have if I told the police what a faithless wife she had been?  And what sort of future would her bastard child enjoy?  There’s also the not inconsequential matter of the insurance due her.  I would think Lloyds would have second thoughts about rewarding suicide.

WATSON:  But damn it, Holmes, there’s such a thing as truth.  Elemental justice.

HOLMES: Really?  Do you believe for a minute that Hitchens was the first innocent man your “elemental justice” has sent to the gallows?  I’d be surprised if half the poor devils we routinely hang are actually guilty.

WATSON:  And you’ll have Trevor’s child growing up thinking his natural father was a murderer.

HOLMES:  No, I intend to relate the entire episode to Christina when she returns from the continent.  Aside from restoring her opinion of her lover, I’m going to request that she donate a comfortable annuity to Marie and her children.  The lady will not refuse me.  I feel sure of that.

WATSON:  You will have deliberately waited until-I can hardly believe you, Holmes-until after the hanging. 

HOLMES: Obviously.  Her attempts to intervene would have been just as fruitless as mine.  And more damaging.  Not to mention her anguish when they failed.

WATSON: She’ll be furious at you.

HOLMES:  Probably.  I’m not looking forward to the interview.

WATSON:  You were right about one thing, Holmes.  I am damned sorry I asked you about it.  (abruptly stands and heads for the door slamming it as he leaves.  Holmes lights his pipe and picks up his newspaper.  The final tableau reminds the audience of that seen at the play’s beginning.)

CURTAIN

AYN RAND THE NOVELIST 

As judged by the longevity and popularity of her novels, Ayn Rand was a first rate novelist.  Published roughly fifty years before, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have sold over twelve million copies in the United States alone and continue to be popular.  And for understandable reasons.  Her plots are carefully structured and suspenseful, her characters interesting, and her dialogue strong.  In short, they are good reads.  Moreover, the ideas contained in the books are expressed forcefully as they should be in literature: bold, dramatic, opinionated unequivocal, even hyperbolic. It is, after all, the novelist’s prerogative, even duty, to call attention, in the strongest possible terms, to what the author sees as the wrongs of the world.  Sound the Klaxon, as it were.  Give voice to world’s conscience when other sources may be too indifferent or too intimidated to speak.

It was a mistake, however, for the novelist, and eventually some of her more susceptible readers, to be so immersed in fiction as to confuse it with the real world in which issues are never black and white; heros, alas, are never immaculate; villains frequently escape punishment; virtues and wickedness are seldom unalloyed; and many a socio-economic theory found to be unworkable.  

AYN RAND THE PHILOSOPHER

Between 1428 and 1431, teenage Joan of Arc led a French Army across Anglo-Burgundian territory.  Wearing men’s clothing and armor, holding her sword high, and proclaiming God’s word she inspired what had been a demoralized force to rally to her side.  Against the opposition of senior commanders, she assailed entrenched English garrisons and won a series of remarkable victories thus paving the way to an autonomous France.

Some five centuries later, a new feminine crusader took the stage and, with equal fervor and conviction, carved a swath through the liberal ranks and led her acolytes to a new ideology she called ‘objectivism.’  Whereas I would not want to stretch the analogy too far, there was, I believe, a compelling similarity in the way the two women were possessed with an ideological certitude and their acting upon it with fanatic zeal.

History has commemorated their singular achievements: Joan in history books, museums, and French lore; Ayn in public recognition that has taken the form of   two recent well-publicized biographies; numerous blogs; articles in the New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, Reason, Liberty, the Economist, and others; a pending television series; a resurgence in the sales of her most famous book, Atlas Shrugged; and two ongoing organizations of devotees, The Atlas Society and The Ayn Rand Institute.  Even a few of our elected representatives have seen fit to pay appropriate homage.

Sainthood comes with a price so it is not surprising that both women have had their detractors.  In the decades immediately following her death, Joan was regarded suspiciously as a heretic and deranged mystic.  And I suspect there are some among Ayn’s critics who dearly wish that the careers of the two had been reversed-i.e., that Joan had lived to 77 and Ayn burned at the stake at 19.

Personally, I would not go quite that far but my own view of Ayn’s philosophy is likewise a jaundiced one.  My basic disagreement with Rand is that her entire epistemology, her central thesis, rests on the assertion that she is, above all, rational-i.e., that by rising above the fog-shrouded clouds of sentimentality she has the clairvoyance to view mankind’s situation with scientific detachment and from her observations draw unassailable conclusions.  Her embrace of that conceit may very well have been sincere but it was, I would argue, delusional.  Indeed, her outlook is the very opposite of what she claimed it to be.  It was irrational.

Rand started, reasonably enough, with a number of self-evident (to anyone who has bothered to open a history book) Libertarian tenets.  Unfortunately she did not stop there.  She took these perfectly valid propositions and radicalized them into dogma.  Once cast in stone and carried down from the mountain, Rand’s absolutes became brittle, vulnerable to attack, and incapable of improvement.  As a result, her contribution to the Libertarian cause is roughly comparable to that of the jihadists’ contribution to the Koran.

The fact is no stricture in the social sciences can be taken as axiomatic.  Institutions are too variable, public sentiment too volatile, political factors too unpredictable and economic events too anomalous to be universal in their application

Allow me to touch on her treatment of a few of the tenets she appropriated:

Tenet 1:  Capitalist (free enterprise, laissez faire) economic systems have proven to be more productive and more conducive to the common good than socialist (leftist, communistic, communal) economic systems.

 As Rand would have it, capitalism is the “ideal political-economic system.”  I would argue that, whereas it is undeniably the best system around, it is far from ideal.  Like democracy, it merits commendation simply because there seems to be no better alternative on the horizon.  (A below-the-horizon alternative, and the answers to many another perplexing economic question, can be found on this very same website.  Simply click on the “Economics” tab and then “Money Redefined, Parts 1-4)

Among capitalism’s current failings are:

 a) Its proclivity to periods of overexpansion and deflation-i.e., its notorious boom-and-bust cycles.

 b) Its uneven distribution of wealth leading to the undesirable formation of social classes.  (Conservatives like to say that society should limit itself to providing youngsters with equal opportunity as opposed to guaranteeing equal outcomes ignoring the fact that capitalism furnishes neither.  One would have to be blind to contend that young people coming from wealthy families do not enjoy an overwhelming economic advantage over those from underprivileged circumstances.)

 c) Its pell-mell destruction of the environment.

 d) Its dependence on money which is essentially an artificial construct-that is to say, an irrational figment of our collective imagination.  No economic system based on our present monetary system can truly be considered rational-Rand’s professed allegiances notwithstanding.

Tenet 2:  The driving force behind all economic advance in capitalistic systems is individual initiative.  It follows then that such initiative should be provided as much freedom as possible and the gains acquired thereby protected by the law.

According to Rand’s version of human initiative, “Man-every man-is an end in himself, not a means to the end of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”

a) Nonsense.  All men, including entrepreneurs, are motivated by a complex variety of motivations of which her “rational self-interest” is but one.  Were every captain of industry to follow Rand’s credo, they would retire as soon as their nest eggs allowed and spend the rest of their days in health clubs.

b) Any attempt to pin happiness down as a purpose in life is likely to discover it to be an all too illusive a target.  For all I know, Rand experienced nothing but a deliriously happy inner life (perhaps fueled by an inexhaustible flow of self-esteem), but certainly nothing in her life’s external trajectory suggests that her dogged focus on attaining happiness worked any better than the random stumblings employed by the rest of us.c) Businessmen suffer enough abuse from the media without the additional contumely that Rand’s money-and-power-driven caricatures invite.  

c)  Businessmen suffer enough abuse from the media without the additional contumely that Rand’s money-and-power-driven carricatures invite.

Tenet 3:  Paradoxically, or so it would seem, in a peaceful, lawful society, the aggregated result of countless individual actions motivated by enlightened self-interest results in the furtherance of greater prosperity for all.

As long as Rand emphasized Adam Smith’s insights, she was on firm ground.  But she wandered off the reservation when her two-dimensional literary protagonists devoted themselves exclusively to selfishness during working hours and sexual prowess when not otherwise engaged.

a) More nonsense.  Rand’s categorical rejection of altruism flies in the face of her cherished reality.  Altruism, whether she liked it or not, is an intrinsic part of human nature.  Our prehistoric forbears, from whom we inherit our emotional makeup, did not spend their total existence prowling about the forest floor with a club in their hands in search of bashable enemy skulls.  According to anthropologists, they spent most of their time sheltered in the company of their clan members when such impulses as altruism, cooperation, sociability, tactfulness, and compassion provided the best chance for survival.

b) There are, no doubt, hard-nosed, obdurate, uncompromising, and thoroughly unpleasant peope in the business world some of whom, no doubt, have made money.  On the other hand, there are many more successful people who have achieved their success by utilizing the full range of innate characteristics evolution has seen fit to bestow upon them.

Tenet 4:  The workings of big government are likely to be inefficient, counter-productive, wasteful, corrupt, and disruptive to the operations of the private economy.

If Rand was ever on solid ground, it was in her aversion to overzealous governmental authority.  And at a time when government is subsuming one chunk of our lives after another, Rand’s wagging finger of disapproval seems timely.  But, as always, she went too far.  She believed government should be limited to defending us from physical harm and protecting our property from illegal confiscation.  And nothing more.  Government clearly needs to be restrained; it does not need to be castrated.

a) Humanity seems compelled to foul the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food supplies we depend on.  Some form of control is essential if these self-destructive processes are to be reversed, and one cannot imagine it being exerted by any institution other than by government.

b)  Modern society depends upon a variety of civic improvements to function.  Rand’s dictum to the contrary, interstate highways, bridges, airports, water treatment plants, sewer systems, flood control projects, and the like all require governmental planning, finance, and organization to get underway.  Even the corporate owned railroads that Rand so doted on would never have been built had not the rails been laid on publicly-cleared right-of-ways.  On the other hand, Rand was partially right.  The actual construction, maintenance, and operation of government-planned facilities would be better left up to the private sector.

c) Likewise, government is required to formulate the services we depend upon such as disease control, trash collection, air traffic control, the allocation of communication airways, and so on.  But, again, the performance of these services should be turned over to private companies.

d)  In this connection, it is worth noting that evolution has favored creatures with brains over those without.  Indeed, when it came to human beings, nature found it desirable to sacrifice physical attributes in favor of our mental capabilities.  At the same time, however much she valued brains, she did not see fit to empower them.  Brain cells were provided only with sensory and intellectual functions with external muscle tissue left to do the heavy lifting.  We would do well, I believe, to follow nature’s time-tested guidance.

e)  Probably no expansion of governmental interference so excited Rand’s approbation than her dreaded income redistribution.  But here again, matters are not as black and white as she imagined them.  The argument against income distribution implicitly rests on the supposition that the threatened income was properly distributed to begin with.  With due apologies to my Libertarian friends, I feel obliged to argue that it was not, and is not.  Karl Marx rightly noted that the rules by which the money game is played were established by the rich and, not surprisingly, ended up being heavily canted in their favor.  Certainly personal achievement is deserving of reward but the same cannot be said of those who simply inherit it.  For that matter, can there really be any justification for wealth begetting wealth with little or no effort on the part of the benefactor?  Unfortunately, as it turned out, Marx was better at defining problems than inventing their solution.  But proving Marx wrong, does not make Rand right.

In conclusion, were I Rand’s publisher, I would ensure that every copy of her work be stamped with the inscription “The ideas presented herein are to be read solely for entertainment purposes.  They are those of the author only and are not to be construed as having been endorsed by the publisher or any of its affiliates.”

Whereas his Dr. Root-Sistemci’s gift proved a fleeting one, I did not want it to go unacknowledged.  Delivered in the evening, it reminded me somehow of the tender kiss a loving parent bestows upon the brow of a sleepy child at bedtime.

 As time wore on-forty-five minutes had passed since Neuman started pranc­ing around-the explanation for the boy’s inexplicable behavior finally dawned upon me.  I could have kicked myself for not having thought of it sooner.  How many mystery novels had I read in which the so­lution, when fi­nally disclosed, turned out to be the pat­ently ob­vious one?  So obvi­ous that everyone overlooked it.

The reason for Neuman’s nutty behavior was that he was nuts.  No tautology this.  I had been racking my brains for an explanation that didn’t exist; the simple fact was that the boy was enacting some sort of fantasy that had nothing what­soever to do with reality.  And I had been gullible enough to follow along.  All one had to do to confirm my conclusion was to look at the despondency that now clouded the boy’s countenance as he sat by the dying coals of his fire, his back to the river.

Earlier Neuman had asked me the time every five min­utes or so, but for the last quarter hour he not only main­tained his own stony silence, but stonewalled any at­tempts on my part to initiate conversation.

Unable to converse with Neuman directly, I imagined what it would be like conversing about him with his psychiatrist.  “Why four big cartons and the Pershing River?” I heard my­self asking.

“Why not four big cartons and the Pershing River?” would be his re­sponse.  “The human brain can disintegrate in many different ways.  Sometimes it’s like an explosion.  Im­ages go flying in all di­rections; it’s any­body’s guess which ones land back in the brain right side up. I’ve seen everything, believe me.”

So much for professional help.  I returned to my own resources and the problem at hand.  How could I get Neuman and his cases of books back into the car and on our way home?

“Maybe you had the day wrong. . .” I began quietly.  “We could come back tomor­row and. . .”

“Jesus, I hope it’s not you who’s ruining things,” he interrupted.

“Could be.  I’m sorry.  So let’s go back.  You’ll get your car fixed and maybe in a few days. . .”

“Ssh. . .”

“No, not ssh, Neuman.  It’s getting late.  We’ve got to settle this.  I’m tired. . .”

“Shut up, damn it.  It’s been settled!”

“No, its. . .”

“They’re here!” Neuman screamed.

Startled, I jumped up and, as deliberately as I could, looked up and down the river looking for any evidence to support Neu­man’s hallucinations.  Seeing nothing, I sank back on the cartons and remonstrated with myself for having been so easily duped.  The boy had done it to me again.  Meanwhile, Neuman acceded to a new and more frightening stage.

Playing out his fantasies to the end, Neuman grabbed the one carton I was not using as a seat and bolted toward whatever he imagined lay behind us.  Well, let him run around in the sand chas­ing ghosts.  Between the carton and the soft sand, he would soon tire out, admit defeat, and make my job of pushing him into the car that much eas­ier.  All I had to do was stay put and await my opportunity.

“Don’t get lost,” I shouted at the boy, who had turned toward the levee and was now racing up its side.  But no sooner had I uttered those words than I felt a new wave of fear.  Once Neuman disap­peared down the other side of the embankment, his speech had broken into two voices.  Ter­rified at the psy­chological im­plications and cursing myself for not having acted sooner, I shot up and stumbled into the darkness guided by the sounds of his babbling.  My downcast eyes searched the ground for a stout stick as I panted and jogged my way clumsily up the levee.  One way or an­other, that boy was coming home as fast as I could force him into the car.

The slope was steeper than it looked from below and the sand had turned to mud making the climb all the more difficult.  Worse, I was within a few yards of the top and still hadn’t found a stick.  Barehanded and breathless, I knew I would be no match for a half-crazed boy of nineteen, but I felt I had to go on nonetheless.  A few more feet and I reached the crest.

 THE PLS STARBOUND

 Neuman was not talking to himself.  “Fine,” he finished saying.  “I’ll throw them on.”

My hair bristled and my heart pounded at the sight.  The space capsule with whom he was conversing was floating idly a couple of feet above the mud flat.  It was silver-hulled, spheroid shaped, and surrounded by a toroid of blue gas plasma that kept emitting faint sounds of electrical cracking.  The fact that it was so com­pact-no more than fifteen feet in di­ameter surely-gave it a nimble look that somehow made the num­ber of stubby, vaguely lethal-looking protuberances that prickled from its alloy skin all the more menacing.

If I retained any composure at all, it was only because I was shocked into insensitivity.  And even when my mind did attempt to restart, it did so haltingly-one incoherent thought after another tumbling forward.

How could I demonstrate that I mean it no harm?  Thank God I hadn’t found that stick I was looking for.  Idiot!  That thing’s going to worry about an out-of-shape, middle-aged real estate man with a stick in his hand?  One little spritz out of one of those nozzles and forget it.  Why would they want to kill me, anyway?  Why wouldn’t they?  Isn’t that what aliens are supposed to do?  That’s why Neuman tried to get me to leave.  To save my life.  I should have guessed it from the start.  The kid really was from another planet.

If Neuman was happily reuniting with his brethren, he gave no indi­cation of it.  Instead, he was all business.  As soon as he hoisted one book-filled box into the bay door that opened from the ship’s side, he methodically jogged back for the next.

Neuman’s cool-headedness gave me encouragement.  Once my nerves had quieted, I began to think more rationally.  Apparently, what I was witnessing amounted to nothing more than an interplane­tary transfer of Judaic lore.  Granted I was more than a little surprised to discover that interest in the God of the Hebrews extended into the cos­mos, but this too, no doubt, had a commonplace explanation.  For all I knew, the lost tribes of Israel strayed farther than anyone had imagined.  Far-fetched?  No more so than the prospect of a space capsule hovering above the bank of the Pershing River.  In any case, the details did not concern me.  The essential ingredient in this extraordinary situation from my point of view was that there was nothing to fear.  All I need do was concentrate on taking in this intoxicating draught of sci­ence-fiction fun that would immeasurably enrich my life forever.  And, afterwards, with his mission behind him, Neuman was bound to be more communicative on our drive back and I would learn the whole story.  My heart began to pound at a more acceptable rate and I felt confident enough to ven­ture toward the craft to inspect it more closely.  I may not have remained so calm had I known that the alien’s procurement list was longer than I originally supposed.

The space capsule shifted its attention from Neuman to me.   “Sorry to have kept you two waiting,” it apologized, “but we assure you it wasn’t our fault.  We arrived at our entry point into your atmosphere exactly on schedule but your abominable smog was the worst we’ve ever encountered.  We practically had to crawl our way in.”

“That’s all right,” I said magnanimously.  “Uh. . .your air.  Back on your own planet I mean.  Isn’t it worse?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”  The capsule seemed incredulous.

“Your intergalactic spaceship. . .” I began.

“Intragalactic.  But thanks all the same,” it cor­rected.

“Your intragalactic spaceship. . .” I began again.

The space capsule again interrupted this time with a clucking sound of disapproval.  “One faux pas after another, Mr. Hedgewick.  If you had done your homework, you’d know the ship itself is in orbit waiting for us to dock.  This is only one of its three landers.  But go ahead with whatever it is you had to say.  Make it brief.  We can’t stay here forever, you know.”

Mr. Hedgewick?  I had no idea where that came from.  Nevertheless I decided to sidestep the name confusion until after completing the point I had begun with such difficulty.  “Every scientific advance we’ve made here on Earth has brought with it more pollu­tion.  So when I look at what you’re riding around in and extrapolate the. . .”

“What did you expect us to show up in?  A bathtub?  Why is it you invitees are so skeptical of the material we send you?  I don’t know how we could have made it any clearer.  Noth­ing on Luxenben is the same as on Earth, so there’s nothing that can be extrapo­lated.  In short, we have no pollution.”

Looking up at what had appeared to me as the craft’s array of armaments, I relegated my concerns about pollution to a more worrisome thought.  “How about your wars then?”

The spacecraft apparently followed my gaze.  Those aren’t weapons, Mr. Hedgewick.  They’re sensors.”

“But with all your technology. . .the destruction you could. . .”

“No, we couldn’t.  We’ve no armies.  Bet­ter yet, we’ve no generals.  See here, Hedgewick, our information packet covered every one of these questions.  If you had even glanced at the statistics you would have found that we’ve solved your stupid problems.  We have no widespread hunger, no slums, no organized crime, no social unrest.  It may be hard for you to believe, but we have achieved a society that’s. . .what do you call it here?”

“Utopian?”

“Exactly,” said the space capsule.

On the one hand, I could not help being skeptical of such a wild claim.  On the other hand, it was hard to argue with an object that embodied a state of technology so advanced that any other miracle emanating from the same source seemed feasible.  Confused by these conflicting thoughts, I said nothing.  I didn’t have to.  My questions had obviously touched a sore spot.

“I don’t know what it is about you invitees,” the space capsule went on.  “This isn’t the first time these ridiculous questions have popped up at the last minute.  I guess the more miserable a planet is, the more difficulty its inhabitants have imagining something incomparably better.  Either that or sick societies like yours become so riddled with lies that nobody trusts the truth even when it stares them in the face.  We would have thought you’d all be so anxious to leave, you’d just rush on board the minute we opened the hatch.  Funny, isn’t it?”  The question was obviously meant to be rhetorical for the space capsule hurried on in what was now a plaintive tone.

“We’ve even had cases in which one or the other of the invitees gets cold feet and doesn’t show at all.  What do they expect us to do?  Go scurrying around at the last minute kidnapping replacements?

“Sometimes no matter what we do, it doesn’t seem to be enough.  You’ve seen our packet: all sorts of literature, travel videos, transcripts of conversations with ordinary Luxanders.  We guarantee top-notch accommodations and promise to bring you back in a year if you’re not completely satisfied.  I ask you, Hedgewick, what more could anyone want?”

Just when the capsule’s complaints came to an end and I had an opportunity to clear up my identity, Neuman reentered the scene.  Having loaded his last carton, he gave me a reassuring glance as he strode to my side.  “Let me handle this,” he seemed to be saying.  “I’ll explain everything.”  And since the boy’s relationship with the capsule was obviously closer than mine, it did seem wiser to leave things in his hands.  Before he could speak, however, the capsule raised another issue.

“See here, Mr. Neuman.  All these cartons aren’t yours are they?”

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid they are,” the boy answered anxiously.

“You must know that they weigh nearly twice as much as you’re allowed.”

“Yes, sir.  It’s just that they’re all so important.  I ditched everything I could but. . .”

“Did it occur to you that our lifting out of here might also be of some importance?  By the time we load Mr. Hedgewick’s luggage. . .”

Suddenly the question of my identity took on greater urgency.  Who, in fact, was I?  I scarcely knew myself anymore.  Obviously, this superior thing was better informed than I was.  If it said my name was Hedgewick, who was I to argue?  If there was ever a compelling reason for one of my fast, real estate decisions, this was it.

“I didn’t bring any,” I blurted out.

Neuman swung around to stare at me.  I could not tell if he was more astonished or amused.

“Good thinking, Hedgewick.  Believe me, there isn’t anything you could take along that you won’t find on Luxenben.  And of better quality, naturally.  Something our Mr. Neuman will find out for himself very shortly.  But no matter.  Thanks to you, we’ve disposed of his overweight problem and we can get out of this place.

“All right.  I’m Boatswain Fletcher and on deck with me is First Mate Slocum.  We’ve exhibited rather bad manners by staying on board, I’m afraid, but your atmosphere makes for such noxious breath­ing that we much prefer to de­lay our personal greeting until after you’ve come aboard.  And since you two must have had plenty of time to introduce yourselves to one another, there’s no reason to stand on ceremony on that account either.  Besides I would imagine that you’re due for a bit of clean air yourselves.

“So let me welcome you aboard.  A hatch has been opened for you, gentlemen.  Do please step inside.” 

With that Neuman bounded eagerly ahead, but just before reaching the lander, he thought better of his impetuosity and stepped aside.  Paying due deference to my new space-traveler persona, the boy bowed his head, and, with an exaggerated wave of his right arm, encouraged me to board first.

Having experienced so many shocking events that afternoon, I found the foreign appearance of the lander crew to be almost anticlimactic.  The two gentlemen wasted little time on a round of perfunctory handshaking before returning to their duties.  All conversation ceased until the mother ship was in view.

“There she is, gentlemen.  Isn’t she beautiful?  And now you can read her name on the side of the hull, ‘PLS Starbound.’  The ‘PLS’ stands for the ‘Planet of Luxenben’s Ship.’  And the trademark, you see alongside, is that of our employer, Space Ventures, Inc.  Great outfit and the biggest of its kind on Luxenben.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve uncorked a bottle of cold champagne for us when we dock.”

This portrayal of an idealized post-capitalistic society hypothesizes the correction of some of the more onerous characteristics of our present capitalistic system while, at the same time, retaining its evident virtues.  The claims made of improvement are the following:

 1) Avoidance of boom-bust economic cycles

2) Stable money supply and purchasing power

3) A more egalitarian society

4) A reduction in hunger and homelessness without government subsidization

5) A slowdown in the introduction of disruptions created by innovation

6) Lowered societal “overhead” on account of simplified tax collection, a much reduced financial sector, and a reduction in the size of government

7) A more self-determined economic system less dependent on government regulations

8.) A reduced crime rate

It is the author’s intention that the views expressed are addressed in a rational, problem-solving, apolitical manner.  It is safe to say that they would not fit comfortably in either the left or right political camps.

Admittedly the scheme discussed would require systemic changes.  It would not, however, violate our basic political and economic principles nor, most importantly, require an alteration of human nature.

The essay is divided into four parts:

I. Money, the economy’s shaky foundation

II. The individuals’ sphere in a post-capitalistic society

III. The business sphere

IV. The governmental sphere

ECONOMIC’S SHAKY FOUNDATION

 And when she was good, she was very, very good.  But when she was bad, she was horrid.

 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882

THE SYSTEM:

Longfellow was not speaking of our capitalistic economic system, but he might as well have been.  When times are good, it furnishes a veritable cornucopia of benefits.  Thanks to the social and physical infrastructure it creates, we enjoy better health, a higher standard of living, a greater choice of goods and services, better education, more opportunity to express ourselves, and more interesting careers.  It is, in short, indispensable to our way of life.

However, if truth be told, our economic system is never actually very, very, good.  Even in the best of times, it habitually misbehaves.  It fosters speculation, encourages hoarding, disregards the environment, plunders natural resources, and undergoes fluctuations in the supply of money that creates business uncertainty and upsets the smooth functioning of a market economy.

One more of our capitalistic system’s peccadilloes: if it is given credit for producing a substantial and largely prosperous middle class, it must also be held responsible for its reprehensible creation of an underclass.  And whereas the subsequent unfair treatment given this segment of society may not necessarily be an offshoot of capitalism itself, it cannot be disentangled from it.  Karl Marx’s tirades would not have won a worldwide audience if they did not contain some truthful elements.  A few examples.  The well-off earn interest and poor people pay it (provided they are fortunate enough to be granted credit).  The well-off reap the lion’s share of the profits that working people, in large part, create.  The well-off stride confidently along the stepping stones to success-parental attentiveness, adult guidance, educational advantages, business connections, and financial security, to name a few-that are far less accessible to the poor.

Whether out of a sense of outrage against such injustices; or out of feelings of compassion; or a self-centered, pragmatic concern for public safety, the plight of the poor must be taken into consideration and this essay on economic reform attempts to do so (without, by the way, recourse to socialistic methods)

 *    *    *

 And then there are the times when, like Longfellow’s petulant child, our economic system behaves horridly indeed, throwing tantrums, undergoing fits, and succumbing to seizures.  The fact is, in the last two-hundred years, no generation has completely escaped a financial crisis of one sort or another.  One might have hoped that the economy’s behavior would have improved with time, but, if anything, it has gotten worse.  It seems that the more sophisticated our economic systems have grown, the more uncertainly they have performed.

Even a very fragmentary recounting of financial disasters illustrates the point.

 1497-1509, Italian city states, collapse of bond prices

1540’s-1640’s, Europe, dramatic increase in cost of living

1630’s, Dutch United Provinces, tulip mania; 1672, England, payment of bills suspended

1720, England, South Sea Bubble; 1720, France, Mississippi Bubble; 1792-97, England, value of Consuls halved

1826-29, Peru, Columbia, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala, and Argentina, loan defaults; 1847-66, England, banking crises; 1863, Southern Confederacy, confederate dollars become valueless

1910, Shanghai, rubber stock market collapse; 1923, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Russia, hyperinflation; 1929, United States, Wall Street crash; 1930’s, United States, the Great Depression; 1931, United States, run on the Bank of the United States; 1945-90, Argentina, double-digit inflation; 1970’s and early 80’s, United States, double-digit inflation; 1973-74, United States, stock market collapse; 1979, Worldwide, rate of inflation over 10% in 60 countries; 1980’s, Japan, property bubble; 1980’s, Latin America, debt crisis; 1987, United States, Black Monday stock market crash; 1990-91, United States, recession; 1992-93, European Union, crisis in the Exchange Rate Mechanism; 1993, United States, Savings and Loan crisis; 1994-95, Mexico, default of debt; 1997-98, Asia, currency crisis; 1998, Russia, financial crisis; 2000, United States, dot-com bubble collapses

2007, England, run on the Northern Rock Bank; 2007-09, World wide, credit crisis; 2008-09, US, England, Spain, deflation of housing bubble

Not surprisingly, governments have sought to prevent a repetition of these disasters.  They have, for example, given national banks the responsibility of preserving the purchasing power of their currencies and providing financial liquidity to stem bank runs.  Watchdog organizations have been set up to dampen stock market volatility and prevent fraud.  Wage and price controls have been tried as have pegging currencies to hard specie.  Farm subsidies, corporate welfare, and direct handouts have been implemented to revive lagging economies.  And, at the international level, funds have been set up to rescue countries on the verge of financial collapse.

The one thing all these wide-ranging measures have had in common is that none of them have worked very well.  However much we’ve tinkered with various reforms, financial and social disruptions have continued to be the order of the day.

This is no small matter.  Every abrupt movement in economic conditions translates into a jarring social impact.  At the individual level, it might mean unemployment and penury, loss of savings, demoralization, family disunion, eviction and/or homelessness.  At the group level, it could foretell strikes, mob violence, property destruction, protest marches, disorder, fire, and break-ins.  And, at the national level, revolutions and wars.  The overthrow of the Russian tsarist regime by the Bolsheviks and its aftermath cost millions of human lives.  No small matter, indeed. 

One has to ask why the countless attempts to cure our economic and social ills have met with so little success?  Certainly not on account of a lack of effort on the part of intelligent, well-meaning experts equipped with all the computer power anyone could ask for and backed by enormous government and private funding.  Most major universities in the United States have an economics department staffed with dozens of highly educated professionals.  Library shelves are filled with abstruse books and research papers dedicated to every facet of the economy imaginable.  Yet, as the historical record attests, no key has been found to unlock the door to dependable prosperity and social harmony for one and all.

The reason fissures keep occurring in the economy is the same reason cracks keep appearing in the walls of some houses.  The problem in both cases is that they’re sitting on a shaky foundation.  Plastering over the cracks doesn’t help for long; the next tremors from below dislocate things all over again.   

The question “what’s wrong with our economic system?” thus ineluctably leads to the question, “what’s wrong with money?”

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL:

 “…nothing solid could have been built on so insecure a foundation”

 René Descartes, 1596-1650

Money’s most dangerous characteristic is that, at its heart, it is based on nothing more substantial than our faith in its value.  It is an artificial construct that attempts to impose a common denominator upon a number of disparate elements that have, in fact, nothing in common.  In actuality, there is no physical relationship between basic materials, manufactured goods, physical labor, and intellectual activity.  But, by assigning each of them a number corresponding to our opinion of their relative worth, we convey upon them some pretended intrinsic value.  Thus a single hundred dollar bill can purchase various quantities of each of these items without any of the people engaged in the transactions being troubled for a moment by the fragility of the underlying premise-that nothing but the human mind with all its foibles is running the show.

It’s a terrifying thought all right: our monetary system is at the mercy of the human mind-the same human mind that is governed less by rationality than by emotions.  At any moment, perhaps for no apparent reason-fear, greed, intemperance, avarice, and/or prejudice-can seize hold of our collective mindset and, in a matter of days, shred our faith in the currency.  The consequences of such events have, in the past, often been calamitous.  Nor is there any reason to believe future events will be any less disruptive.  Money has no safety net.

Another factor contributing to the volatility of money is its exposure to governmental pillage.  One would hope that, given money’s fragile nature, federal authorities would do everything in their power to strengthen it, that they would limit its supply so as to maintain its purchasing power.  Unfortunately, they inevitably fall prey to one exigency or another and crank up the printing presses-the officials involved secure in the knowledge that they’ll be out of office before the impact of their recklessness takes effect.  Thus they cheapen the currency, surreptitiously dip into the pocket books of the citizenry, strip money of its pretenses and show it to the world in its au naturel state.  And, like as not, such an insalubrious sight sends the economy into some sort of trauma, be it recession, depression, market meltdown, hyperinflation, bankruptcy, and/or political upheaval.

A third contributor to our monetary system’s instability is the  deplorable tendency of its minders to heap a huge, top-heavy stack of financial instruments-mortgage backed securities, credit instruments, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and the like-on top of what we have already seen as a weakened financial structure.

As if money didn’t have enough problems as it is, it has been further strained by its overextended mandate.  It is asked to perform too many, often competing, functions simultaneously: a medium of exchange, a storehouse of value, and a unit of account among others.  The result is an ungovernable commercial structure in which money’s many convoluted elements are interwoven.

Indeed, when one adds up all the monetary system’s many disabilities, we should be thankful, I suppose, we don’t experience economic crises more often than we do at present.

 *    *    *

Imagine, for a moment, that the cityscape we see through a window is duplicated in every respect by a computer image created by a computer game.  Were we then to click on the game’s setup button, we would be shown a display of all the political and economic parameters from which the image had been generated layer after layer through time.  Then were we to manipulate any of these historical values even to a small extent, we would find the new image to be massively reoriented.  Many buildings would disappear, others change shape, and new ones spring up in other places.  Streets would be relocated, bridges moved, and transmission towers rearranged.

Obviously, the real cityscape and its computer image are two very different things, but they stem from a common source.  They both are one-hundred percent manmade.  Before the first stone could be laid, and the first pixel could be lighted, a decision had to be made by a human being.  So, just as surely as we could revise the image on the screen, we can dictate the shape of things to come in the real world.

All it takes is finding the “setup” button.

Redefinition One: For individuals, money is a depreciating store of value. 

Imagine a post-capitalistic society (to borrow a phrase from Peter Drucker) that is divided, from a financial standpoint, into three transactional spheres-individual, business, and governmental-and that money performs somewhat differently in each.  Further picture that the spheres are separated by Chinese Walls that are, in specific applications, permeable.  The fictitious land is known as Postcapia and its happy occupants as Postcapians.

A Postcapian’s financial life is centered on his account at the National Bank-the privately-held institution that has been granted the authority to handle consumer transactions for the entire population.  Every Postcap is issued an account at birth and keeps it for life.  For simplicity, his bank account number and his official identification number are the same.  All his transactions-deposits and deductions-flow through this one account for there can be no other account or other means of exchange: no paper currency, no coinage.  Purchases, from that of a newspaper to that of an automobile are paid by check or by debit card.  All deposits are likewise handled electronically.  The account earns no interest.

Postcapia has only one form of taxation.  Each month a government agency sweeps all the customers’ accounts in the National Bank and deducts a levy, currently one percent, from their balances.  (As is shown below, Postcapians cannot escape the tax by buying hard assets.)  The consequences of this policy can be summarized as follows:

a) By applying what is, in effect, a negative rate of return on capital, money becomes less a store of value and more a catalyst for expediting trade.  This characterization is more nearly in accord with the reality that money has no real substance but is, instead, an amorphous instrumentality that mankind has infused into the natural world. 

b) Since the accounts of the poor afford meager pickings, the tax load is borne almost entirely by the rich and middle class.

c) In that any deposit made by Postcapians depreciates by about 50% every six years, inheritances, family fortunes, and the like dwindle rapidly yielding a more egalitarian society and a reduction in class envy.

d) Because their income is not taxed and their assets afford them little or no income, those Postcapians who wish to enjoy a higher standard of living have a strong incentive to acquire a good, steady income through their own efforts.

e) Personal credit is either altogether unobtainable or very costly because the borrower would be subject not only to the interest on the loan itself but to the 12% (roughly) a year tax on the loan’s proceeds.

f) Children of wealthy parents cannot count on large inheritances and thus must make their own way in the world.  There are no “idle rich.”

g) The rate of taxation is determined by a feedback provision of the law that requires the rate of one year to entirely reimburse governmental outlays of the preceding year.  Needless to say, were the rate to substantially increase from one year to the next, the political backlash would be considerable.

h) The system is highly efficient.  Taxpayers waste no time on filing their income tax.  From the government’s standpoint, tax collections are swift, dependable, predictable, and very cost effective.  There is virtually no loss to tax cheats.  And for the economy as a whole, there is no crazy patchwork of fees, hidden taxes, assessments, etc.-each with its own administration and cost structure.

i) Few Postcapians have the means to self-insure so they turn to commercial sources for their casualty, supplementary health care, and term life coverage.  Whole life insurance, thanks to its cash value provisions, is unavailable.

j) On the downside, the rich can afford to donate less to charities and other worthwhile, sometimes idiosyncratic, causes that might not otherwise be funded.  However, once donors decide to gift, they do so without delay so as to beat the taxman.

k) Except for contributions to their retirement subaccounts (see below) the Postcapians have little incentive to save since the government eventually confiscates practically everything they put away.  Nevertheless, it has been the country’s experience that deterring personal savings has not led to a noticeable increase in ostentatious spending or hedonistic life styles.  Indeed, Postcapia’s culture tends to discourage both.

l) Although the overall economy cannot depend upon personal savings to support its cash flow, it can obtain the resources it needs from businesses as noted in Part III.

*    *    *

 Six subsidiary accounts are associated with every Postcapian’s main account.

 1) PAYABLES SUBACCOUNT:

 All of an individual’s routine purchases on credit, such as utility bills, credit card debt, and rentals, are posted electronically by their respective vendors directly to this account.  Upon an individual’s approval of the invoices, payment is immediately deducted from his main account and delivered to his creditor. 

 2) RETIREMENT SUBACCOUNT:

 Another one percent per month is automatically transferred from an individual’s main account into his retirement account up to a limit of $250,000  (a couple of roughly the same age would, of course, have $500,000 at their disposal).  Individuals can supplement the mandatory transfers with voluntary payments of their own.

 The benefit to the individual is that funds in this account are sheltered from taxation, but they cannot be withdrawn in part or in full until he reaches at least the age of sixty-five and is no longer employed.  If he continues to work after sixty-five, he is denied access to his retirement fund during the interim.

  In verified cases of extreme hardship, an individual can obtain approval to withdraw funds prior to his retirement and is later permitted to restore his depleted retirement subaccount by a continuation of the one percent allocation up to the prescribed limit.

 The mechanics of the system clearly encourage a retired person to first exhaust his main account before dipping into his retirement account.  Any funds remaining in his accounts are distributed in accordance with his will.

 3) SHADOW ASSET SUBACCOUNT:

 Postcapians are free to speculate on hard assets such as real estate improvements, metals, corporate bonds, antiques, artwork, etc. (raw land and common stock are a different matter).  However, shadow asset regulations prevent such purchases from being the means to shelter one’s main account for tax avoidance purposes.

To begin with, every seller of hard assets must be registered as such.  Thus when Jones pays Yellow Metals, Inc. $1,000 for an ounce of gold, the transaction is automatically recognized by the National Bank as a hard asset sale and entered as such in Jone’s shadow-asset subaccount where it is taxed exactly the same way as if the $1,000 were still in his main account.  More specifically, the first year’s tax of approximately $120 is drawn from Jone’s main account and the subaccount balance reduced to $880.  Likewise, the second year’s tax of about $105 comes out of his main account and the subaccount is reduced to $775.  If, at that point, Jones sells his gold for, let’s say, $1,300 and that sum is perforce deposited in his main account, whatever is left of the original subaccount entry is expunged.  Thus, as far as the government is concerned, Jone’s entry into the gold market had no impact upon his tax obligations.  From Jone’s standpoint, his net gain on the transaction is his $300 gross profit less the $225 paid in taxes-a better outcome than if he had not speculated at all since his tax liability would have been the same in either case.

There is no limit on the number of entries a shadow asset account may contain, but each entry must be kept discrete.  For example, Jones cannot elect to sell only a half of his gold holding nor can he add more gold to that particular entry.   

4) & 5) The food and shelter subaccounts will be discussed in Part IV in conjunction with governmental activities.

It might be well to interject a general observation at this point.  It’s clear, even at this initial juncture, that the structure of Postcapia’s society imposes a number of restrictions on the economic life of its citizens.  More will ensue later and there could be privacy concerns as well since, financially at least, there is no place to hide.  Somewhat paradoxically, however, these same restrictions allow for an improvement in the quality of life in the form of a tranquil economic environment unmarred by want, the absence of class antagonisms, a reduction in criminality, and safer lives.  The tradeoffs, I would argue, favor the Postcapian approach.

 Redefinition Two:  Money is fully fungible only in the commercial world.  Its portability into the hands of individuals is limited.

In general, the commercial world in Postcapia conducts its affairs much the same as we conduct ours.  But there are differences.  Whereas their commercial banks take in deposits and from these make loans on which they charge interest, they are prohibited from any dealings with the National Bank-that is to say, with individuals.  Another, more arbitrary distinction, is that commercial banks can have only one physical address, reflecting the Postcapians caution regarding institutions that grow “too big to fail.”

 On the positive side, the commercial world is entirely tax free.  Since they view the free market as the primary means of achieving progress and prosperity, Postcapians do nothing to dampen its dynamism.  If a company is particularly profitable, they contend, then, for the sake of economic development generally, it should be free to take full advantage of its success without the state dulling its competitive edge.  In any case, profits earned in the commercial world eventually find their way into personal accounts where they are, as we have seen, taxed.

Postcap’s commercial climate can best be described by considering a few case histories:

 CASE I: A small business startup

CASE II: A medium size family business

CASE III: A large corporation

 CASE I:

The following vignette illustrates the relatively straightforward way by which Postcapians deal with the Chinese wall between their personal and commercial worlds.  Thanks to the manner in which their system is organized, much of the associated work, it should be noted, is done by computers. 

Jane Arnold, after working six years for an architectural firm, decides to quit her job and open her own practice.  For an ambitious young person, starting a business venture is a common, albeit risky, path to prosperity.

In pursuit of her dream, Jane can take advantage of a provision in the law that requires every business to reward its workers annually with $2,000 worth of its common shares priced at book value.  The only proviso in this universal scheme is that the stock bonuses are not fully vested until the end of a worker’s fifth year of employment.  Once vested, the shares, along with any dividends they may have earned, accumulate in the worker’s name until, for whatever reason, he leaves the company.  At that time, his holdings are liquidated, again at book value.  The departing worker can elect to deposit his severance proceeds either in his liquid, taxable main account or in his illiquid, tax-free retirement account up to the aforementioned cap.  Short of leaving the company, however, a worker cannot withdraw his stock holdings, in part or in full, nor can he use them for collateral on a loan.

Jane, who needs funds for her business startup, has her $16,000+ stake ($12,000 in annual company contributions plus dividends and appreciation over the six year period) transformed into a loan to her proposed business entity triggering, of course, the inevitable shadow asset entry all hard assets require.  Hopefully her funds, once deposited in a commercial bank, will be enough to cover her interim business expenses until the new practice produces income.

It should be mentioned here that although Jane was free to quit her job at any time (and her employer equally free to fire her) one option she did not have was engaging in a part-time endeavor of her own while holding down her regular job.  Postcap law expressly forbids anyone from being employed by more than one company at any given time. 

With her new Articles of Corporation and business plan in hand, Jane requests a loan from an officer at her commercial bank who is sufficiently impressed by her credentials and apparent industry to lend her enough to set up shop and cover her overhead expenses for one year.

Jane’s new architectural office acquires clients and, after a few years, enjoys enough cash flow to pay off her bank debt and self finance her modest capital requirements.  Since her business account is not taxed, it pays her to withdraw as little for her salary as possible. (Should she illegally attempt to pay for her personal expenses out of her company’s commercial account, the transaction would be immediately flagged and heavy penalties ensue.) Jane’s newfound prosperity allows her to take on larger jobs and hire staff.

Jane, as chief designer and majority stockholder retains her position as manager until she retires.  Out of consideration for her employees who wish to see the practice survive after her departure, she prevents the requisite liquidation of her stock from draining the company of essential capital by agreeing to an installment payout that transfers only a portion of the proceeds due her to her main account with the remainder entered into her shadow asset subaccount as a series of notes receivable.

CASE II:

The Ellinston Corporation is a family-run, 300 employee manufacturer of corrugated cartons.  The company has been generally profitable for over a decade, commands a solid reputation in its field, and boasts a roster of loyal customers. The book value of its shares, therefore, has increased dramatically through the years.  As a result, the majority of its stock is owned by the workers.

At this point, the question might well arise, “what about the outside shareholders?” to which the answer is “there are none.”  A cornerstone of Postcap financial law is that all businesses, from single ownership to giant concerns, have to be exclusively employee-owned corporations.  It goes without saying, then, there is no financial industry as we, non-Postcapians, would recognize it: no publicly-traded securities, no stock exchanges, brokerage houses, private equity firms, mutual funds, hedge funds, exchange-traded funds, and so on. 

Postcaps defend their prohibition of passive ownership on two counts: one moral and one practical.  On moral grounds, they find it unseemly for one group to parasitically profit (or seek to profit) from the labors of others.  And on practical grounds, they deem it a waste of human resources to have an entire industry engaged in such a nonproductive activity as shuffling papers.  It is one thing, they feel, for an individual to achieve wealth on account of his exceptional industry, talent, and astuteness.  It is quite another for wealth to be acquired by merely researching stocks, pasting financial instruments together, bilking naive investors, blind luck, and/or profiting from inside information.  Needless to add, without a stock market there are no stock market crashes, no demanding stockholders, and no mountains of paperwork to keep them informed.  And, without the distraction of fluctuations in the price of their stock, management can devote their full attention to running their operations.

Needless to add, Postcapian workers highly approve of the arrangement.  Their work environment is happier and more productive, their workplaces safer and more attractive, their company’s pay scale less differentiated, their jobs more secure, and their freedoms uncompromised by unionization.  From the standpoint of management, the workforce is better motivated, more profit-oriented, and more stable.

The Postcapian business world has thus ended up populated by successful, conservative corporations that have evolved from very modest beginnings and survived multiple challenges along the way by eschewing drastic change in favor of evolutionary adjustment.

At the same time, I would not wish to portray an idealized worker paradise.  Businesses sometimes fail, workers unfairly fired, and management inept.  Nor do hard work and aptitude always assure success.  Pure chance, natural calamity, and technological change con­tribute an element of uncertainty to all careers, however cautiously pursued.  If one took the trouble to search out extreme cases, he could no doubt find a shift­less common la­borer in an exceptionally profitable company whose bonuses exceed the salary of a hard-driving executive in a particularly depressed firm.  Anomalies such as these are of no embarrassment to Postcapia, which does no more than nature her­self to guarantee its subjects unconditional fairness.

 *    *    *

Getting back to the Ellinston Corporation, as long as the company continued to be well run and the family considerate of their employees, the worker-controlled board of directors allowed the founders to remain in charge.  However, when it appears that too much of the profits are being distributed as dividends to the detriment of plant modernization, the board decides it is time for a change in management.

The board is well aware that previous attempts by other companies to promote current employees into top management seldom worked out well.  More often than not, such appointments created discord and a downturn in company fortunes.  Rather than risking Ellinston’s financial future, the board wisely goes outside the company to select a professional management team.

Once the new managers come on board, they are given free rein to execute company strategy.  However, they are provided little margin for error thanks to constant scrutiny by their best-informed and most acutely interested critics-that is to say, their worker-stockholders who are in position to observe firsthand the outcome of managerial decisions and whose living depends on the sagacity thereof.  Put another way, it is impossible to sweep company problems under the rug when both those doing the sweeping and those who are presumably the targets of deception are one and the same.

On the positive side, the man­agers are the beneficiaries of timely, well informed, and constructive advice from those most dedicated to the company’s success.  In gen­eral, then, this balance be­tween a management responsible to its labor force and a la­bor force dependent upon its manage­ment typically results in strong, competitive companies.

CASE III:

 In Postcapia, raising capital for major projects requires more than creditworthiness; it requires patience.

After years of research and exceptionally favorable test results, Xydanics Corporation gains governmental approval for the sale of its prescription cancer-fighting drug, Xylagan.  The company believes that the drug has important profit-making potential and therefore is keen to market it as soon as possible.  But doing so requires the construction of a costly new manufacturing plant, the addition of hundreds of technicians to its workforce, and an expansion of the company’s marketing team-all of which must be financed.

The company turns to a bank syndicate for a mezzanine loan to cover the design work and initial land improvements at the factory site.  As this is a prudent, normal-sized loan, the bank sector handles it comfortably.  Postcap banks, as a rule, are well financed-there being no other depositories in the system for businesses to put surplus cash.

A jumbo loan, such as that required by Xydanics to finance the remainder of the needs for its new endeavor is, however, a different matter.  (Theoretically, banks could swell their lending base by offering higher interest on deposits, but, as a practical matter, they are forced to operate conservatively lest their existing customers flee out of concern for the safety of their deposits-a concern that might well be warranted because the government provides no insurance on deposits.  Postcap businesses are prone to the many dangers inherent in a free market but moral hazard is not one of them.)  Finding the bank window closed, the company has no other option but to enter into a bond solicitation.

Unfortunately, from Xydanics standpoint, it normally takes years in Postcapia’s credit-tight market to fund a substantial bond offering.  The fact is that there are few pools of idle cash on Postcapia awaiting investment opportunities.  Relatively few individuals can afford to invest heavily in bonds even though bond interest certainly helps mitigate the drain taxes impose on their assets.  And the commercial world is so competitive that there is nearly always a large supply of bonds in the market from companies aggressively seeking capital.  Finally, a risk-adverse attitude, pervasive on both the personal and commercial sides, subjects all bonds to heavy scrutiny.

Despite the drag on its profitability caused by the financing delay, the company eventually socks away enough cash to build its new plant and bring its new drug to market.  Thanks to the intervening years, Xylagan has undergone further testing and refinement and, according to the financial press, its commercial success can be now assured.  Patience, as noted in the introduction, has its rewards.

 *    *    *

Rather than bemoaning the congenital lethargy of their credit market, the Postcapian’s celebrate it.  Indeed, if, by some odd chance, big money began to flow more easily, they would take immediate steps to retard it.  They equate easy credit to tsunami-like waves of cash crashing into a hitherto placid economy.  Existing products and services are abruptly made obsolete, facilities idled, workers displaced, and society left to clean up the debris.  In short, nobody gains from excessive cash flows except the handful of top dogs riding their crests.  Far preferable, Postcapians believe, is gradual evolutionary change that gives human and material resources the opportunity to adjust.  “Speed kills,” they say and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure everybody stays within the posted limits.

Space does not allow a detailed listing of all the other common sense Postcap choices that promote non-violence in their competitive marketplaces.  But a few points may be worth mentioning.  For one, their free market, uncontaminated by government intervention, generally discourages giantism.  No corporation is likely to expand horizon­tally or vertically beyond its optimal size-that is to say, beyond the point at which its adminis­tration, communica­tions, and transportation costs become less efficient than the competition.  Natural economic forces see to it that conglomerates are un­known, mergers rare, and divesti­tures far more common than diversification.  Which is not to say that cor­po­ra­tions never venture into new fields, but rather that they cannot do so without incurring at least some risk of losing ground in their core businesses to more single-minded competitors.

Some companies grow within their fields to the point that they become virtual monopolies.  Surprisingly, the Postcapians regard such results as propitious, thanks to the monopolies’ ability to provide useful standardization and generally superior products and services.  Moreover, they have few worries that monopolies will exact “obscene” profit margins.  The reality is that monopolies are, if anything, after obscene overall profitability, which means setting price points low enough to stimulate high volume.  And with consumers vigilant, companies, monopolies or no, are seldom in the position to engage in predatory pricing.  In any case, monopolies cannot escape competition from companies serving adjacent markets that force them to price their products and services accordingly.

Another curious Postcap attitude is that the people are more fearful of prices that are too low than of those that appear too high.  To explain this curious preference, consider the example of a shopper facing a choice between two articles of clothing.  The more expensive article manufactured by conscientious Company “A” provides good materials, proper lining, and fine workmanship.  The cheaper article manufactured by deceptive Company “B,” on the other hand, is inferior to its competition in every respect but appearance.  Understandably, the uninformed buyer would choose the cheaper article despite the fact that the more expensive one, thanks to its far longer life, is the real bargain.  In short, in an uninformed marketplace the business cycle that should reward the virtuous manufacturer rewards his unethical rival instead.  As a result, Company “A” eventually might very well be driven out of business and society pushed backward toward the lowest common denominator of acceptability.  And the purchasers of too cheap goods are left burdened by the cost of product replacement often accompanied by the cost of installation, not to mention the loss of time associated with dealing with inferior goods.

To protect themselves from exploitive underpricing, Postcapians demand that all retail outlets make available computer terminals on which shoppers can query a number of independent product testing services before making their intended purchase.  These services are so universally utilized, the Postcapian supplier has no real choice but to produce an honest, cost-effective so­lu­tion to its customers’ needs if it has any expectation of staying in busi­ness.

Another characteristic of Postcap companies bears mentioning.  Within the bounds of ethical behavior, every corporation is enti­tled-indeed is duty bound-to single-mindedly pursue its selfish interest.  It follows then that a cor­poration is not expected to engage in civic affairs, raise money for charity, promote social reforms, contribute to the arts, or be otherwise diverted by matters extraneous to its fundamental pur­pose.  Corpo­rate greed is considered a sign of health comparable to an individual’s good appetite and, by the same token, hypocritical gestures, a sign of incompetence.

By keeping charitable endeavors out of governmental and corporate hands, the opportunity for individual Postcapians to help others knows no bounds.  The wisdom of this approach is in evidence everywhere.  There is no disease without its humanitarian counterpart; no physical handicap without its benevolent society; no mental disturbance without its support group; and no aged group left unattended.  In short, individuals, left to their own philanthropic instincts, fill every niche for which there is a need.

Taken together then, the various-sized companies that make up the Postcap economy can be thought of as a fer­tile and bountiful forest from which issue endless inno­va­tive goods and services.  Established com­panies loom large over particular areas but never lack challenge from either branches extending from other mainline firms or nearby undergrowth.  Medium-sized compa­nies compete above and below for their place in the sun while on the forest floor, there seems always to be room for ambitious, well-run upstarts.

 Redefinition Three: Money can be manipulated to make basic needs more affordable to the underprivileged.

In the belief that everyone is entitled to at least minimal levels of nutrition, shelter, education, and medical care, the Postcap government acts affirmatively.  

FOOD VOUCHERS:

Each month, the National Bank deposits in every citizen’s food subaccount an allowance of vouchers designed to help meet his nutritional needs.  The number of vouchers is adjusted for the age and sex of the recipient but is otherwise universally allocated-i.e., no qualifiers such as means testing are applied.  The vouchers are, of course, always in the form of electronic entries and remain valid for the current month only, expiring at its end.

 The vouchers cannot, by themselves, be exchanged for food but are a necessary component in all retail purchases of food items.  Specifically, all food purchases require, in addition to their normal dollar payment, an equal number of food vouchers.  This requirement applies to all grocery and market shopping, specialty food purchases, package deliveries, and restaurant meals.  Even “free” food, such as that offered at banquets, promotional events, and charitable handouts, must similarly be paid for in vouchers and dollars by the sponsor of the event.

The number of vouchers distributed to each person is calculated by the authorities so that, on the average, middle class families break even every month, based on their consumption of a standardized basket of wholesome foodstuffs.  In short, the voucher system has little or no impact on their standard of living.

Wealthy families, on the other hand, starting with the same number of vouchers per person, are likely to deplete their allowance well before the end of the month by virtue of their more frequent restaurant dining, their more expensive taste in foodstuffs, and their fondness for drink.  To meet their voucher shortfall, they are obliged to purchase them on the National Bank’s open market in which dollars and vouchers are freely exchanged.  It is not be unusual for the accumulated demand for vouchers by the well-to-do to at least double their food costs.

The market’s source of vouchers is predominately poor families.  By adopting such tactics as conservative menu planning, home gardening, raising chickens, canning, and careful buying, the underprivileged households normally manage a surplus of vouchers that can, of course, be converted into cash.  Whereas they might not eat as sumptuously as the rich, they can, with industry and good judgment maintain a healthy diet very economically 

The first week of every month occasions relatively little trading volume on the exchange because everyone has on hand all the food vouchers he needs.  Trading activity picks up during the second and third weeks of the month and trails down again the last few days of the month as the current vouchers approach their expiration.   

Every month the government employs feedback formulas to recalculate the number of vouchers it requires the National Bank to distribute.  Roughly speaking, had the previous month’s vouchers been exchanged on the open market for less than “par,” (one voucher worth one dollar) then the purchasing power of the poor for their surplus vouchers would be deemed too little and the formula would reduce the number of vouchers to be distributed the following month.  On the other hand, were the previous month’s vouchers priced, let’s say, in the realm of two dollars, the corrected formula would avoid repeating a situation in which the poor enjoyed a free lunch-their surplus vouchers having paid for their entire food budget.

One might think that the imposition of vouchers would create a good deal of inconvenience on the part of food buyer and seller alike, but this is not the case.  When a shopper brings his cart to the register, bar codes on his purchases enable foodstuffs to be tallied separately.  Say they total $30.00.  That sum, along with its identification as a food purchase, is sent to the bank that then debits both the shopper’s cash account and his voucher account for the $30.00 amount.  If the shopper has already exhausted his monthly allowance of food vouchers, the bank automatically buys, in its customer’s name and at his expense, thirty vouchers in the open market.  This transaction, like the original one, is instantaneous and invisible to both the shopper and the checkout clerk.  Only the buyer’s receipt betrays the complete details of the transaction.

SHELTER VOUCHERS:

The Postcapians can no more countenance homelessness than they can widespread hunger.  And for many of the same “selfish” reasons. They are convinced they have more to gain than to lose by reducing the societal ills associated with slums, vagrancies, tent cities, barrios, skid rows, run-down trailer parks, and the like.  For these reasons they have introduced a shelter voucher system that works very much like food vouchers.

Postcapia’s steady erosion of all asset classes made mortgage lending, for all practical purposes, prohibitive.  The overwhelming majority of citizens, therefore, satisfied their housing needs by renting and it is these renters to whom the government’s shelter assistance is targeted.  Every month the National Bank deposits an allowance of shelter vouchers in every citizen’s account and requires all residential rental payments to be made in both dollars and an equal number of vouchers.  The allowance is calculated to roughly equal the rentals paid by middle-income people who consequently neither gain nor lose by the system.  And again, as in the case of food vouchers, the wealthy, who choose expensive accommodations, have to buy vouchers in an open market to cover their higher rentals.  Meanwhile, the poor, by compromising their choice of living spaces, can use their surplus vouchers to substantially lower their rental payments.  

There are, of course, a few, very wealthy people who accumulate enough money to pay for a home in full, and those who do are able to pocket the dollar equivalent of their entire shelter allowance.  The other side of the coin, however, is that, like the purchase of any other hard asset, buying a house automatically sets up a shadow asset that is then taxed at Postcapia’s formidable rate.  How these gains and losses net out for the owner depends on his length of tenure and his profit or loss on its sale.

*    *    *

The Postcapians believe their voucher systems are not just a social good but a political necessity.  Specifically, they allude to the following benefits:

1) From a humanitarian standpoint, food vouchers largely prevent widespread hunger and childhood malnutrition among the poor.

2) The food voucher system is virtually cost free to the government save for its minor administrative expenses.  It is, in reality, a form of income redistribution in which the rich, on a sliding scale, subsidize the poor.

3) In times of acute food shortages, the wealthy have, in times past, commandeered the available supplies of food by bidding up their price beyond the ability of others to pay.  Under the Postcapian’s system, however, the rising price of vouchers would act as a counterweight to rising food prices and thus reserve some portion of the available food supply for the poor.

4) At the very bottom of the scale, the shelter vouchers allow the abject poor, who might otherwise be homeless, to pool their allowances and jointly rent modest accommodations with the proceeds.

5) With the shelter system in place, there is never an excuse for slovenly practices either by renter or landlord.  Renting out substandard quarters and sleeping in cars, for example, are not allowed.   

6) A more subtle advantage of the voucher system is its ability to carry more information than could a single currency.  Contained in the system’s statistics are important sociological data regarding the physical status of the underprivileged, the underserved niches that call for charitable efforts, and the general capacity of the food industry vis-à-vis the country’s demands.

*    *    *

Postcapians not only tolerate a wide variation in living standards, they encourage it as an essential feature of their incentive-driven capitalistic system.  However, they recognize that the same steep gradient applied to the quality of education and health care would create unacceptable obstacles to underprivileged youth seeking to improve their station in life.  In effect, poor kids would start life’s race to the top in starting blocks set a hundred yards behind those of richer kids.  To avoid such egregiously unfair circumstances the Postcapians instituted two entitlements: 

 THE EDUCATION ENTITLEMENT:

 Education on Postcapia is federally funded but locally administered.  Monies derived from the national tax are allocated to each school district in proportion to its enrollment.  Thanks to this governmental largesse, for meritorious students there is no cost for education from nursery school through graduate programs at university, if appropriate.

 This is not to say that every youngster can pursue whatever course of study he chooses for as long as he chooses at government expense.  The budget set aside for education is predetermined each year and the number of students benefited by the program strictly rationed to fit within it.

 Students are selected for the program on the strength of both their scholastic record and a numerical grade determined by their teachers’ appraisals.  Granted the latter qualification is subjective, its compilation from the opinion of many teachers is assumed to be impartial.  Attention is given as well to which course the student applicant wishes to pursue.  There is, after all, a finite limit to the number of artists, engineers, doctors, etc. that the economy can absorb at any given time.  And, needless to add, how far a student is allowed to advance in his chosen career depends on his academic performance.

As a practical matter, the lives of young people are not nearly as circumscribed as the above discussion might suggest.  A great many, having been unable to qualify for financial assistance, take advantage on the good education offered by the for-profit colleges.  Indeed, tales are legendary of unconventional kids who found their independent streak, coupled with hard work, gave them an edge in the adult world. 

THE HEALTHCARE ENTITLEMENT:

 Postcapians are convinced a healthy populace is happier, more easily governed, and more productive than one whose physical well being is neglected.  Furthermore, an argument can be made for health care just on the basis of raw economics.  The longer a productive life can be extended, the greater is the community’s gain.  Take two contemporaneous workers for whom the investment in their upbringing is roughly the same.  If one retires at age fifty-five for health reasons and the other, in robust health, retires at eighty, the productive years of the latter cost society only half as much as the former.

 Having elected to institute universal healthcare, the Postcapians went about it in their customary efficient manner.  They set up a network of open-door hospitals and clinics throughout the land offering good basic medical services to every citizen free of charge.  Hospitals specialize in different medical areas to achieve more efficient utilization of equipment and expertise.  Services provided by the network include the treatment of chronic illnesses and injuries, routine medical exams, approved surgeries, joint replacement when practical, physical therapy, and medications.  Excluded are heroic end-of-life measures, exceptional neonatal intensive care, exotic procedures, cosmetic surgery, and unproven drugs.

 One obvious advantage of the system is that its only nodes are the patient himself and his caretaker institution.  There is no intervening insurance company, supplemental insurance provider, government bureaucracy, nor employer facilitator.  Obviously, this translates into a fraction of the paperwork we non-Postcapians take for granted.  Another important saving comes about from their handling of malpractice issues.  These are settled by arbitration within set, realistic limits established by law.

 Like universal education, universal healthcare depends for its funding on a dedicated portion of the general taxes collected from citizens’ asset accounts.  Rationing ensures that this portion stays within prescribed limits and, again like education, a grading system is the enforcement mechanism used.  Physicians are required to grade patients on their every office visit from “A” to “F” depending upon such factors as the legitimacy of the patient’s complaint, his compliance with previous medical advice, his attitude during the office visit, and his honesty.  A patient who stubbornly ignores his doctors’ advice to lose weight, for example, will find his defiance reflected in a lowered grade point average.  Since a patient seldom sees the same doctor twice, his running grade-point average turns out to be a generally accurate assessment of his efforts to cooperate in his own health care.

 Whereas no one is totally denied medical attention, a patient’s grade has much to do with how well he is treated by the system.  An “A” patient, for example, is kept waiting less, is assigned a better ward, has a wider choice of caretakers, enjoys more appealing food trays, and so on.  “F” patients, on the other hand, experience poorer service and, in marginal situations, simply less of it.  Not surprisingly, then, the majority of patients are strongly motivated to follow their doctors’ advice.

And, since this is Postcapia, for those who can afford it, there are a wide variety of private healthcare facilities including many specialized in services unavailable in the public network.

CONCLUSION

Whereas the speculations discussed in this essay would entail a radical departure from today’s economic structure, they may nevertheless deserve further study if, for no other reason, than they do address problems that have hitherto proved intractable.

Were such study to reveal that the ideas contained some meritorious elements, their eventual application would be feasible, I believe, if introduced in an evolutionary manner.

“You see that road comin’ in from the right.  That’s it!” he cried excitedly.

My own reaction to the unlighted turnoff was less en­thu­siastic.  Neuman’s “road” was a rutted strip of asphalt set on top of an abandoned railroad embankment rising six feet or so above the weeded flood plain below.  After we lurched a few hun­dred yards down this desolate stretch and I assumed things could get no worse, patches of dense fog began to roll over the roadbed making the driving all the more uncer­tain.  I kept assuming that some sort of building would emerge from the fog, but none appeared.  The only changes in our circumstances that I could detect were the wors­ening smell of acrid smoke emanating from the factories in the vicinity and the dying sounds of traffic from the highway we had left.

“You said you had to get to an appointment?  Who’s going to come all the way out here?” I asked.

“It’s only a little farther,” said Neuman.

“Only a little farther and we’ll roll off the end of this damned embankment,” I muttered, gripping the wheel.

“No we won’t.  I’ve been down here before.”  However reassuring Neuman meant his comment to be, it did nothing to quiet my misgivings.  On the contrary, his familiarity with this god-forsaken place only heightened my concern.  Who could the boy be meeting at a place like this and at this hour of the evening?  None of the possibilities made sense.  Surely this wasn’t a recreational outing; the Pershing was infamous for its pol­lution.  A love interest?  As unlikely as that sce­nario seemed, it could not be summarily dismissed given the bizarre behavior of men under its influence.  Anything was possible, I supposed, but what a wretched place for a rendezvous.  Nor were the four heavy cartons in the trunk of my car consistent with my conception of gifts for mi­lady.

More sinister alternatives rushed into my head.  Was Neuman delivering stolen goods to a fence?  Possibly, but if the affair were really that nefarious, why would he have in­volved me so openly?  Unless he was so desperate he had no choice.  The crime world, I gathered, had little patience with excuses.  Samuels, as naive as he was, had noticed a change in the boy’s behavior.  That sounded like drugs, and an addict might be driven to any extremes.  I could readily imagine the boy as some sort of low level runner.  But if those boxes were actually filled with drugs, they would be worth millions.  Who in his right mind would trust an impoverished yeshiva bocher and his jalopy with that kind of money?  On the other hand, maybe Neuman was picked as a mule precisely because he seemed so unlikely a trafficker.

Neuman’s next directive turned misgivings into some­thing akin to alarm.  At a crossing just ahead, I was instructed to leave the relative security of the raised asphalt roadway and follow an unevenly graveled drive that led across the shrouded bottomland toward the river.  I can’t say why I didn’t simply refuse.  Perhaps it was the boy’s sense of urgency; perhaps I still had hope there was some innocent explanation for all of this.  As it had all evening, my indecision worked in Neuman’s favor.  Submissively, I drove down the ramp and bumped towards the river, grimacing each time I heard the rasp of burred stalks dragging along the side of the car.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Six-fifty-five.”

“Hey, we made it.  Turn around here.  It gets too sandy farther on.”  All of a sudden Neu­man was positively cheerful.  “Sorry to take you out of your way like this, Mr. Stelzer.  I didn’t figure on the fuckin’ traffic making it take so long.”

We were directly facing the river-no more than a hundred feet from it.  Ahead, just to the right, the flood plain gave way to the beginning of an earthen levee that rose to a height of at least twenty feet, protecting, I guessed, the industrial sites upstream.  Through the windshield I searched up and down the stretches of littered bank for some sign of human activity, but saw nothing through the lin­gering fog but an empty, ramshackle dock.  Ramshackle, but, I noted with a start, serviceable.  At last I had a solid, if depressing, clue.  The criminals Neuman was planning to meet would show up in a motorboat.

In the few moments it took to conduct my survey, Neuman had stepped out of the car, taking my keys with him.  In quick succession, he emptied the trunk, set the boxes to one side, restored my signs to their original location, slammed the trunk lid, and handed me back the keys.

“Thanks again, Mr. Stelzer.  I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.”

“What’s so important?” I demanded.

“Listen, I really appreciated the ride.  I don’t know why I hadda bend your ear like that.  Just excited, I guess.  I’ll think over what you said, really.  Well. . .so long.”

Neuman waved good-bye and trudged off down the bank in the general direction of the dock taking one of his boxes and all of his secrets with him.  The little “lift” from Brith Shalom was over, and I was free to return to the com­forts of my hearth.  But no sooner had I reinserted the keys than I found myself suffering Rabbi Samuel’s accusations as we mourned over a photo of the boy’s dead body in tomorrow’s newspaper.  “Duvidul!  How could you leave a kind like that alone on the river?  You said your­self it was dark.  Nobody around.  So he pretended to be cheerful.  So what?  Would a nineteen-year-old come out and say, ‘Don’t leave me alone. I’m scared?’  Of course not!  You could at least have waited to see what kind of person comes down the river to meet a boy in the middle of the night.  So you’d miss dinner once in your life.  You, the only person in the world he could turn to, and you deserted him?  He was like a son to me.  You knew that, David!”

I had enough trouble with my back without a fat rabbi sitting on it.  All right, I would make him happier with two dead bodies in the newspaper.  I got out of the car, and confronted the kid when he returned for the next carton.

“Neuman, I can’t drive off like this.  What in the hell’s going on?  I’m not trying to interfere in your af­fairs, but I’ve got to know you’re going to be okay.”

The boy laughed.  “I’m going to be great!  Really great!  I told ya.  I’m getting my act together.  Getting started in life.  Just like you said.”

I grasped for any argument I could think of.  “Look, if you’re expecting me to keep this secret, you better tell me why.  Otherwise the first thing I’m going to do is call Rabbi Samuels and tell him about the monkey business games you got yourself into.”

“Tell him.  I don’t care.”

“Tell him what?  I’ve got to have a reason.”

Neuman laughed.  “Tell him he pays me so rotten, I had to start moonlighting as a steve­dore.”

 Could Samuels be mixed up in this too? I wondered.  Anything to save his precious shul.  “What if I call the police?  Do you think they’re going to be so patient?  How would your mother like to be called from the police station?”

“I’m not in any trouble, Mr. Stelzer, honest.  I’d tell you if I could, but I promised.  Your lights are still on, you know that?  Go on home before your battery dies.  It’s a helluva long walk back.”

Neuman laughed again as he started across the sandy soil with his second car­ton. 

Never mind my getting back.  How was he going to get back?  I hadn’t even thought of that before.  The motorboat was not only going to take the packages, it was going to make off with their delivery boy as well.  A fine start the kid had chosen for himself. “You don’t have to be ashamed with me, Neuman,” I said as he approached to pick up the third of his packages.  “I’ve seen all kinds of things in my time.  If you need money, medical attention, whatever it is, maybe I can help.”

“I don’t need anything, Mr. Stelzer, except being left alone.”

With that response-a challenge, was the way I took it-matters came to a head.  One way or another, the boy had to be confronted.  I stomped on the remaining carton with my right foot, positioning myself, come what may, to protect it.  “I’m not kidding about the police, you know,” I yelled into the darkness.

“Fine with me,” Neuman yelled back.  “I just hate to see you looking foolish, that’s all.  Your headlights are still on, you know.”

With that reminder, I instinctively turned toward the car, and, in so doing, swiveled my foot across the top of the carton.  The carelessly sealed panels burst under the pressure and I suddenly realized that the so­lu­tion to Neuman’s mysterious behavior was within arm’s reach.  With the boy out of sight, I removed my foot, pushed apart the lids, and thrust my hand inside.  Books!  Nothing but books.  What kind of books do you smuggle to a crook in a motorboat?  Pornography?  Bomb-making instructions?  By now I could see Neuman approaching but I no longer cared.  I grabbed one of the volumes and held it in the head­light beam.

“The Flowering of the Hasidic Movement,” I read aloud.

“Good choice.  But I can’t let you keep it.  Sorry.” Neuman gently took the book from my hands and returned it to its carton, which he then carted off as he had the others.

The image I had of a high-speed motorboat filled with crooks was replaced by that of a slow-moving houseboat occupied by a secret society of black-bearded, black-suited, Hasidic Jews.  My fears were lessened, to be sure, but my curiosity was stronger than ever.  And I was not altogether relieved.  Neuman could suffer a worse fate, I supposed, than being inducted into some ultra-orthodox Jewish cult, but the prospect was hardly a felicitous one as far as I was concerned.  Well, at least I would see to it that the boy was not carried off without an argument from me.

I turned off the headlights, leaned against the car, and folded my arms. “I think I’ll stay awhile,” I said to the boy, who was now collecting drift­wood for a fire.

“That’s not a good idea.”  Neuman stopped and looked at me.

“Why not?”

“I can’t tell you.  Like I said, I promised.”

“Promised whom?  Is this some kind of cabala business you’re mixed up in?”

Neuman shrugged and then went back to pick­ing driftwood without saying a word.

“I know you mean well, Neuman.  You’re a good kid.  I told you so in the car.  But this is craziness like I’ve never seen before.”

“You better get going, Mr. Stelzer.  I mean it.  I’ll be okay, really.”

“Tell me why I ‘better get going’ and maybe I will.  I keep asking ‘why,’ Neuman, and you won’t answer.”

“I told you, I promised.”

“Look, put your boxes back in the car, and let’s get the hell out of here,” I argued.  “I’ll buy you dinner and we can talk it over.  I don’t know what it is, but something here smells to high heaven.”

“There’s nothing wrong.  Honest to God.  Please go.” The boy was practically pleading.  “Trust me.  I know it looks funny, but I know what I’m doing.”

“So you told me.  I’m staying.”

Neuman paused reflectively for several moments before saying, “Suit yourself.”

With Neuman’s help I made a seat out of three of the cartons and took up my post facing the river.  Then I watched as he started a fire and began dancing slowly around it gently snapping his fingers above his head and dragging one foot and then the other across the sand.  My presence no longer mattered now that mysticism ruled.  A more fulfilled stevedore you’ve never seen.

Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education, is, by all accounts, an intelligent, open-minded administrator with long experience in his field.  It is reasonable to assume, then, that, on taking office, he has invited comment from diverse sources on how he can best tackle his new responsibilities.  Whereas I was not personally named as one of those sources, I have no doubt that he would welcome any advice such as mine that promised a fast, effective, economical, and far-reaching remedy to what is generally recognized as an underperforming-if not downright dysfunctional-educational system.

American schools were not always in this condition.  On the contrary, no more than seventy years ago they were the envy of the world.  Bringing them down to their present deplorable position required the combined efforts of many players, but one stands out for its disproportionate and particularly aggressive role in the destructive process.  I am speaking, of course, of the National Education Association.  Make no mistake about it; the NEA had the muscle to do the job.  It is the largest labor union in the US with a membership of over 3 million, a staff of over 500, an impressive Washington, DC administration building, and an annual budget of over $300 million.  It piously claims to represent the best interest of its teacher members and their students, but the perception of many less biased observers is that the only interest being served is the remuneration and power of the organization’s leadership.

How did the NEA undermine our educational system?  It did so by populating our schools with a preponderance of bad teachers.  This is no small matter.  As everyone who has stepped foot in a schoolroom knows, everything depends on the ability of its teacher.  Good teachers not only help their students absorb the class’s subject matter, they inspire them to pursue it further.  Good biology teachers create budding med students; good English teachers, budding journalists, and so on.  Bad teachers do just the opposite.  They not only fail to instruct, they inculcate their students with an antipathy toward the material.  Their classrooms become self-contained killing fields strewn with murdered ambitions.

The evisceration of an entire profession did not come about by accident.  It took a series of deliberate policies designed to promote NEA’s welfare at whatever expense to others.  First came the proliferation of teacher’s colleges with low entrance requirements and emphasis on questionable theories of education rather than mastery of particular subjects. Presumably it was thought that ignorance of the material was not an impediment to teaching it as long as one mastered the right pedagogical technique.  There were other avenues, besides the teacher colleges, by which numbers of good, motivated teachers could manage to gain entrance.  But lest their competence was rewarded in any way, the NEA killed every attempt at merit pay while ensuring the indefinite retention of members whose disqualifications were painfully obvious.  As long as she dutifully paid her union dues-up to a thousand dollars a year-her position was secure.  Most destructive of all, the NEA destroyed the morale of teachers, good and bad alike, by stripping them of the authority needed to maintain order in their classrooms, denying them all initiative in how they were to teach, burdening them with endless reports, and pressuring them into a variety of extra chores unrelated to their jobs such as catering to “special” children who had no business in a normal classroom to begin with.  Not surprisingly, the turnover rate in the profession has been inordinately high as hundreds of disappointed teachers have fled their dispiriting jobs.

My focus on the NEA’s persecution of teachers was not meant to suggest that students somehow escaped the organization’s heavy hand.  Far from it.  Whatever experiences teachers suffered have inevitably reverberated throughout the classroom.  Students have been saddled with time-consuming, and largely unnecessary, homework.  They have been subjected to experimental teaching techniques such as whole-word language and untried mathematical concepts that proved disastrous to the learning experience.  They have been forced to drag heavy knapsacks back and forth from school filled with thick, over-expensive, over-illustrated textbooks replete with poor scholarship.

Of all the tragic results of NEA policies, the worst has been, in my estimation, the calamity it has brought to inner city schools.  There the harmful vectors emanating from NEA’s offices have conjoined to bear down most oppressively on those least equipped to resist them, under-privileged minority children.

Naturally, many segments of the educational community have tried to free themselves of the NEA’s tyrannical control by means of school vouchers and charter schools.  However, these attempted defections have been battled tooth and nail by the union every step of the way with the result that school vouchers have virtually disappeared and charter schools are too few in number to significantly alter the education landscape.

 lt hardly need be said that if we are to rescue our schools from the continued ravages of the NEA, drastic action is called for.  So my advice to Mr. Duncan is to brand it as an enemy (I would have no objection to the term “terrorist”) organization based on the abundant evidence linking NEA activities with the coincident economic decline of the US.  Once that designation was made official, the government would then have the authority to initiate a thorough, top-to-bottom house cleaning–that is to say, the dismissal of all its personnel.  If this seems unecessarily harsh, bear in mind that the people, who created and executed the failed policies of the past, simply must be replaced if for no other reason than their continued involvement would inevitably compromise whatever reforms were attempted in the future.  True, not all those ensnared by the sweep would be equally culpable, but, in any event, all were complicit in the enumerated crimes and thus must be made subject to the urgent priorities demanded by the situation.

As a direct consequence of the action being recommended, two issues arise.  One, where could qualified replacements be found for the vacated union positions?  And, two, what alternative employment would be suitable for the discredited NEAers.  Fortunately, there is a single, ready, efficient, and economical solution to both problems.  Let me begin with the first.

To my mind, the educational process should be looked at as a branch of communications.  After all, it is primarily the conveyance of information from an authoritative source (teachers, textbooks, etc) to a willing audience (students).  Viewed in this light, it would make sense to fill the ranks of an emptied NEA with people possessed of the best communication skills available.  And, though the suggestion might at first sound a bit off the wall, there is no group of individuals better at retail communications than the folk presently engaged in pornography.  If the reader has any doubts on the matter, let him consider the undeniably successful track record of the porn merchants.  In the time span of a decade or so, they have taken an obscure, marginally profitable publishing activity and turned it into an electronic powerhouse all the while improving the quality of their product and reducing its cost.

No doubt the great majority of the readers of this essay will readily concede the logic and eminent practicality of my proposal, but even among these there may be a few who would question its propriety.  “Do we really want our children modeling their characters on an authoritarian figure whose background is steeped in depravity?” they might ask.  Well, there is depravity and then there’s depravity.  Personally, I would rank NEA leadership at a solid ten on the scale, and pornographers, judged by the same criteria, at 0.3.  In any case, the importance of educational excellence to the future of the country far outweighs whatever objections might arise in this regard.

As a thought experiment, picture that my recommended exchange is actually instituted; the old hidebound NEA employees are shipped out, and the new energized entrepreneurs take over.  On their very first day on the job, the new crew discovers, to their chagrin, the full extent of the deterioration that has befallen the educational system.  Students are dropping out of high school at an alarming rate and those staying behind might as well have fled with their more adventuresome comrades for all the good their additional schooling does them.  Teacher morale is dismal and the administration, moribund.  Most students are essentially illiterate in math and science and their reading proficiency is abysmal.

Retaining the enterprising spirit developed in their previous occupation, the new NEAers spring into action on their second day on the job.  Their cursory review of educational systems worldwide reveals that Finland has, arguably, the finest educational system in the world.  Thereupon they dispatch a fact-finding mission to that country the very next day.

Within a week, the mission returns a startling report.  Instead of being sidetracked by powerful teachers’ unions, the practical Finns devote themselves to producing powerful teachers.  The prestige afforded teachers in this enlightened land encourages some fifteen percent of all college applicants to apply for teacher training.  However, high scholastic standards permit only ten percent of this group to be accepted.  The successful applicants must then spend five or six years earning their requisite masters’ degrees during which time they are grounded in the fundamentals of math and science in addition to pedagogy.  Many specialize in a particular teaching area such as chemistry or biology.  After graduation and gaining employment in the public schools, they are regarded as professionals and, as such, are highly respected by the community.  In their classrooms they are given the freedom to select their own textbooks, conduct as many (or as few) exams as they wish, and assess their students as they see fit.  Stress is placed on warm, informal relationships with their students, small class sizes, and individualized instruction.  Avoided are excessive homework, burdensome paperwork, and standardized national testing.  In short, the new educators are informed that the Finnish program, in all its key provisions, is the diametrical opposite of that so doggedly and so ineffectually pursued in the US.

Needless to add, the new staff, long habituated to being on the cutting edge of their field, immediately begin implementing the proven Finnish plan in the US.  Over the succeeding years, there would then be every expectation that young Americans emerging from this superior educational environment would, once again, be qualified to compete in the international arena and thereby rescue the country from its disastrous descent into the status of a banana republic.

But what of the army of those left jobless?  Recall that my proposal called for a two part solution-the second being finding suitable employment for former NEA employees.  Given that they had been deprived of their monopoly over public education, it would seem only fair to compensate them for their loss with another monopoly more accommodative to their talents-that is to say, government authorized control over the production and distribution of porn.  Bolstered by this award, the ex-NEAers would, I am confident, willingly discard their uncomfortable masks of hypocrisy and assume their new honest careers.  Previously idled experts would promptly burden their new activity with an extensive series of authoritative investigations culminating in voluminous reports and interminable study groups.  Ex-staffers, eager to make a name for themselves in their new profession, would collaborate in the invention of “new porn”-an innovation that would reliably have the same amelioratory impact in pornography as new math had in mathematics.  Meanwhile, in overstaffed offices, administrators would keep themselves and their minions constructively employed by busily promulgating regulations and processing reports to and from the field.  The sum total of these endeavors could thus be counted on to reduce quality and increase cost in roughly equal measure-a sure road to greatly reduced consumption and a much tidier Internet.  In sum, the societal benefit gained by this transfer of erstwhile pedagogical skills to the porn industry would be second only to that achieved by the earlier half of the exchange.

Naturally, I cannot predict how Mr. Duncan will receive this recommendation, but given its evident win-win nature, I am sure he will give it serious consideration.  Should he elect to use it, he is assuredly under no obligation to attribute to its true source.  My intention is the reform of our educational system, not personal recognition.  Indeed, I would be more than content to hear him commend his able staff for the idea or, as is the wont of loyal civil servants, credit it to his boss.