Sunbathing in Paris in April

The Wall Street Journal website regularly posts "Pictures of the Week", and it is there that I found this great shot of a woman sunbathing on a quay of the Seine last week. She certainly is not following the adage I heard as a child growing up in Paris:

Avril
Ne te découvre pas d'un fil
Mai
Fais ce qu'il te plait

(In April, do not take off a thread; in May, do as you wish)

The picture hardly seems natural ... it is rather studied and could have been shot for a commercial. But if this were the case, why would the WSJ present it as an interesting picture of the week? It must be a candid shot. Yet there are details that make you wonder. The large sheet spread under the woman and the pillow under her head could not possibly hold in the bag at her left arm ... but she may simply have carried them in her arms if she lives not too far from that spot. The flip-flops are a sign that this may be a candid shot; high heels would be more in keeping with a modeling photo-shoot.

On the whole, I prefer to think that, on a warm April day, this woman simply could not resist the temptation of celebrating the arrival of spring after an unusually long and harsh winter and decided to walk to the river to bask in the warmth of the sun.

She let her skirt fall down on her ankles, but she did not step out of it, and let it sit there, as if she wanted to be ready to quickly lift it back up if she had to leave in an emergency. This is probably also why she has kept her bag hanging at her arm. However, she certainly does not seem to be worried or vigilent. Her attitude is relaxed and there is a faint smile on her lips. Is she simply content or is she smiling at the photographer?

One thing is certain. This picture is quintessential Paris. Only in Paris would a woman dress with such sophisticated elegance (all in black: black skirt, black tight underwear shorts, black top, and black accessories: the handbag, the flip-flops, the bracelet on her right arm) to go sunbathe near the river.

Her pose reveals a tattoo on the inside of her right arm.

Prophet of Innovation

Prophet of Innovation is a biography of Joseph Schumpeter by Thomas McGraw.

In the chapter on this economist’s most famous work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the author notes Schumpeter’s psychological insight into the reasons why Marx had become so fashionable in the 1930s.

People embraced his “message of the terrestrial paradise of socialism” not only because it seemed such an improvement on current conditions but also because it addressed “that feeling of being thwarted and ill treated which is the auto-therapeutic attitude of the unsuccessful many.”

Schumpeter’s insight is elegantly worded but not new: it is another way of saying that a great many people blame their failure to achieve success (and to reap the economic benefits derived from it) on "The System" or on others rather than on themselves, as a way of avoiding to face the painful truth, which is their own inadequacy.

What is interesting is that Schumpeter uses this psychological truth to explain the popular appeal of Marx’s message.

Capitalism and the free market reward energy, focus, entrepreneurship, risk-taking and creativity, qualities that are found only in a small minority of individuals. It results in great inequalities of income, and in the frustrated ambitions of the many who entered the race without the personality, character and other attributes required to win it.

Socialism, which makes the utopian promise to take from every individual according to his abilities and to give to every individual according to his needs, has a great deal of appeal, because it implies that needs will be fulfilled even for those people whose abilities and exertions are insufficient to satisfy their needs on their own.

But the satisfaction of personal needs by the State has unfortunate consequences: a constant expansion of those needs, which become rights, and a loss of the personal sense of responsibility to provide for oneself (why should I work harder, since the State will provide for me?). The net result is a reduction in the total wealth of a nation, for sharing wealth through taxes on “the rich” (or the not so rich, for, as needs expand, it becomes insufficient to tax just the rich) does not create wealth, it just redistributes it, and it reduces incentives for further investment and risk-taking, which do create wealth.

It also results, in the worst case, in a totalitarian political system and, in the milder case of social democracy, in a loss of individual freedom, for, in order to give to some, the State has to take from others, and, as the scope of the government's activities and responsibilities constantly expands, it regulates in increasing detail the lives of the governed.