Love Doesn't Work by Henning Koch Page B

half of them were dreaming of sitting at tables with sea-views in Monte Carlo, while their super-yachts weltered on the waves below. In the poorer parts of the world, meanwhile, people wanted exactly the same things. They struggled to send their children to the very same universities, so that they would also be able to buy the useless plastic electronic junk that their wealthy northern brethren so coveted.
    Then there were some smaller groups of native peoples who still clung on to decent beliefs. But they, along with what remained of the planet’s stock of wild animals, had mostly been wiped out, stuffed and exhibited in ethnography museums. Their land had been turned over to something hideous, a process which in those days went by the name of development.
    As soon as I took power, I abolished a number of things that seemed to me unhelpful to the future world order I had in mind. These included cars, aircraft, cameras, refrigerators, computers, radios, fixed line and mobile telephony, and so on. Small numbers of these same objects were still manufactured, but I stipulated that at least fifty percent of their components had to be handmade. This had two immediate effects: an enormous upsurge in craftsmanship, and huge price increases, making such consumer articles unaffordable to more or less everyone. Human health improved enormously, as people took to walking, cycling and riding horses.
    I was not a backward dictator. I built telephone exchanges in every town and village. Many objects could be hired at reasonable cost, and hospitals and schools were equipped with all the high technology the human race was capable of.
    The Internet struck me as a tool ideal for the spread of filth and corruption, so I abolished it. I quickly rooted out its criminals, pornographers and profiteers and turned them to gas.
    Music has always struck me as the noblest of all arts, but I felt the distribution of recorded music had deeply damaged its fabric. Hence I prohibited the sale of all CDs and vinyl, and built concert halls and smaller venues all over the countries of the world, where people were free to play their instruments.
    The travel industry was disbanded. I felt it important that people should be able to travel if they so chose, but I wanted a return to the parochialism that had ruled the world up until the early 1800s. In those days any journey across national boundaries was hazardous, as packs of wolves attacked carriages, and a lack of hotels and restaurants made travel something for the hardy. Also, travelers then actually had something to report upon. The foods of foreign lands, the languages and customs of distant climes, were notable and unique. Prior to the revolution, I was saddened by the globalization that the world’s cretinous leaders seemed to feel was such a noble thing. Their weird and twisted manipulation of natural economics caused enormous numbers of people to migrate hither and thither in search of prosperity. I emphasize that this transmigration had nothing to do with the poverty of the lands these people left behind. Many a time a family would set out, leaving a pleasant green valley behind where their forefathers had farmed for many millennia, choosing instead some vast, filthy city with the prospect of soulless work in laundries, restaurants or other places that did not merit existence. Languages had begun to shrink and disappear. Habits and customs were merging everywhere and people no longer knew who they were. This was all excused in the name of multiculturalism, as it was known in the richer countries. In fact, the intellectuals of these countries conveniently excused the fact that the poor peoples of the world were their slaves, living in the nastiest, filthiest areas and doing the jobs no one with any self-respect would ever touch. To compound this misery, this same intellectual ruler class soon emigrated with its pots of money into the overpopulated poorer countries, buying up vast tracts of land and