won’t go near the family, I’ll meet Odile at the airport and give her the papilloma.”
Odile? Terzian thought. “I should go along,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” she said. “Carry that gun into an airport? ”
“I don’t have to take the gun. I’ll leave it in the hotel room in Rome.”
She considered. “Very well.”
Again, that night, Terzian found the tumbled castle in Provence haunting his thoughts, that ruined relic of a bygone order, and once more considered stealing the papilloma and running. And again, he didn’t.
They didn’t get any farther than Florence, because Stephanie’s cell phone rang as they waited in the train station. Odile was in Venice. “Venezia?” Stephanie shrieked in anger. She clenched her fists. There had been a cache of weapons found at the Fiumicino airport in Rome, and all planes had been diverted, Odile’s to Marco Polo outside Venice. Frenzied booking agents had somehow found rooms for her despite the height of the tourist season.
Fiumicino hadn’t been re-opened, and Odile didn’t know how she was going to get to Rome. “Don’t try!” Stephanie shouted. “I’ll come to you .”
This meant changing their tickets to Rome for tickets to Venice. Despite Stephanie’s excellent Italian, the ticket seller clearly wished the crazy tourists would make up their mind which monuments of civilization they really wanted to see.
Strange—Terzian had actually planned to go to Venice in five days or so. He was scheduled to deliver a paper at the Conference of Classical and Modern Thought.
Maybe, if this whole thing was over by then, he’d read the paper after all. It wasn’t a prospect he coveted: he would just be developing another footnote to a footnote.
The hills of Tuscany soon began to pour across the landscape like a green flood. The train slowed at one point—there was work going on on the tracks, men with bronze arms and hard hats—and Terzian wondered how, in the Plant People Future, in the land of Cockaigne, the tracks would ever get fixed, particularly in this heat. He supposed there were people who were meant by nature to fix tracks, who would repair tracks as an avocation or out of boredom regardless of whether they got paid for their time or not, but he suspected that there wouldn’t be many of them.
You could build machines, he supposed, robots or something. But they had their own problems, they’d cause pollution and absorb resources and, on top of everything, they’d break down and have to be repaired. And who would do that?
If you can’t employ the carrot, Terzian thought, if you can’t reward people for doing necessary labor, then you have to use the stick. You march people out of the cities at gunpoint, like Pol Pot, because there’s work that needs to be done.
He tapped his wedding ring on the arm of his chair and wondered what jobs would still have value. Education, he supposed; he’d made a good choice there. Some sorts of administration were necessary. There were people who were natural artists or bureaucrats or salesmen and who would do that job whether they were paid or not.
A woman came by with a cart and sold Terzian some coffee and a nutty snack product that he wasn’t quite able to identify. And then he thought, labor .
“Labor,” he said. In a world in which all basic commodities were provided, the thing that had most value was actual labor. Not the stuff that labor bought, but the work itself .
“Okay,” he said, “it’s labor that’s rare and valuable, because people don’t have to do it anymore. The currency has to be based on some kind of labor exchange—you purchase x hours with y dollars. Labor is the thing you use to pay taxes.”
Stephanie gave Terzian a suspicious look. “What’s the difference between that and slavery?”
“Have you been reading Nozick?” Terzian scolded. “The difference is the same as the difference between paying taxes and being a slave . All the time you don’t
Odile? Terzian thought. “I should go along,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” she said. “Carry that gun into an airport? ”
“I don’t have to take the gun. I’ll leave it in the hotel room in Rome.”
She considered. “Very well.”
Again, that night, Terzian found the tumbled castle in Provence haunting his thoughts, that ruined relic of a bygone order, and once more considered stealing the papilloma and running. And again, he didn’t.
They didn’t get any farther than Florence, because Stephanie’s cell phone rang as they waited in the train station. Odile was in Venice. “Venezia?” Stephanie shrieked in anger. She clenched her fists. There had been a cache of weapons found at the Fiumicino airport in Rome, and all planes had been diverted, Odile’s to Marco Polo outside Venice. Frenzied booking agents had somehow found rooms for her despite the height of the tourist season.
Fiumicino hadn’t been re-opened, and Odile didn’t know how she was going to get to Rome. “Don’t try!” Stephanie shouted. “I’ll come to you .”
This meant changing their tickets to Rome for tickets to Venice. Despite Stephanie’s excellent Italian, the ticket seller clearly wished the crazy tourists would make up their mind which monuments of civilization they really wanted to see.
Strange—Terzian had actually planned to go to Venice in five days or so. He was scheduled to deliver a paper at the Conference of Classical and Modern Thought.
Maybe, if this whole thing was over by then, he’d read the paper after all. It wasn’t a prospect he coveted: he would just be developing another footnote to a footnote.
The hills of Tuscany soon began to pour across the landscape like a green flood. The train slowed at one point—there was work going on on the tracks, men with bronze arms and hard hats—and Terzian wondered how, in the Plant People Future, in the land of Cockaigne, the tracks would ever get fixed, particularly in this heat. He supposed there were people who were meant by nature to fix tracks, who would repair tracks as an avocation or out of boredom regardless of whether they got paid for their time or not, but he suspected that there wouldn’t be many of them.
You could build machines, he supposed, robots or something. But they had their own problems, they’d cause pollution and absorb resources and, on top of everything, they’d break down and have to be repaired. And who would do that?
If you can’t employ the carrot, Terzian thought, if you can’t reward people for doing necessary labor, then you have to use the stick. You march people out of the cities at gunpoint, like Pol Pot, because there’s work that needs to be done.
He tapped his wedding ring on the arm of his chair and wondered what jobs would still have value. Education, he supposed; he’d made a good choice there. Some sorts of administration were necessary. There were people who were natural artists or bureaucrats or salesmen and who would do that job whether they were paid or not.
A woman came by with a cart and sold Terzian some coffee and a nutty snack product that he wasn’t quite able to identify. And then he thought, labor .
“Labor,” he said. In a world in which all basic commodities were provided, the thing that had most value was actual labor. Not the stuff that labor bought, but the work itself .
“Okay,” he said, “it’s labor that’s rare and valuable, because people don’t have to do it anymore. The currency has to be based on some kind of labor exchange—you purchase x hours with y dollars. Labor is the thing you use to pay taxes.”
Stephanie gave Terzian a suspicious look. “What’s the difference between that and slavery?”
“Have you been reading Nozick?” Terzian scolded. “The difference is the same as the difference between paying taxes and being a slave . All the time you don’t
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