Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, and COVID19

Last week, David Brooks wrote this column in The New York Times. He cited Michelle Gelfand's book Rule Makers Rule Breakers, and (as I understand his argument) proposed that the USA is doing so badly at containing COVID19 because of its rule-breaking culture that has to change.

It ain't necessarily so.

You can buy Rule Makers Rule Breakers on Kindle for $13.99. Or you can download a sample for free. I downloaded the sample. The sample includes a presentation of Singapore as an archetypical rule-making society, with strict and strongly enforced social norms, and New Zealand as an archetypical rule-breaking society, with loose and weakly enforced social norms. As of this writing, according to worldometer, New Zealand has 312 cases per million people and 4 deaths per million people, whereas Singapore has 5,467  cases per million people and, like New Zealand, 4 deaths per million people. Either Singapore had absolutely amazing hospitals or they are lying.  In either case, how well a society does against COVID19 appears to have nothing to do with how rigid its social norms are.

Ronald Lauder is a Schmuck!

Look at this paragraph in his Jerusalem Post Op-Ed:

Israelis have once again proven that they are strong and resilient, able to confront the crisis as one nation. At the same time, the pandemic has created a certain tension between the Jewish state and Jews in the Diaspora. Many felt frustrated because during their hour of need they were prohibited from traveling to the state they see as their second home. Others felt that Israel could have done more to help crisis-stricken communities. The gap between stanching the spread of the virus in Jewish Tel Aviv and succumbing to the virus in Jewish New York (Jewish London and Jewish Antwerp) has rankled.

Jewish New York, Jewish London and Jewish Antwerp are Haredi. Jewish Tel Aviv is not. He should be comparing the rates of infection in Jewish New York, Jewish London and Jewish Antwerp with the rate of infection in Jewish Jerusalem.