Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and Ecocide

Enormous yachts embody the sins of capitalism, according to this caustic debut polemic. University of Lille sociologist Salle indicts superyachts, defined as yachts more than 80 feet long, for their wasteful excess (one yacht designer offers showers that spray champagne); exhausting work regimens for employees; heedless mobility, which allows their wealthy owners to dodge taxes and sail away from social obligations; collective carbon footprint, which exceeds those of some small countries; and other environmental ravages, such as damaging beds of ecologically important seagrass off the southern coast of France. Above all, Salle argues, superyachts bear out an “eco-socialist” critique of “the entire fabric of fossil-industrial capitalism” by making manifest the connection between soaring inequality and “climaticide.” Salle writes in a sardonic, jokey style, occasionally lapsing into the preening first-person voice of a yacht (“I’ve been accused of looking like a submarine, but we’ll let that pass. What I have found less easy to accept is that people jeer at my bar made of Baccarat crystal”). Unfortunately, his critique, which never amounts to more than that superyachts are another way for rich people to act obnoxiously rich, founders under so many layers of interpretive weight. It’s a belabored denouncement of a gaudy but rather marginal example of class privilege. (Apr.)