Pushkin

Do nice guys really finish last. I'm Tim Harford, host of the Cautionary Tales

podcast and I'm exploring that very question. Join me for my new mini-series on The

Art of Fairness from New York to Tahiti Join me for my new miniseries on the art of fairness.

From New York to Tahiti will examine villains undone by their villainy,

monstrous self-devouring egos and accounts of the extraordinary power of decency.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's 1986,

about three decades after Jackson's death.

On a cold winter's day on the Upper West Side, a woman called Maris has been sitting in a parks car watching a house

She's on a stakeout a stakeout of her very own home

The kind of alternative utopian community hidden in plain sight.

That's Alexander Stiller, who has just written a book about this community.

You could drink as much as you want, you could sleep with as many people as you want, you didn't

have to feel guilty, great, what's wrong with that?

But it had a darker side. The year before, Maris had had a baby. Three months after giving birth,

she is told not to see her child at all because she's a mothering mother and

is going to be a toxic influence on her daughter.

The kid was taken away from her.

And now Maris is parked outside the commune with two hired bodyguards waiting.

Finally, she sees some movement.

The front door opens and out comes a pram.

...