Capitalism and Pynchon

[Mr Craig Clark]

I wrote:

> > ....I think _Gravity's Rainbow_ indicates a deep hostility 
> > towards capitalism. A very deep hostility. Way deep. I mean, you 
> > thought _Capital_ was anti-capitalist, but boy you ain't seen nothing 
> > till you read the Rainbow.

Paul Mackin replies:  

> Yes, though one might quibble about how deep and unambiguous. 
> Many capitalists (along with many (most?) writers and intellectuals)
> have similarly NEGATIVE feelings. ('capitalist' as a state of 
> mind as well as a material condition)
> At the same time, Marx had some fairly POSITIVE things to say about 
> the big K.
> Can't give an exact quote but somewhere he said something to the effect
> it had been a hell of a success. (think he meant REALLY and not just a 
> necessary part of the dialetic or something)

I would suspect that Marx was arguing only that Capitalism was a much
more effective means of accumulating wealth than anything which had gone 
before it; and also that the logic of capital accumulation meant that 
capitalist society would be dynamic and innovative, as it constantly 
created new forms of commodity for consumption. But I doubt that Marx 
would go any further. His argument is that capitalism is extremely 
exploitative of those who do not own the means of production, i.e the
larger portion of the population of any capitalist society; he 
rejects - and I think this is where Pynchon is utterly in sympathy 
with Marx - the notion that there is anything finally positive in a 
society which allows a few to grow wealthy at the expense of the 
poverty of the many. 

I would contend that _GR_ seems to be completely in accord with this 
kind of analysis. True, TRP doesn't often use the classical Marxist 
terminology of "ownership of means of production" vs "exploited 
labour". I believe this is because TRP rejects dialectical 
materialism as too reductionist: we may be well comprehended through 
an analysis of our status in regard to the issues of labour and 
production, but this is not all we are. Instead TRP follows Max 
Weber's linking of capitalist social relations to Protestant 
Christianity, and therefore borrows from the latter the terminology 
of Elect and Preterite, as a way of signalling the non-materialist  
ways in which individuals are excluded from or included into the 
power-structures of society. That is to say that for TRP capitalism 
is just one manifestation of a human tendency that manifests in 
realms outside those dealt with by the mainstream of historical 
materialist thought. Nonetheless TRP remains hostile to the specific 
manifestation that we call capitalism.



Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"