Captalism and Pynchon (was: RE: The Olympics)

[George Haberberger]

At 10:02 AM 8/7/96 -0400, Scott Weintraub wrote:
>On Wed, 7 Aug 1996, Mr Craig Clark wrote:
>
>> Agreed, but 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.
>
>I never got this message from _GR_.  While I think it's extremely safe to 
>say that Pynchon is anti-Big Business, I'm not sure it can be taken much 
>further.  If we're sticking with the equation that chaos = good and
>order = bad, in theory, what's better than a free market?  I'm looking at 
>a dictionary right now (Webster's) and it says that capitalism is "an 
>economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of 
>capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision 
>rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the 
>distruction of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free 
>market."  With free enterprise, we have a market that is an entity of its 
>own.  Every variable in the system determines how it will act next.  Just 
>like any large system, there are plenty of unknowns.  The market takes 
>random (entropic) shifts.  If it didn't, we'd all be rich.  I don't see 
>why Pynchon wouldn't favor something like this.
>
>
I'm not getting an anti-capitalist message from GR either, though there is
plenty of anti-monopolist feelings. Look at the Plechazunga scene (569
Penguin) where Slothrop feels dread about the black market springing up in
the square, only because he knows the guardians of the White Market will
come to suppress it. 

George