THEY 3 of 10

[Terrance]

Eco-They: Kartell, Firm, Syndicate, Management, 
Political-They: Empire, Corporate state, Ruling Elite-the
degenerate aristocracy. 
Allusions and Personifications: The Elect, The Studio, the
octopus, adenoid, Dracula. 

THE ECONOMIC THEY

Soldiers stand every few yards, a loose cardon, unmoving, a
bit supernatural. The Battle of Britain was hardly so
formal. But these new robot bombs bring with them chances
for public terror no one has sounded. Jessica notes a
coal-black Packard up a side street, filled with dark-suited
civilians. Their white collars rigid in the shadows.
      
 "Who're they?"
      
 He shrugs: "they" is good enough. "Not a friendly lot."
[GR.40]

Does GR pin down or name an unequivocal source for the evil
it portrays? Who are THEY? 

"From overhead, from a German camera-angle, it occurs to
Webley Silvernail, this lab here is also a maze, I'n't it
now
behaviorists run these aisles of tables and consoles
just like rats 'n' mice
.But who watches from above, who
notes their responses?" 
This terrible description, dark and grim is subverted by a
sill song-PAVLOVIA. [GR.229]


There is a universal conspiracy in GR. They appear under
every imaginable manifestation of power. Ultimately, all of
these are subordinated to the "the needs of technology
 a
conspiracy between human beings and techniques
these needs
are understood only by the Political They or the "ruling
elite." 


THE ECONOMIC: The Kartel, The Syndicate, The Firm, The
Management

In economic terms, They are "the growing organic Kartel",
the "IG" that Smarargd says is "ours" but which Herr
Rathenau, from the expanded, though not perfect view from
the "other side" says is "only another illusion." 

Rathenau seems to know more about who They are, but he can't
tell. He can only tell what the questions are: "You must ask
two questions. First, what is the real nature of synthesis?
And then: what is the real nature of control?" [GR.166-167]

Pointsman, the profane Pavlovian Knight, knows that the
"agents of the Syndicate
 wait in the central chamber" of
the labyrinth, that "its only a job they have
." And to fund
his project and keep Mexico, he will do a job on Pudding and
R&J.  

Funding the War and the Laboratory is expensive. Men and
women can be very valuable assets to The Firm When the
Reverend Dr. Paul de la Nuit argues that the MMPI only
"tests for whether a man will be a good or bad soldier," and
not any "human values," Pointsman, a Utilitarian, replies, 
"Soldiers are much in demand these days, Reverened Doctor."
[GR.81]

Of course,  The Firm is particularly interested in any
soldiers that possess special talents or "gifts." Brian
McHale says the opening dream scene of GR is a "paradigm of
problematic passages throughout Gravity's Rainbow: the
reader, invited to reconstruct a 'real' scene or action in
the novel's fictive world, is forced in retrospect -
sometimes in long retrospect - to 'cancel' the
reconstruction he or she has made, and to relocate it within
a character's dream, hallucination, or fantasy." And, more
important to our current concerns, Pirate's gift for
"getting inside the fantasies of others
is a gift the Firm
has finds uncommonly useful."  The Firm's or Their control
over the narrative is another subject, but for now we can
see that They control the funding with the War, and that
although Pirate saves Europe from the Balkan Armageddon, the
Firm only allows him "tiny homeopathic doses of peace" and
he does not save Europe from World War II. The Firm uses men
or women to get what They want. Roger Mexico (Weber / Mill)
knows that the War is his mother and that the business of
the War "is buying and selling."