globalization & Pynchon?

[Doug Millison]

calbert, re corporations:
But if they take on "separate" lives, will they not then compete 
directly with the interests of their former sponsors?

Yes.  I think you see this tension in Pynchon's novels. Certainly if
corporations' life blood is War, that "competes" rather directly with their
former sponsors (and current shareholders), might even kill them.  Like the
monster that turns on its creator you might say. 


calbert:
what 
"corporate" form drives the extinction of the dodo, which surely 
functions as a metaphor for larger processes of this kind? 

The dodo and other species in that era fall victim to colonists, who
populate colonies that are set up as commercial enterprises  for their
shareholders. Same thing continues today -- corporations destroy the
environment as they extract profits; it's a theme you find in all of
Pynchon's novels.