Pynchon and the current situation

[Paul Nightingale]

Perhaps the key point about war and economy concerns the way the capitalist
economy has changed since the 1950s. That is to say, the increased
importance of credit borrowing; the consumer economy, in the US and Western
Europe, as well as other parts of the world, requires not personal wealth or
a high level of income, but that little plastic rectangular answer to all
your problems. In fact, the gap between the richest 5% or 10% and the bottom
5% or 10% continues to increase, within and between nation-states. Credit
borrowing is a major player now as it wasn't before - cuts in interest
rates, anyone? In the last 12 months, the US and British democratic (now,
don't laugh) systems elected those who, with barely a quarter of the vote,
were simply less unpopular than their rivals. This is hardly surprising,
given that the principle function of such elected leaders is to manage
capitalism. Hence the need to control the behaviour (and even thoughts - I'm
not saying this is successful, but it is attempted) of the mass of the
population. The definition of an enemy against which to define ourselves
needs no elaboration. Reagan's magnificent achievement in the 1980s had
three main elements: (i) the renewed arms race compromised the US' European
allies, (ii) the increased importance attached to terrorism, which quickly
had to become (eg. Qaddafi in the mid-80s) state terrorism (after all, the
world's greatest democracy couldn't be pushed around by a handful of lone
gunmen - and yes, the phrasing is intentional), and (iii) the weakening of
any remaining connection between government spending on so-called defence
(which, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with state terrorism itself,
this is still the world's greatest democracy) and the interests of the mixed
economy. Capitalism is a beast with many heads.