MDDM Ben Franklin

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:
> >
> 
> This is a very general way to put it, isn't it? Pynchon seems to be very
> much concerned with commerce in general, and arms trade, slavery and the
> death penalty in particular, which made (and still makes) the USA not
> exceptional at all.

Commerce in general, I agree, but its the traditional commerce that the
novels is nostalgic for (traditional processes of production,
enterprize, finance, labor, etc., while modern commerce (someone
mentioned that the Railroads are implied by the lines, but also the
joint stock company that is Ahab's ship and Mason's). 

He may be skeptical of history but P has done his homework. 
He has an arms dealer in the house. Why? He's got an Iron business. 
Why? 
He's got textile workers being smashed in Mason's town. He's got a girl
in British cloth in NYC. He's got coal miner strikes and mutinies aboard
ships on Easter. 
Why?  
There were few workers in America not attached to the land even an
hundred years after M&D put there scars on the earth here. There were
only two types of factory by 1850--textile and arms. Not until you have
a source of power, power other than wind, water, brute, or brutal
slavery,  you can't have much of an industrial economy. 
Can't even move faster than nature. But get the Irish and the slaves
down in the hole or digging for coal on the James River (Ironic name
isn't it?) and you got power. 
Pynchon spends half the book preparing, cultural preparation, for the
line and then  twists it into an ampersand, connecting traditional
commerce to Modern American Capitalism. Not globalization! That's not in
the book, if it exists outside of it which I doubt.