Poll Leez State?

[Terrance]

What motivated American business to support Reagan? 

They wanted to maintain a Police State? 

No. 

The reasons were many, but VL hits the big fat obvious ones.  

1. The growth in economic power of other Nations, like Germany and Japan
(Zoyd, the clue less one, notices that the cars in the Log Jam are
Japanese and German and that the workers carry foreign currencies). 

2. The successful challenge to American Hegemony by so-called Third
World Nations (Like, Vietnam and Mexico). 

3. The impact of popular movements within the USA, like the black,
asian, latino, ...  student movements, women, labor, environment,
consumer protection .... 

American business, after enjoying post W.W.II economic and political
hegemony, worked at rebuilding the industrialized capital economy of the
world, forming viable economic and political partners, freeing the Third
world from overt colonial relationships in order to satisfy aspirations
for independence and  meet the ideological challenges of the New Cold
War and open those economies to American products and services,  but in
doing so American business sped up the challenge of other capitalist
Nations (the obvious example is Japan) and sped up the popular
insurgencies in the Third World, insurgencies that targeted American
political and economic power or American forms of Imperialist Power.
These oppositions posed a huge threat to American political and economic
primacy. Moreover, this threat was significant even in those Nations and
Economies where America did not have much capital. American Capitalism
failed in 1930s, but in the Post W.W.II era, **consumer demand** was the
one size fits all bottom line in the black and to sell it and keep in
the black American business accepted increased government involvement in
the economy. To protect consumer demand and to assuage popular
discontent over the dislocations in  the business cycles (to deal with
the Worker and Labor) business supported social welfare  programs. As
long as the men working in the mills and the men working in the woods
could earn high wages (Union wages) and consume American products,
American business could keep in the Black. But how could American
business keep it going? It couldn't. It would have to manufacture
changes in both institutional structures and public perception. How
would they get a Pisk sister to buy that fancy car? How would they get
the 60s crew to Turn, Turn, Turn, from the Spring Comedy (see Frye) to a
Summer Romance? Perhaps I've misunderstood the novel, but I think that
Pynchon argues that Business Turned the kids against the workers (their
parents). 



Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> Uh ...
> 
> --- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > The 1980 election and the 1984 consolidation of
> > those results marked a decisive realignment in
> > American politics.  Not only did they represent
> > the most significant electoral shift since the
> > 1930s; they were accompanied by the largest and
> > most comprehensive policy changes in modern times.
> > Reagan's unprecedented success in implementing his
> > policies was matched only by his ability to move
> > Nation Rightward.
> 
> Okay so far, and for the following ...
> 
> > Instead of an increased polarization, the Reagan
> > Revolution produced a Democratic Party that
> > accepted substantial parts of the new conservative
> > agenda and sought to shed its identification with
> > traditional constituencies.
> 
> But here's ...
> 
> > Reagan's electoral victories are a direct challenge
> > to the Radical Left's claim that America is a
> > Police State.  The democratic process elected
> > Reagan. The shift to the Right had nothing to do
> > with a  Police State.  That is not what Pynchon
> > argues in his prose fiction (VL) or in his essays.
> > What Pynchon argues in VL and elsewhere is that
> > business and the interests it dominates have largely
> > controlled American politics for a very long time.
> > Even the liberal socialist politics of the New
> > Deal and the Great Society were manufactured and
> > produced by business interests in order to meet
> > their own economic needs while simultaneously
> > responding to and defusing popular protests.  Labor
> > was defeated by business. VL is the story of
> > Labor's Defeat.
> 
> ... precisely where I'm not sure that you've either
> completey understood the novel, or are absolutely
> clueless.  Depends on where you believe Pynchon is
> coming from, going to on this ...
> 
> 
> 
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