ATDTDA (5): The American Corporation

[Chris Broderick]

Paul Mackin noted: 
> 3. As to the 14th amendment (equal protection under
the law) , the
> obvious presumption would be that if it's illegal to
deny protection
> to natural persons for reasons of race, color or
creed, it would be
> problematic to deny protection to groups a such
people.

I don't see how that applies.  Corporations aren't
people of single races, colors or creeds whose civil
liberties can be or ever have been violated en masse. 
Giving corporations the rights of personhood is a
perfect example of empowering the few against the
many.  Unlike people, corporations don't die, they
just get bought out.  If they're successful, they just
get bigger & bigger, and so that person is a deathless
machine worth billions.  It's exceedingly rare that
even the most egregious violations against the public
would cause a corporation to lose its charter, as was
more common in the days even after the passage of the
14th Amendment.

The biggest complaint that I have about corporations
has to do with the fact that they are allowed to
externalize incredibly huge costs (see the Exxon
Valdez, Enron, or my favorite example, the fact that
because they don't pay a living wage, Walmart has
programs to help their employees get on public
assistance.)  These are things that we end up paying
for as taxpayers, all to make a small auditorium of
stockholders happy.

Or as TRP sez:

"If we accept the notion that using power against the
powerless is wrong, a clear enough set of corrolaries
begins to emerge."

It seems hard to argue against Pynchon standing on the
side of such idealism.  And I think his evocation of
anarchism in AtD is along those same lines.  It is of
a piece with all of his attempts at historical
linguistic accuracy that the Colorado & Ohio labor
agitators (particularly the violent ones) are often
referred to as anarchists, as were those who were at
Cripple Creek or the Coeur d'Alene's.  They may not
have been steeped in Bakunin (or whoever, I frankly
have no clue) but they knew that they were being
abused by the mining companies, and they fought back,
hard and sometimes stupidly (see Big Trouble, a book I
mentioned here at least once, if not 60 times).

I do think that at least part of this novel is, in
that context, a paean to anarchism, but certainly not
a paean without rather large amounts of blowback.

On another subject, Paul sez:

> This "evolution" Pynchon is describing is of course
more "weird  
science."

'Weird science' in this context may also be described
as fantasy.  It's never been a distant thing in
Pynchon's writing.  I've never been versed in magick
(it's with a 'k', right?  Respect.), but I am enough
of a fiction reader & bookworm to appreciate the
ability of writers to imagine worlds both better and
worse than and sidereal to our own.  Though, these
days, reality is all like, try to top us you rat soup
eating mf's!!  

One of Pynchon's chief obsessions is the sometimes
errant paths of science and scientists, math &
mathematicians.  Pynchon is a writer who obviously
shows a great reverence for (& interest in) science. 
But as often as not, as a novelist, he is as
interested in the blind alleys as much as (if not more
so than) the true and shining paths.  Why are these
blind alleys worth the rememberance?  One only has to
reminisce upon Ned Pointsman with a toilet attached to
his leg to see the level of respect that Pynchon
affords scientists in general.  Still one has to
balance that with the rapturous passage(s?) about
Kekule & the benzene ring...

-Chris


 
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