Wealth re-distribution in the USA [rah, rah, rah]

[Michael Bailey]

Robin started this thread by remarking on transfer of wealth via TARP -

Matt Taibbi's articles in Rolling Stone on various aspects of this
have been pretty good, despite a somewhat rabble-rousing tone.  It's
probably meet that the rabble should be roused to at least be aware of
a trend that was described in _Vineland_ as "rolling back the New
Deal"

and became an overt part of public policy during the Reagan years,
although the way it hurts everybody still hasn't become clear -
apparently - to many Republicans.   during the clinton yrs, union
busting, unfair trade, and working without a (social safety) net
became part of democrat policy as well...
and in the same sort of unseemly rush Obama invites Goldman and Sachs
to run the treasury...

but anyway


Pynchon, even earlier,  in _V_ delineated an attitude that has got to
have been a factor in how our friendly neighborhood malefactors of
great wealth have been able to go so far in such a retrograde
direction: that of the bums who sign up for Zeitsuss's alligator
squad.  His unionist-style earnestness and organization is lost on
them.  They'd rather glean returnable bottles for enough change to buy
a beer.

In _V_, the dichotomy between earnest endeavor and foolish pleasure is
played straight.  There's plenty of implied value judgement in _V_ and
the bums/Zeitsuss interface is one such --
viz, the bums are bums because although they hear Zeitsuss and even
sympathize, they act on a different impulse for which the text doesn't
proffer an attitude of respect.

I'm probably overstepping to name early Pynchon's attitude a
Marxian-Catholic sort of viewpoint, but I see things in there that I
recognize from my well-nigh cursory study of Marx and the RCC -- a) a
singling up - the narrative of the dominant culture is viewed as
all-important (even for dissenters and outliers and schlemihls), ie,
logocentric, anthropocentric, there's a mainstream that defines
everything else - and b) the sweep of history is foreshortened to
emphasize the working out of a plan stemming from a
religious/philosophical system...

But _Vineland's_ world is different.  Rather than alligators to shoot,
Nature provides Zoyd with a best friend, Desmond, vistas that are
often beautiful, and crawfish to sell to restaurants.  Rather than
relating to a Street, Zoyd roams in a
landscape which offers many of the solaces that the characters and
narrator of _V._ look for in philosophy.
Not that Zoyd is exempted from value judgement, or that social
consciousness and right action is deemed unimportant.  Rather, the
frame is larger, allowing more redeeming graces to show, and also
perhaps pointing to some important interpretive reasons for the way
massive landmarks and bulwarks of attitude and law seemingly faded
away is because they weren't exactly what they were perceived to be
and so forth...
there are Amerind ghosts and Thanatoids
stretching the frame
and even Hector admits that Zoyd isn't lazy


All this is by way of sort of elaborating on the point I was trying to
make earlier by repeating that old saw "who steals my purse, steals
trash"

Because there isn't just one narrative - a bunch of people took a
bunch of money from other people by pretending to be reliable
investors...every one of those people has other stuff going on in his
or her life, every one is subject to karma...

Because money is only one of a number of media of exchange, and not
even the best one for many things

Because it's easier and less painful to recover from having your money
stolen, than recovering from having been somebody who stole
something...

it's not so much that I want to propound these points, just that I
have noticed them; and there's no need for me to enforce them --

because, broadly painted, doesn't it go something like
- people banded together to demand
           wages enough to live on
           workplace safety
           banks you could rely on
           retirement
           some protection for the environment
           health insurance
           product liability
           civil rights

 but instead of agreeing to work within that framework, a whole bunch
of incredible -- what would that make somebody who instead stripped
health insurance, lowered wages, deregulated banks, moved businesses
to countries where they could pollute? -- incredible blue meanies have
been chipping away at it things of value like bank regulations and
public schools and regulated utilities and union contracts, and
substituting the equivalent of "default credit swaps" in every sphere
of endeavor they could think of...

but honestly, that can't really be very much fun
so one has to feel a bit sorry for them - Pity, Mercy, Peace and Love!