Speaking of money...re: gold and silver standards in Pynchon's work

[Mark Kohut]

We have talked here on the plist of Pynchon using gold and silver as economic tropes
(with real world allusions) in some novels.....(mostly ATD and IV, I remember)
 
About the Rebellion Between the States that TRP only alludes to, leaves as major 
wound in the history of the Republic of the United States. .......
 
I just read this in the beginning of Greenback Planet by HW Brands: two months after Lincoln signed
the Emancipation Proclamation to start 1863, "he signed a revision of the Legal Tender Act,
freeing the American dollar from its dependence on gold and silver. ...[this second signing] "signaled
the launch of American capitalism toward global dominance."
 
i apologize if my plist self-education is already known and has been discussed here and I did not listen. 
 
In a nod to Joe Allonby's recent post on BIG CAPITALISM [my reductionism; correct Joe, if too facile] 
I want to just add this to the above re one of my ongoing thematic readings --or projections---of P's 'meanings' :
That such growth created lots of suffering-- still is---beyond an America that might have 'grown'
on a more human scale. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20111118/29caf842/attachment.html>