on money (in the abstract)

[Michael Bailey]

 alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's a cult with charismatic  leadership.
>
>> dude - that's what a good union is!
>
> Yes, but unions are  also organized labor

that was the distinction I missed last night.  The charismatic
leader/organized organization distinction...

from what I understand, neither one is very desirable - the
charismatic leader becomes a bottleneck, and the rule-book of an
organization becomes a substitute for thoughtful action...although
both can be very useful at times...

that's definitely Pynchon-relevant.  It's not one of my favorite
hobby-horses, because when I consider "charisma" I tend to think of
that as something that ought to flow thru an organization  rather than
something any one person has a corner on...

...but combing thru GR with that idea, (an inveterate ctenophile...)
who's caught in the seine?

- Rathenau, a fairly cool charismatic leader, as charismatic leaders
go; and we saw what happened to him!
- Weissmann that sick fuck
- Enzian leading his folk onward in despair
- Pointsman, not so much, too Bookish, too unlikeable
- Gwenhidwy - stymied by Pointsman, he has the makings but is too
focused on actually doing things to start any kind of a movement
(the fact that he seems to be one of the few likeable characters may
be related to his non-charismatic qualities)
- there's a nice bit about Roosevelt, Slothrop's view of him in the
parade being blocked by Lloyd Nipple, the fattest kid in town...
- and that young Jack Kennedy at the Roseland Ballroom
- Slothrop himself as Rocketman and as the Pig has a bit of a following too...

I suppose something could be made of that group of characters, and
perhaps some additions (Tchitcherine? Saeure Bummer? that Mickey
Rooney?) but it's never leapt out at me like some other stuff does
(words on the page saying "me! me! think about me!)

-------------
In the movies about Hoffa - the one with Jack Nicholson and Danny
DeVito, and the other one with Sly Stallone - it's particularly clear
how unsatisfactory is the charismatic leader, stirring people up to
conflate personal loyalty with loyalty to an ideal...

so that the really exciting thing, seeing how workers used to being
beaten and cheated of their miserable wages claim dignity by acting
together...

that really exciting point disappears under a huge overhead of clay
feet, power brokering, noisy confrontations, and the transformation of
the sort of folk hero into the "hard-driving executive alpha male"
patriarchal hate-able guy who lives in a big house and wears expensive
clothes so that although you certainly sympathize with him for what
was done to him (whatever it was...), still you kind of sympathize
with the human sacrifices burned on *his* shrine maybe just a bit more
than that


_and even in the US that
> means a salary scale based on skill and time. Wall Street has no such
> organization; the vast majority could benefit from it,

and this clarifies the distinction you're making, too.  The internals
of a successful union do provide for such fostering of talent, among
other things.  Wall Street is more like a corrupt union -- I hate to
keep bringing up Hoffa's Teamsters, but just as Hoffa made alliances
with the mob, seemingly Wall Street threw in with the de-regulators
that ate the Republican Party and this misalliance will perhaps prove
their downfall as well...

>>> All other professionals are slaves.
>>>
>>
>> that's what the bankers and such think...
>> let them keep thinking that...
>
> They know. Thoughts like farts may be warm excrement running down your
> j-press and pooling in your wing-tips.
>

I'm straying from Pynchon in responding to that point, and my
laser-like thoughts are diffusing...

something something money is only the desiderata in order to get something else

yada yada so if you have a bunch of money so what (like Robinson
Crusoe) if there's nothing cool to buy!
Slaves don't -- *can't* -- make cool stuff!
qed /// <burst of static>