Creative Destruction

[Ian Livingston]

Hey, don't bark at me--I'm not taking it seriously at all. In
principle it might be loosely tangentially imputed on Pynchon is the
best I can do. The only direct literary parallel I can draw is to
Dostoevsky, and he's much more concerned with monarchy than
capitalism, so even that holds no milk. Maybe thus through to Pynchon.
Maybe he'll make some distinct link in his next novel....

On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Morris wrote:
>>
>> The original source of the term:
>>
>> "The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the
>> organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as
>> U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may
>> use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic
>> structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly
>> creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the
>> essential fact about capitalism. (p. 83)"
>>
>> Y'all (Ian & Richard) are taking this "creative destruction" way too
>> political/literal for my taste.  The Pynchonian aspects in my eyes
>> are:
>>
>> 1.  Most directly, Luddism Vs CD.  The human (and inevitable) cost of
>> "progress."
>> 2.  Anthropomorphizing of "Capitalist Progress," as if it were an
>> autonomous creature.
>> 3.  Inherent Imperialism of Capitalism: "opening up of markets," and
>> thus justification of the human costs.
>>
>> I'm just surprised I've never see TRP use the term.
>>
>> Davis Morris
>
> . . .
> I don't see P having a dog in any of those fights.
>
> The original usage of the term probably is a metaphor drawn from a
> misunderstanding of a machine-like natural balance. Economists have lifted a
> great number of metaphors from the physics and ecology of 150 years ago. We
> now call it Neo-Classical Economics.
>
> Just my opinion, largely quite uninformed and shortsighted not to mention
> ill-advised is that the term "creative destruction" has fallen into disuse.
> If we want to describe capitalism, we should probably mention the rentier
> position of successful capitalists which is wholly unproductive. Something
> like our financial industry which has, under the government of friendly and
> bought-off politicians produced a many-headed machine for extracting wealth
> rather than creating wealth. Now I am striving to be ideology-free and would
> prefer something that actually works, regardless of what it looks like.
> Alice may claim that bankers do financial engineering of a complex and
> intricate nature but the fact is that bankers have staff to do that and that
> bankers do relationships. That these morons believed highly paid staff's
> assurances of the models' accuracy and low risk is testimony to their
> abilities which is countered by their ability to buy the officials needed to
> make themselves whole while dumping the costs to the public.
> Since we are in a gilded age of capitalism, it may be instructive to look at
> the great railroad robber barons that did not have the wits or interest to
> run successful roads but enriched themselves and their friends and large
> numbers of congress people by hollowing out their own companies. Creative
> destruction, indeed.
>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant