Traverse Machine

[Joseph Tracy]

Interesting thesis but I would like to see a sketch of supporting story lines/evidence in VL.  I see it as a more political, social control /vs resistance novel focusing on consolidation of power within increasingly aggressive gov/police alliance and various forms of reistance including labor but in many ways it is about a more full spectrum resistance: free thought, self liberation using psychedelics/cannabis, war resistance, labor resistance, feminism, race, music, turning off tv, making local communities. I have a hard time recalling a particular emphasis on labor. I remember the part about the labor issues for loggers and that some of the film collective’s actions were at labor protests. Am I missing something obvious? 
   One thing implicit in VL is the variety of ways in which a movement is intimidated, seduced, scattered, killed by the state, while the state maintains the facade of legitimate concern for law and order. In Pynchon’s 1984 big brother is experty heroized on TV by taxpaying advertisers, and mostly only shows up with an arrest warrant when you are connected to direct resistance. 

I agree with your premise of labor power decline and certainly we see HOW that was accomplished in VL.  Interesting focus which just came up in discussion with friends. Nobody talks about labor much anymore. I would argue that the Clinton administration put the final nail in that coffin. The democrats relation to their base is more memory and habit than representative commitment.


   
    
> On Aug 25, 2017, at 11:37 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Vineland picks up where GR left off.
> 
> GR is, in part, about labors relationship with the giant conglomerates
> of the 1970s, with post-WWII America.
> 
> Vineland explores the decline, and even the collapse of the stable
> and steady giant conglomerates: GE, G&W, ITT, RCA, AT&T, IBM....as
> they face the challenges of competition, as increasing returns from
> size suddenly become bloated complacency.
> 
> The garage geeks take big risks, and while most fail, a few are enough
> to make a major impact: Apple, Microsoft.
> 
> Jobs at the Big Olds decline and jobs are created at smaller companies.
> 
> The BIGS turn lean and mean, spin off, LBO, M&A....VC and so on and
> labor has no chance.
> 
> VL & Nostalgia has been much discussed and VL is certainly a novel in
> the tradition of American labor literature that honors 4 bread and
> butter ideas that we find in American Lit.
> 
> 1. division of labor argues that those that do dangerous work get higher wages.
> 2.work that requires more skill, skill that is acquired not in months
> but in years, get higher wages.
> 3. work that is irregular, because of weather, for example,  steel
> worker in Boston, get higher wages
> 4. Pride / Trust in work requires higher wages
> 
> Zoyd is a parody of the lost wages.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 7:55 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In Robert Reich's first movie, he had a few charts. One was of
>> the growth of GDP in America since WW2...
>> charted with the growth of
>> median income in Americas since WW2.......
>> And a chart of union membership in America over that time.
>> 
>> I was in about 1977 that the growth of GDP slowly but noticeably started to
>> outpace the growth of median income, which flattened over time.
>> 
>> It was at about that time that the fast decline of union membership started.
>> (If I remember it was leaking away even earlier in the decade.) Reich
>> pointed out how non-union wage growth also slowed. Union monetary
>> achievements helped all workers.
>> 
>> I am working with a retired economist--one who was part of the leadership in
>> founding
>> the radical economists group of the 60s, early 70s. I am bringing his best
>> book, The Money Mandarins
>> back into print with him, revised, updated, but the bulk of the analysis is
>> the same since real predictive insight can be like that.
>> He basically predicted all of the adverse effects of globalization on
>> workers.
>> 
>> When I told him the above examples from Reich's film, he told me this, still
>> baffled and self-surprised at it.He said that around that time, in his
>> prime, he poured through scads of data--to see economic
>> trends, anomalies, truths....this was worldwide but he was working in
>> Europe, unlike many American economists
>> so.......
>> 
>> This became unexplainably evident to him.....slowed growth and even a
>> visible decline in economic value of wages WORLDWIDE (even as many of the
>> most poor in major countries--China, India, for example---forged forward, as
>> has steadily happened)
>> which, according to classical head-in-ass econ theory, will always balance
>> with new "creatively destructive" growth of
>> new occupations...
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 7:36 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> There’s also the fact that many traditional jobs are no longer very
>>> well paid. The 1980s recession, timed with the beginning of the Reagan
>>> years, was the beginning of a progressive destruction of unions in an
>>> industry which had at a time been the centre of the most militant
>>> labor struggles in the history of the American west. In 1978, a
>>> forestry worker with no high-school diploma could earn up to 40% more
>>> than the state’s average wage. Now, fellers can earn as little as $18
>>> an hour.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/23/logging-industry-work-employment-oregon
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>> 
>> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l