[MD] U.S. Values: the Jones

[Platt Holden]

> [Ant to Marsha]
> This continual emphasis on material success (described by the NYT
> article) unfortunately shows that the concerns in ZMM are as relevant
> today as when it was first published in the mid-1970s.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Yes, so true. One of the gross maladies, referred to in ZMM's passage
> about "vendors of substance", of this mercantilistic treatment of
> "value" is what Marx called "commodity fetishism", and Lukacs called
> "reification". From "Marx for a Post-Communist Era: On poverty,
> corruption and banality", Stefan Sullivan writes: "Drawn from Marx's
> concept of commodity fetishism developed in Das Kapital, it implied
> simply the lack of unity between an individual and the object he
> creates..."

Looks to me like Ant and Arlo haven't kept up with Pirsig's dynamic 
change of opinion from ZMM to Lila regarding economics. In Lila he 
rejects the socialist view of the Marxist cult and instead praises
the free market for its openness to DQ. Wouldn't it be nice if just 
once in awhile we would hear from Ant and Arlo a vigorous defense of 
individual freedom. Instead we get this constant criticism of the U.S. 
as a stupid culture inhabited by stupid people who make stupid 
decisions who would be a lot better off if they, the self-appointed 
intellectual elite, were in charge ordaining what is and isn't of 
value. From such attitudes totalitarians emerge.