The Bonfire of the Vanities
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Theorists of democracy and democratic institutions often discuss their subject matter as if it existed in a vacuum, as if it existed in an ideal world. We think of our capitalist democracy as the most superior system in the world, but this should not blind us to the problems involved in such a system, to its failures, and to forces it may unleash that can be destructive or that can lead to unintended and unwanted outcomes. Such outcomes are made apparent in the non-fiction work by Juliet B. Schor (1991) concerning the work ethic as practiced in America today and in the novel by Tom Wolfe (1987) which lays bare the underlying political structures and forces in New York City today, and by extension in America at large. These works show where there are tears in the fabric of our democracy, tears placed there by an inherent tension between democracy and capitalism. Many find this anomalous because they equate the two directly, but the fact that they are bound together in the system we have created does not mean they do not strain against one another in various ways and so test the system they define. In his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987) brings to fiction the same reporter's eye that served him as a journalist over a long career. An examination of the novel shows that there is no human hero and no human villain, but there is both a hero and a villain of a different sort. The hero is New York City itself, which is a hero in the sense of being the prot
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hink it to be:
As capitalism grew, it steadily lengthened worktime. The change was felt in earnest by the eighteenth century. The workday rose in the cottage industries which sprang up throughout the English countryside (Schor, 1991, 50).
This was at the beginning of the capitalist system, and the loss of leisure time by workers was progressive and derived from structural imperatives within capitalism. The medieval economy was free of market pressure, and neither peasants nor lords were dependent on markets for their basic subsistence so that their time was their own:
The growth of markets, both national and international, thrust workers out of their world of custom and into a competitive dynamic. Capitalist businesses, in contrast to medieval manors, strove for maximum profits (Schor, 1991, 52).
However, as capitalism developed, there was a shift so that leisure time increased once more. For nearly a century, hours were declining, but this came to an end in the late 1940s to issue in a new era in worktime. Schor finds that for the first time, there was also a divergence between the United States and Europe so that as leisure declined in the U.S., it increased in Europe. Capitalism as it has developed has meant a decli
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Europe Capitalism, Sherman McCoy, Asians Jews, York City, Wall Street, Pierson Beetham, , Tom Wolfe, University Press, Schor Wolfe, schor 1991, wolfe 1987, pierson 1993, bonfire vanities, york city, beetham 1993, university press pp, stanford university, stanford california, held ed, held ed stanford, university press, democracy david held, tom wolfe 1987, prospects democracy david,
Approximate Word count = 1887
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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