To follow up, though - I don't counter the totalitarian conclusions of the Party presented in this book with mystic bullshit like Winston. It is BECAUSE of mechanistic building upon the framework of pragmatism that I arrive at the traditional Socialist ideals - there is an interesting coincidence between both the ideals of greed and generosity that I've yet to see anybody touch on. A reconciling of median and mean. I've been raiding the Dept of Commerce, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and certain Krugman articles extensively in support of this idea lately, and hopefully I'll have something to write about at some point in the future.

--SB