Good Afternoon Friends,

So, the New Money/Old Money dynamic we've been discussing, is crucial to our analysis of the ruling class's relationship to "free market" capitalism. Underpinning all - and I can't say this enough - is the simple Existential (also Buddhist, if it comes to that) truth: Man is the desire to become God.

New Money always wants to become Old Money just as quickly as possible. Remember in the Mario Puzo novels and movies he co-wrote, The Godfather and The Last Don, both Vito Corleone and Dominico Clericuzio wanted to move their mob families further and further away from anything like street crime. They wanted to entrench themselves more and more deeply in the legitimate world of power and commerce to make themselves politically and legally untouchable.

In the second Godfather novel, The Godfather Returns, Don Vito's successor, his son Michael explicitly states what his goal is. He wanted to arrange things so that eventually, the name Corleone would mean the same thing to most people as the name Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon, Morgan, and the like.

We see that in the Godfather III, which I understand Francis Ford Copolla had orignally wanted to call The Death of Michael Corleone, Michael Corleone has indeed realized the epitome of the "American Dream," receiving a medal from the pope, and running an organization - complete with a suave and tanned George Hamilton as his personal assistant - that is rather like any big legal corporation with diversified interests, and so forth.

In The Last Don novel and movie, in which Danny Aiello brilliantly played Don Clericuzio, the don met with his inner circle of the organization and said, "Twenty, thirty years from now, we'll all disappear into the lawful world, and enjoy our wealth without fear."

This was the goal. It's important to understand that with the Corleones and the Clericuzios, there was never any question of "going straight," or "legit." There is no question of repentance. Both dons believed that embedding themselves in the lawful world was far more prudent than indefinitely continuing with the unvarnished mafia thing.

New Money always wants to become Old Money as quickly as possible, whether we looking at a legitimate businessman or an international drug dealer. Clericuzio sought to become Old Money by shedding his organization of all their interests in all criminal interests - which he distributed to other mafia dons, who were not nearly so far sighted - with the exception of gambling.

The Clericuzios worked political and other connections, angling and manuevering to bring about the day when gambling would be legal in all fifty states, which would mean billions a year to the Clericuzio, given the infrastructure they had patiently put down over the years. In this way the Clericuzio clan would become literally embedded in the state through government sanctioned gambling.

Vito Corleone had always concentrated on accumulating political power through a system of "friendship." He had always kept the Family out of the narcotics business. He seems to have found drugs personally distasteful, an "infamnia." But more important than this was Don Vito's view that the law would come down much harder on people selling narcotics than they would for liquor and women, which are things people want but are denied to them by ".. the pezzanovante of the church," and so forth.

Michael brought to fruition the plan Vito had nurtured in his heart all along. Remember the scene in the movie when old man Corleone is talking to Michael in the garden?

I'll continue with this later on.

wingedcentaur