Abstract

America's Last Honest Place

The author presents an essay describing Las Vegas as a garish reflection of American-style capitalism. This city is often described as one of dreams and fantasy, of tinselish make-believe. But this is getting it backward.Vegas is instead the American market ethic stripped bare, a mini-world totally free of the pretenses and protocols of modern consumer capitalism. Even that stomach-churning instant when the last chip is swept away can be charged with an existential frisson. It's one of the few totally honest interludes you can have in modern America.All the pretense, all the sentimentality, the euphemisms, hypocrisies, come-ons, loss leaders, warranties and guarantees, all the fairy tales are out the window. You're out of money? OK, good--now get lost. In a city where the only currency is currency, there is a table-level democracy of luck. Las Vegas is perhaps the most color-blind, class-free place in America. If economist Joseph Schumpeter was correct in theorizing that "creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism," then capitalism as practiced in Las Vegas is the purest strain. Haven't we, in fact, reached a point in our culture where the button-down bankers and arbitrageurs have become the reckless "casino capitalists," while those who actually run the casinos can get away with labeling themselves responsible and conservative "entertainment visionaries"? Even if they are, increasingly, often the same people?