The Rise of Capitalism / One of These Days

The first reading I did was called The Rise of Capitalism, it was written by Donald Barthelme. It jumps around talking about a bunch of different little stories. The writer is blaming capitalists for people doing things they shouldn't. It also had a sentence that said, "capitalism places every man in competition with his fellows for share of the available wealth." It talks about a man finding out that the stocks for Natomas had went up, and he was not appart of that stock and he is upset because if he was he would have became rich. In the writing one of the stories that followed this statement about capitalism, was about a guy going and buying a printing press for fifty thousand francs. He was trying to show of his wealth to others by publishing himself.


The other writing that I had read was One of These Days, it was written by Gabriel Marquez. It was about a dentist that didn't have a degree. He was sitting in his office cleaning and polishing false teeth. His kid walked in and said that the Mayor needed his tooth pulled and the dentist said to tell him that he wasn't there. The kid came back in and said he had better pull his tooth or we was going to shoot him. When the mayor came in the dentist decided to pull his tooth but without any anesthesia. The dentist put the Mayor in a lot of pain and when he pulled his tooth and he was done with him, he told the Mayor that he could either bill himself or the town. The Mayor just answered either one, they are the same. He is saying that either one is the same because he runs that town and the dentist believes if the money goes to the town the Mayors will get it any ways.

These two readings are similar because they are both trying to get across that capitalism is wrong and bad. But out of the two the first article is easier to figure out that it is against capitalism. Because it pretty much just comes out and says it. The other one about the dentist, you have to read between the lines to figure out what they are trying to say about capitalism and how it is wrong.