For my second paper, I want to look at Debra from Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom. Her motivation is to acquire large amounts of Whuffie—not because she wants to do anything specific with it, but just because she can. Her reason for living is to have more successes. Debra has no regard for human life, which goes to show how very Bitchun she is. Debra is fully integrated in this society, where a body is nothing more than a body. Her views on the economy are deeply ingrained in her actions, and while Debra does some things that are morally questionable, she conforms completely to the rules that guide the society (and knows how to get around them).

Debra is successful because she is so fully integrated into Bitchun society. She is fresh and willing to let go of the past, as demonstrated by wanting to change the park into what people are more excited to see (simulations). Debra is the type of person who benefits most in a merit-based society because she has concrete skills (programming simulations) and people skills.

The aspect of Debra I would like to focus on is her ruthlessness. She is kicked out of Disneyworld for killing Julius, but nothing more—I found this very interesting because in Bitchun society, there isn’t much value placed on life (see: restore to backup). Bitchun society is designed so that group success rewards individuals, and the only way an individual can succeed is through helping the group. But Debra is able to earn a lot of Whuffie without contributing to society in a positive way. I want to look at how Debra takes advantage of Bitchun society to succeed.

In the Bitchun society, Whuffie is what determines the type of lifestyle you may have. If you have a lot of Whuffie, you live a life of luxury, being able to have whatever you want and people always looking up to and trying to please you. If you have little to no Whuffie, as what happened to Julius in the middle of the novel, people avoid you and you lose the luxuries. The elevator doesn’t stop for you, you lose your nice room, your girlfriend breaks up with you, strangers on the monorail don’t respect your personal space… This demonstrates Smith’s idea from “Theory of Moral Sentiments”–that people always look to the rich and aim to please the rich, while avoiding the poor and looking down on them. You gain/lose Whuffie through your interactions with people. When people like you and approve of you and your actions/accomplishments, you gain Whuffie. When you lose their respect/approval, you lose Whuffie. Thus in this society, it is really important to gain everyone’s approval and have them think well of you.

Julius seems to be someone who understands we need Whuffie, but does not believe that it is as important as the newer, younger people like Lil believe it is. His motivation to keep Debra away from the Haunted Mansion is not so that he will get all the credit and Whuffie for rehabing it, but more in order to preserve magic of Disney the way it was. He seems to appreciate the history and memory of things, more than the new, advanced high-tech benefits. This even shows with his wanting to keep his memory of the last year rather than lose it all but live healthily again. This is against what the majority of the society values, which is moving forward and constantly advancing. Julius is against Debra’s renovations of the Magic Kingdom and is afraid that she will take control of the rest of the park, making it new and high-tech like the Hall of Presidents. The first time Julius attempts to sabotage Debra’s project, it didn’t work. Instead, he tried to focus on making the Mansion better which works for a while, until he sabotages Debra’s work a second time. Then he got caught for it and everyone looked down on him for doing so. He lost all his Whuffie and Debra gained a lot of sympathy Whuffie. I was going to use this to show that when he cheats, people look down on him for it and everything goes downhill. He (and Debra, but I am using his point of view) is a great example of how cheating does not work in this society because of the Whuffie system. This society strongly supports honest labour.

It will be important in this paper to address public opinion of gold through the eyes of the author and how he uses his villain to cast a certain light on gold vs. governmental bonds. Turning an inanimate object that most people consider harmless if valuable into a murdering criminal mastermind definitely has motives behind it that need to be explored.

Throughout the novel Bond remains only slightly interested in his own finances, such as when he notices he would spend his year’s salary in three weeks at Du Pont’s fancy resort, and instead uses significant wagers to irritate Goldfinger.  Bond’s apathy towards money offsets both Goldfinger’s lust for gold and Mr. Du Pont’s ostentatious exhibition of wealth, emphasizing both the corrupting and destructive powers of greed.  However, despite his distaste for their excessive wealth, Bond has no qualms with taking advantage of their generosity.

The economic system Bond is involved in is a sort of meritocracy, in that he has earned a high enough rank that he has essentially unlimited credit, and as such has no need for his own money.  As long as he remains useful and doesn’t inflict too much harm to either the agency’s credibility or civilians, the agency overlooks most of his missteps and chiding him for his greater mistakes.

Bond’s motivation is fairly straightforward since he is presented as a sort of champion of the English way of life, working to foil traitors to the crown who are working with other foreign enemies to undermine society.  Despite his guilt after the murders of several individuals, both innocent civilians and a thug who was just following orders, Bond carries out his orders despite his misgivings, an example of a model British agent.

Here, working in the Magic Kingdom, Debra has the opportunity to flex her innovation and tech-savvy muscle to get what she wants while bringing in the most entertainment and excitement any park fan could want, rewarding her greatly along the way. In the long run, her plan may fizzle out and become stale like the Epcot project as Julius points out, but during her immediate lifetime, the Whuffie is too easy to take to pass up.

Debra brings out an interesting point of view of this utopian society by showing a dark side to a seemingly foolproof economy. Anyone with enough Whuffie already has an advantage in the system to take more as she/he is already high respected by everyone in a society where Whuffie “is everything”. By seeing this through, it is still possible to be selfish and thrive despite possible destruction to the historical world-wide attraction, Disney World. By analyzing Debra in the context of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments by looking at her “fashion” and “wealth”, I can show how she easily commands attention and gets her way, possibly causing “corruption of our moral sentiments” and altering a historical landmark forever.

Dan-I want to address how he wants to kill himself but in order to do that, he has to increase his very low supply of Whuffie. He wants to die in dignity because he doesn’t have enough Whuffie to be remembered in the Bitchun Society. Only the rich will be remembered because it is the rich that we admire or want to be.

Debra-I want to address the fact that ownership of property isn’t valued because whoever gains the most Whuffie can take things. Basically everything is up for grabs and in a way, the value of ownership is diminished. Labour isn’t treated as labour.

I also want to include Karl Marx’s German Ideology because, “an individual cannot be separated or analyzed apart from his/her surroundings.” In the Bitchun utopia, individuals aren’t defined because of their own personal qualities, but rather their earning, Whuffie.

Basically, Whuffie is what makes the Bitchun Society function.  I’ll most likely analyze Dan because of his desire to die drives him to increase his Whuffie. It’s a great motivation for a morbid goal. If possible, I want to use both Marx and Smith for Dan but also use Debra as an example of how Whuffie doesn’t value ownership.

• A major role that Julius plays is that he gives the reader a first hand look at how the Bitchun Society views and treats an individual who has almost no Whuffie. This ranges from how people avoid and ignore  him to how he loses his belongings because they can better serve someone with more Whuffie. In my paper, I will connect this to a lot of what Adam Smith wrote about in his Theory of Moral Sentiments and how people view the rich.
• Another key function of Julius’ character plays is that he highlights that in the Bitchun Society that being content and achieving goals is nearly impossible. This comes from Julius always refreshed and reinvented himself at DisneyWorld and that when he finally lives there, it eventually leads him to go crazy. Marx touches on how one of the first historical acts is that the satisfaction of a need creates a new need that eventually must be satisfied.

These are just the first two points that have come to mind when thinking about why Julius exists in Down and Out. As I start to write the paper and continue to analyze, I want to address some issues such as Julius not wanting to refresh from his backup and him losing his network and going offline. Also, I feel that I should try to use more of Marx other than what was hinted at above.

I think it is important to look at Julius through the conflicts that arise in the novel, these will help give rise to his attributes, motivations, and economic situation. Some of the major conflicts that I would like to look at are:

• Murder of Julius
• Trying to ruin the Hall of the Presidents
• Offline and decision to not refresh
• Urge to reinvent the Mansion
• Hitting rock bottom (whuffie)- Smith can be used to support the idea of only wanting to look towards the rich, rather than the poor.
• Deciding to leave Disney to space (with Jeanie/ his view of Dan’s deadheading)

He always turns back to the comfort he finds in Disney World. However living there means that he has stopped recreating himself, which is a conflict in this type of society. Disney World will be a major focus because this is his immediate environment. The Ad hocracy is the system that overlooks Disney World, which strives to provide the best entertainment and gain the whuffie from the visitors. It is advantageous that there are no fixed rules or roles; therefore Julius has the chance to move up the ranks.  Overall, this is just a subset of the Bitchun Society that has been greatly influenced by the introduction of Whuffie. I intend to look closer at Karl Marx’s ideas on society and ownership to see if I can draw any connections. It may become important to look at the history of the Ad hocracy.

Goldfinger represents the gold standard where currency is backed and can be freely converted into gold. It is a system where there is a limited amount of money circulating because it is restricted to the amount of gold in reserve. What is good about a gold standard is that prices will be stable and there is a low chance of inflation. Government would also have less power to inflate prices out of hand.

The weakness of goldfinger or “gold” is that there is only a limited supply of it therefore it becomes hard to keep a gold standard when the population is growing exponentially. Stimulating the economy is very hard when you can only make more money to the rate at which gold is being mined. A gold standard benefits savers and makes life harder for people in debt.

This kind of economy will benefit those who save because they will have an excess of gold to use and can keep increasing their wealth by lending. Those who are in debt will find it hard because they will have to focus their efforts on less spending and paying off their debts.

I plan to use Adam Smith where he talks about the invisible hand and the interaction between the rich and poor. Also I plan to use some excerpts from Marx that include the division of labor or existence.