Yeah or Nah?

Back in October 1999, a company named Inktomi held a celebration in Silicon Valley called “Inktomi Rocks.” And back in those days, Inktomi did, in fact, rock. Shares in the technology company were soaring and would soon trade at $ 240 a piece. Many at the party were millionaires several times over. Economists were announcing the end of the business cycle, the Internet boom was booming, and irrational exuberance ruled the day. To many it seemed the country had discovered, as Dinesh D’Souza puts it, a “perpetual money machine.”

Fifteen months later, a share of Inktomi is worth $ 12, the Federal Reserve is slashing interest rates, and the incoming president is talking of recession. In the last year, the Nasdaq has lost nearly 40 percent of its value. It seems our money machine is not as perpetual as we thought. But it is not D’Souza’s fault that his study of the boom, The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno-Affluence, has appeared in this climate of bust — for, at its core, D’Souza’s book is not really about the success of Microsoft and Amazon.com, but about enlightened modernity’s ongoing crisis.

Those who celebrate the achievements of modern times, D’Souza labels the “Party of Yeah.” The yeah-sayers are free-market enthusiasts and techno-utopians, evangelists of a new world where scientists and entrepreneurs will bring peace and prosperity to every corner of the world. The “Party of Nah” is less sanguine. Its left-wing members are dismayed by what they see as the widespread inequality of opportunity and reward, while its right-wing members bemoan the breakdown of morality, family, and community.

These categories are fluid, of course: As the billionaire chairman of Apple, Steve Jobs is the poster-child of yeah — and yet he seems filled with nahs. And their fluidity limits the usefulness of these categories. But D’Souza is nonetheless right, to some degree, to treat the yeah-nah distinction seriously. If there has been no thoughtful critique of technological capitalism by our mainstream political candidates, that is only a reflection of our impoverished public discourse. D’Souza deserves credit for his effort to determine “what place technology and wealth should occupy in our pursuit of the good life.”

The Virtue of Prosperity treats the problem of inequality first, because it is the easiest to resolve. D’Souza acknowledges that gross inequality would be cause for alarm. But, he argues, severe poverty no longer exists in America. The only inequality that remains is relative: Some drive BMWs, others drive Toyotas. Merit is the primary means by which some pull ahead, and any remaining inequalities are simply the “inevitable byproduct of a free society.”

The more interesting question is whether the successful market system fosters moral decay, family breakdown, and the dissolution of community. D’Souza rejects the notion that capitalism itself is necessarily wicked. Yes, entrepreneurs may be motivated by selfishness, but, as Adam Smith observed, the converging of individual interests in the market leads to public good. Besides, exchange encourages empathy, and physical comfort is a prerequisite of virtue. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”

But, D’Souza points out, our particular situation may not be so rosy. Even if our techno-tycoons are, for the most part, morally innocent, they inhabit a world of restless mobility and severed connections. There is no certain correlation between material wealth and personal happiness — and in the midst of our prosperity, happiness seems to be on the decline.

So has our techno-affluence caused our moral disintegration? In the end, D’Souza prefers the explanation that capitalism and technology do no more than expand our choices; when we choose poorly, it is the failure of our cultural, political, and religious institutions.

D’Souza might have done more to probe the connection between our poor choices and our gold-rush mentality. But if he shortchanges the extent to which techno-affluence has exacerbated our current woes, he is right that our predicament is nothing new. In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville saw that Americans would sacrifice stability, camaraderie, and tranquillity to obtain comfort. “In America I have seen the freest and best educated of men in circumstances the happiest to be found in the world; yet it seemed to me that a cloud habitually hung on their brow, and they seemed serious and almost sad even in their pleasures.”

If we take our pleasures sadly today, it is for the same reason we always have. Liberal democracy has protected our rights and provided for our needs. But it is silent about the content of the good life. And D’Souza’s observation that it is better than the alternative offers little consolation to those of us who no longer feel visceral gratitude that we are not Athenian slaves.

D’Souza’s journey in The Virtue of Prosperity, which began in Silicon Valley at a very specific historical moment, concludes with a dilemma that could have been stated at the dawn of the previous century. It is the dilemma stated by Max Weber in his essay “Science as a Vocation.” How in the modern world, especially in an atmosphere of plenty, can man “give himself an account of the ultimate meaning of his own conduct”? D’Souza offers a tepid endorsement of the philosopher’s life and cautions against a eugenic future. But in the end, he offers no solution — only the unsatisfying warning that our yearning may grow more desperate.

Noah D. Oppenheim is a producer at MS-NBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.