In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the character Milo Minderbinder serves as Heller’s symbol for profiteering and capitalism in the face of warfare. Throughout the novel Milo plays everyone to his advantage in order to make a profit. To the Nazis he is a valuable trading partner and occasional mercenary whenever it suits him, going so far as to provide them with information by an upcoming American attack and even bombing his own squadron when M&M Enterprises was in dire financial straits (Heller 256). To the Italians he is a trade baron not unlike Lorenzo de Medici; lording over the economy of several Italian cities and states and dominating both their militaries and economies (234). To the Americans he is a plague, though the brass doesn’t tend to see it that way because they buy into his idea of whatever is good for the syndicate is good for the country. To the men who are actually doing the flying, however, his motivations are crystal clear; he steals the silk out of their parachutes, the morphine out of their first aid kits, and kills several of them in his infamous bombing run (which he wasn’t even punished or) all in the name of making a few bucks, honest or otherwise (436). The only country that Milo has any qualms about making any deals with is the Soviet Union (254), only out of principle and respect for private property and disdain for socialism, but even that belief that the government has no place in business is out the window as soon as Yossarian informs him that there’s money to be made with some help from the government, never mind that all the money he has made has been acquired by selling off government property to pocket for himself (265). Milo’s mind is so racked in pursuit of new markets and ways to exploit someone or something that he can’t even be bothered feeling bad for the things he’s responsible for, justifying and rationalizing everything he can as part of the greater good of his syndicate, and therefore, the nation. Milo is also notable for his callous disregard for people who he proclaims to be his friends, specifically Yossarian, as shown when he completely tosses his well being aside when deliberating with Col. Cathcart about how to get him more medals and missions by having the other men fly in his stead (375).
The fact that Milo seems to favor the Germans and Italians to the Americans and Soviets seems to imply that he is a fascist, but that is not the case. Fascism is a far more complicated movement and set of beliefs than just corporate interests merging with the government for their own betterment (McChesney 8). While it’s true that Hitler and the Nazis did initially gain power with the support of the corporate oligarchy from their promise to remove the Communist threat in Germany, that alone cannot account for all the many facets of fascism. Neither is Milo without ideology, though it’s understandable how such a misconception can be made when he quickly flip flops on the role of government when his profit margins are involved. Milo is a capitalist to the core, or more specifically, he is a neoliberal (9). It’s ironic that Heller would be able to create such a neoliberal archetype by the time of the publication of Catch-22, seeing as the United States, though quite imperialist for the better part of a century by this point, would not begin to start its march toward neoliberalism and the policies it represents until far later in the decade (arguably, even several decades later) (Chomsky 23). Neoliberalism, in its simplest definition, is capitalism taken to its full and logical extension. When markets fail to deliver, when the invisible hand is no longer guiding capital into the deep pockets of the landed and moneyed elites, the capitalist is quick to turn to the government for help (38). All the dogma of bootstraps and being well-to-do is quickly out the window if there’s a chance that the government can help keep profits up, and that kind of “do as I say, not as I do” style of capitalist – true capitalism – is as true of Milo Minderbinder as it is of Goldman Sachs, AIG, and perhaps most fittingly, Halliburton and KBR (58). Milo would no doubt be the last to mention that any gains he has made have been the result of government subsidies, support, and patronage, instead attributing his success to his own hard work and ingenuity.
Two things stand out as the reasons that Milo Minderbinder is the most interesting character of Catch-22. The first is his creation. Historically speaking, Joseph Heller didn’t have much to base the character on, and it is either a sheer coincidence or the sign of a well-read and astute mind that the character has served as such an accurate harbinger of the post-1945 decades to come with regards to American politics, both domestic and foreign. The second is that, in being such an accurate personification of neoliberalism, Milo Minderbinder might be the most inadvertently studied and analyzed literary figure in the history of storytelling. Just a glance at my own bookshelf shows four writers (Zinn, Chomsky, Klein, and Chang) who have built their reputations and published careers on analyzing and detailing the ideology that the prolific Milo would come to represent.
Works Cited:
Chomsky, Noam. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order. 1st ed. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999. 23-58.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004.
McChesney, Robert W. “Introduction.” Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order.1st ed. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998. 8-9.
First in a series of three short essays on Catch-22, the second will be uploaded as well.