Class, Social Status and Decline
Comparing how Webster and Williams dramatize class anxiety, social transgression, and the economics of power.
Overview
Both plays dramatize class anxiety through protagonists whose social positions are precarious or transgressive, yet they present class conflict with crucially different political valences reflecting their historical moments. The Duchess's marriage to Antonio crosses rigid early modern class boundaries—she's duchess, ruling aristocrat; he's steward, upper servant—making their union scandal that threatens social hierarchy itself. Her brothers' fury stems partly from this class transgression: "Shall our blood, / The royal blood of Aragon and Castile, / Be thus attainted?" Ferdinand asks, using contamination metaphor where noble blood is literally polluted by mixing with common blood. Webster writes from within aristocratic worldview where class boundaries are natural, divinely ordained, and essential to social order, yet his play questions this ideology by making Antonio virtuous and Ferdinand monstrous—moral worth and class status don't align, exposing aristocracy's claim to inherent superiority as fiction. Williams, writing in mid-century America theoretically committed to classlessness and social mobility, exposes these as myths: Blanche's loss of Belle Reve and economic desperation reveal Old South plantation aristocracy in terminal decline, displaced by working-class immigrants like Stanley whose economic power (he owns property, supports family) contrasts with Blanche's refined cultural capital (education, manners, taste) that buys nothing in post-war New Orleans.
Where Webster stages class conflict within aristocracy (duchess vs. steward, both serving ruling class), Williams stages it between classes in transition—declining plantation gentry vs. rising working-class ethnic whites (Stanley is Polish immigrant's son). This reflects historical shift from feudal/aristocratic societies to capitalist/bourgeois ones where money, not birth, determines power. The Duchess attempts to transcend class through love, asserting shared humanity: "I do here put off all vain ceremony / And only do appear to you a young widow / That claims you for her husband"—stripping away class markers to reveal essential equality. Her failure (brothers murder her) suggests early modern society couldn't tolerate such transgression. Blanche cannot transcend class decline—her refinement, education, and aristocratic pretensions are objects of Stanley's contempt: "Thousands and thousands of years have passed him by, and there he is—Stanley Kowalski—survivor of the Stone Age!" she declares, using social Darwinist rhetoric where Stanley is evolutionary throwback. Yet Stanley has economic power while Blanche has only cultural capital, revealing how class operates differently in capitalist modernity: money and material control trump taste and cultivation. Both plays ask whether class hierarchies are natural or constructed, essential or contingent, and both suggest (with different emphases) that they're maintained through violence rather than natural superiority.
Key Similarity
Both plays show class transgression triggering violent response. The Duchess marrying below her station and Blanche's presence in working-class home both threaten social orders, leading to elimination (execution; institutionalization).
Key Difference
Webster stages class conflict within ruling class (duchess/steward) and questions but doesn't overturn aristocratic worldview. Williams stages class war between declining aristocracy and rising working class, showing capitalism's displacement of old hierarchies.
Historical Context
Jacobean England
Rigid class hierarchy
Early modern England maintained strict class divisions: aristocracy (royalty, nobles, gentry), merchants/professionals, yeomen (farmers), laborers, and poor. Birth determined status; social mobility was minimal. Aristocrats claimed divine right—God placed them above common people. Sumptuary laws literally regulated dress by class—only nobles could wear certain fabrics, colors, styles. Marrying across class boundaries was rare and scandalous, threatening the entire social structure that assumed hierarchy was natural and necessary for order.
Blood and lineage
Aristocratic identity depended on "pure" bloodlines traced through genealogy. Blood was understood almost literally—noble blood was different substance from common blood, carrying inherent virtues. Marriage was about maintaining bloodline purity and creating political alliances. The Duchess marrying her steward "contaminates" royal blood of Aragon and Castile with common blood, producing children of mixed class status who threaten legitimate inheritance and aristocratic identity itself. This wasn't just social prejudice but metaphysical belief about essential differences between classes.
Service and obligation
The steward (Antonio's position) was upper servant—managing household finances, organizing staff, representing his employer. This was honorable position requiring education and trustworthiness, but definitively subordinate. Masters and servants had mutual obligations (noblesse oblige—aristocrats protect/provide for inferiors; servants owe loyalty/labor). Antonio marrying the Duchess violates this order—he's her subordinate claiming equality. Webster's audience would understand this as social chaos—if servants can marry masters, what prevents complete disorder?
Virtue and nobility
Jacobean aristocratic ideology claimed nobles were inherently more virtuous—their superior birth meant superior character. Yet literary tradition also included the "noble peasant" or virtuous commoner (Chaucer's Plowman, Shakespeare's various clever servants). Webster participates in both: Antonio is virtuous despite low birth, suggesting class and virtue aren't identical; yet the Duchess's brothers are nobles and monstrous, further undermining the ideology. The play questions whether "nobility" is inherent or performed, birth or character.
1940s America
Old South plantation aristocracy
Before the Civil War (1861-65), Southern economy depended on slave labor producing cotton on large plantations owned by white aristocratic families. These families constructed elaborate mythology of their refinement, culture, honor, and chivalry—the "Old South" of moonlight and magnolias. The Civil War destroyed this system—slavery abolished, plantations often lost, wealth evaporated. By the 1940s, former plantation families like Blanche's were in terminal economic decline, clinging to past glory and cultural pretensions while impoverished. Belle Reve (beautiful dream—ironically named) lost through accumulated debts and deaths represents this class's complete collapse.
Post-war working-class prosperity
World War II created economic opportunities for working-class men—factory work, military service, unionization increased wages and security. After the war, white working-class men like Stanley experienced unprecedented prosperity. GI Bill provided education, home loans, job training. Stanley owns his own home, supports wife and baby, has disposable income (poker games, bowling). This represents historical shift—working class achieving economic security and material comfort that previously defined middle class. Capitalism created new class alignments where economic power trumped cultural capital.
Immigration and ethnic whiteness
Stanley is son of Polish immigrants—early 20th-century America saw massive immigration from Southern/Eastern Europe (Italians, Poles, Jews, etc.). These groups initially weren't considered fully "white" by Anglo-Protestant establishment but gradually assimilated into white working class, gaining racial privilege while maintaining ethnic identity. Stanley's ethnicity marks him as not-quite-Anglo-aristocrat Blanche represents, but his whiteness (vs. Black working class excluded from prosperity) gives him power and protection. Class and race intersect—Blanche's whiteness doesn't protect her because she lacks economic power; Stanley's whiteness plus economic power gives him authority.
Education and cultural capital
Blanche represents Old South's investment in cultural refinement—she speaks French, reads poetry, performs gentility, values beauty and imagination. This is "cultural capital" (Bourdieu's term)—non-economic advantages that signal class status. But in capitalist America, cultural capital without money is worthless. Stanley's lack of refinement doesn't disadvantage him; Blanche's refinement doesn't help her. Williams shows how capitalism reduces value to economic exchange—poetry and French don't pay rent, so they're meaningless. This is tragedy for Blanche: everything she was taught made her superior (education, taste, manners) counts for nothing.
The Duchess of Malfi Analysis
John Webster, c. 1612-13
The Wooing Scene and Class Transgression (Act 1, Scene 1)
The Duchess's wooing of Antonio foregrounds class difference explicitly. She says "I do here put off all vain ceremony / And only do appear to you a young widow / That claims you for her husband"—the phrase "put off all vain ceremony" suggests class markers are superficial ("vain"), and underneath she's just "young widow" and he's potential husband, equal humans. Antonio's response emphasizes the class gap: "But for your brothers?" He knows her marriage to him will enrage them because he's below her station. The Duchess dismisses this: "Do not think of them." She attempts to transcend class through love and shared humanity, asserting moral equality despite social inequality. Webster stages this idealistically—it's romantic, generous, brave. Yet the play's trajectory shows early modern society cannot accommodate such transgression. Her brothers don't just disagree; they murder her. Class boundaries are enforced through violence, revealing them as social constructions maintained by power, not natural facts.
Ferdinand and the Cardinal's Class Obsession (Act 2, Scene 5)
When Ferdinand learns the Duchess is pregnant (meaning she's remarried secretly), his fury focuses on class contamination: "Shall our blood, / The royal blood of Aragon and Castile, / Be thus attainted?" "Attainted" means corrupted, stained, legally dishonored—he uses blood metaphor where noble bloodline is literally polluted by lower-class blood. The Cardinal adds: "Could she have chosen / A nobler husband?" suggesting any noble would be acceptable, but her choice of Antonio is unforgivable class transgression. Their rage isn't primarily about her remarrying but about whom she married—a steward, socially inferior. Ferdinand imagines grotesque scenarios: "Happily with some strong-thighed bargeman, / Or one o'th'wood-yard that can quoit the sledge / Or toss the bar"—obsessively picturing her with lower-class men in physical, sexual terms. This reveals aristocratic anxiety: if duchess can marry steward, entire class hierarchy collapses. Their violence attempts to restore order through spectacular punishment.
Antonio's Virtue vs. Ferdinand's Monstrosity
Webster systematically inverts the equation of nobility (high birth) with virtue (moral goodness). Antonio is introduced as exemplary: "His nature is too honest for such business" (Delio, Act 1). He's educated, competent, loyal, loving husband and father—every virtue aristocrats claimed as class prerogative. Ferdinand and the Cardinal are aristocrats but monstrous—they murder their sister, keep mistresses while moralizing, torture the innocent. Bosola notes the irony: the Cardinal "bears up in blood; seems fearless" but is murderous hypocrite; Ferdinand is mad tyrant. Webster asks: if commoners are virtuous and nobles are vicious, what justifies hierarchy? The answer seems to be nothing except power and violence. Antonio's virtue should elevate him but doesn't; Ferdinand's monstrosity should disqualify him but doesn't. Class is revealed as system maintained by force, not natural merit.
The Duchess's Children and Class Anxiety
The Duchess's children with Antonio embody class transgression—they're half-noble, half-common, threatening legitimate inheritance. Ferdinand wants to "purge infected blood" (killing them to eliminate contaminated lineage). In Act 3, Antonio and eldest son flee, and later Antonio is killed. The ending sees Delio promise to raise the children and establish their rights: "These wretched eminent things / Leave no more fame behind 'em than should one / Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow." He'll teach them about their mother's "integrity of life." This suggests potential restoration—the children might inherit, vindicating the Duchess and accepting class transgression posthumously. Yet it's tentative ("Let us make noble use / Of this great ruin"), and we don't see it happen. Whether early modern society can accommodate class mixing remains unresolved, though Webster clearly sympathizes with the attempt.
A Streetcar Named Desire Analysis
Tennessee Williams, 1947
Belle Reve and the Loss of Plantation Aristocracy
Blanche's backstory centers on losing Belle Reve (beautiful dream), the family plantation representing Old South aristocracy. She explains to Stanley: "I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! ... The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation." The "four-letter word" is death (or debt)—multiple family deaths and funeral expenses consumed the estate. "Long parade to the graveyard" evokes Gothic decay of Southern aristocracy dying off literally, their world ending. Blanche couldn't maintain Belle Reve economically—she's educated to be ornamental, not productive. The loss isn't just financial but existential—plantation aristocracy's entire identity depended on land ownership, and without it they're nothing. Blanche's homelessness throughout the play literalizes her class's displacement—she has no place in modern economy. Old South aristocracy has become obsolete, a class without material base, surviving only as memory and pretension.
Stanley's Working-Class Power (Scene 2)
When Stanley rifles through Blanche's trunk demanding to see papers about Belle Reve, class conflict erupts explicitly. He suspects she's cheated Stella of inheritance. Blanche's furs, jewelry, and clothes seem luxurious; Stanley assumes they're valuable. She explains they're "costume jewelry" and old clothes—the appearance of wealth without substance, perfect metaphor for her class position. Stanley invokes "Napoleonic code"—Louisiana law giving husbands control of wives' property—asserting economic authority. His line "I'm going to take a look at your papers" shows working-class man demanding aristocratic woman justify herself economically to him—power reversal unimaginable a century earlier. Stanley owns property (the apartment), has regular income (factory work), controls resources. Blanche owns nothing, earns nothing, depends on others' charity. Economic power creates social power; Stanley dominates despite Blanche's superior cultural capital.
Blanche's Cultural Capital vs. Stanley's Material Power
Blanche possesses cultural capital—education (taught English), aesthetic refinement (appreciates poetry, beauty, art), linguistic sophistication (speaks French, uses elevated diction), and manners (performs gentility). Stanley has none of this but doesn't need it. He mockingly reads Blanche's poetry: "What's this here? Ambler and Ambler. Hmmmm... 'I love you one hundred dollar—Mr. Ambler.'" Reducing poetry to economic transaction parodies Blanche's values while asserting his own: money talks, poetry doesn't. Stanley's crude materialism—"It's gonna be all right after she goes ... You can bet your life, I'm going to get my way with you"—reveals his ideology: material comfort and male sexual dominance are what matter, not Blanche's refinement. Williams shows tragic incompatibility: Blanche's education and taste are meaningless in world where economic power determines outcomes. Capitalism makes cultural capital without money worthless.
"Survivor of the Stone Age" — Social Darwinism (Scene 4)
Blanche tells Stella: "He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! ... There's even something—subhuman—something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! ... Thousands and thousands of years have passed him by, and there he is—Stanley Kowalski—survivor of the Stone Age!" This uses social Darwinist rhetoric (popular in early 20th century, now discredited) where evolution creates hierarchy of human development—some races/classes are "primitive," others "civilized." Blanche frames Stanley as evolutionary throwback, uncivilized brute vs. her refinement representing cultural advancement. "Stone Age" and "subhuman" reveal her class contempt masquerading as objective assessment. Yet the play ironically validates Stanley's survival: he's economically successful, socially integrated, domestically secure. Blanche is the one failing to survive—unemployed, homeless, dependent, heading toward institutionalization. Social Darwinism inverted: the "primitive" thrives; the "civilized" dies out. Williams exposes aristocratic ideology's bankruptcy while also showing cost of Stanley's "survival"—his brutality destroys Blanche.
"I've got to keep hold of myself" — Blanche's Performance of Class (Scene 5)
Blanche constantly performs aristocratic identity she no longer materially possesses: she dresses elegantly, affects delicacy, pretends wealth, performs innocence. Scene 5 shows the strain: "I've got to keep hold of myself!" Maintaining class performance requires exhausting vigilance—one slip reveals poverty, sexual history, desperation underneath. Her bathing rituals, costume changes, and aesthetic arrangements are attempts to manifest aristocratic identity through performance since she lacks material basis for it. Stella observes: "You're as fresh as a daisy." Blanche: "One that's been picked a few days." The flower metaphor suggests wilting, decay beneath fresh appearance. Williams shows class as performance requiring constant labor, not natural state. When Stanley exposes her past (Scene 7), her performance collapses because she can't maintain it against factual revelation of poverty and sexual history. Class in capitalist modernity is unstable, contingent, performative—not fixed identity.
Comparative Analysis
Similarities
Class transgression triggers violence
Both the Duchess's marriage to Antonio and Blanche's presence in Stanley's home represent class boundary violations that provoke violent responses. Ferdinand murders the Duchess to eliminate class contamination; Stanley rapes Blanche to reassert dominance threatened by her aristocratic contempt. Both plays show class hierarchies maintained through violence, not consent or natural order.
Virtue vs. class status
Both plays question whether class position correlates with moral worth. Antonio is virtuous steward; Ferdinand is monstrous noble. Blanche is educated but desperate; Stanley is crude but economically secure. Neither play endorses simple equation of upper class = good or lower class = bad. Moral complexity crosscuts class positions.
Economic vulnerability of women
Both heroines are economically dependent on men—the Duchess on her brothers' permission (they control her wealth as widow), Blanche on Stella/Stanley's charity. This economic dependence makes them vulnerable to male violence. Class intersects with gender: aristocratic women without male protection are powerless despite high status.
Blood and contamination metaphors
Both plays use blood/purity metaphors for class anxiety. Ferdinand worries about noble blood "attainted" by common blood. Stanley calls Blanche "contaminated" (sexually impure), linking sexual and class anxieties—both are about boundary policing and purity maintenance.
Differences
Aristocratic vs. capitalist class systems
Webster writes within aristocratic worldview where class is blood, birth, inherent status maintained across generations. Williams writes within capitalist system where class is economic position subject to mobility (rising or falling). The Duchess can't change her class (always duchess even married to commoner); Blanche has fallen from aristocracy to poverty—class is unstable in capitalism.
Intra-class vs. inter-class conflict
Webster stages conflict within ruling class (duchess/steward both serve aristocracy; her brothers are fellow nobles). Williams stages conflict between classes—declining aristocracy vs. rising working class. This reflects historical shift from feudal (internal aristocratic conflicts) to capitalist (class war between bourgeoisie/proletariat and declining gentry) societies.
Romantic transcendence vs. economic determinism
The Duchess attempts to transcend class through love—asserting shared humanity and moral equality. This is romantic idealism that fails but is presented sympathetically. Blanche cannot transcend class decline—no amount of love or personal virtue can overcome economic reality. Williams is more materialist: economic power determines outcomes, not individual choices or moral worth.
Class validation
Webster validates the Duchess's transgression—her marriage was virtuous love, her brothers wrong to murder her. Williams doesn't clearly validate either Blanche or Stanley—both represent dying/emerging classes with costs. Blanche's refinement is real but useless; Stanley's power is effective but brutal. Williams shows historical transition without nostalgia or celebration.
Critical Interpretations
Marxist Readings
Marxist critics analyze both plays as exposing class as economic relation maintained through violence, not natural hierarchy. The Duchess's brothers murder her to preserve aristocratic power threatened by class mixing—ruling class uses violence to maintain dominance. Antonio's virtue despite low birth exposes ideology that nobility equals moral superiority as fiction justifying exploitation. Williams's play stages historical transition from feudal/plantation economy (Blanche's Old South) to industrial capitalism (Stanley's working-class prosperity). Blanche represents declining class whose economic base (slave plantation) has been destroyed; Stanley represents rising proletariat. Yet Williams complicates Marxist narrative: Stanley isn't revolutionary working class but petit-bourgeois property owner whose prosperity depends on excluding others (Blanche). The play shows capitalism's destructive creative destruction—old classes die, new ones rise, human costs enormous. Marxist readings emphasize economic determinism: Blanche's refinement can't save her because she has no economic power; Stanley's crudeness doesn't disadvantage him because he controls resources.
Feminist Readings
Feminist critics emphasize how class intersects with gender, making women economically dependent regardless of class status. The Duchess is wealthy aristocrat but cannot control her own wealth—her brothers manage it, and they use economic control to enforce sexual control (threatening disinheritance if she remarries). Blanche is impoverished but was educated only to be ornamental—Old South trained aristocratic women to attract husbands, not support themselves, making them vulnerable when families decline economically. Both women's class positions don't protect them from male violence; in some ways, their class makes them more vulnerable (aristocratic femininity requires helplessness). Feminist readings note that working-class women (Stella, Eunice) have slightly more power through necessity (they work, negotiate domestic conflicts) though still subordinate to men. Class privilege for women is ambiguous—it provides material comfort but reinforces dependence and vulnerability.
Cultural Studies / Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of economic capital (money), cultural capital (education, taste), and symbolic capital (prestige, honor) illuminate both plays. The Duchess has all three forms of capital, yet they don't protect her—Ferdinand's violence trumps her wealth, status, and refinement. This shows limits of capital under sovereign power (early modern monarchy) where physical force overrides all other forms of power. Blanche has cultural capital (education, refined taste, aesthetic knowledge) but no economic capital—and in capitalist modernity, cultural capital without money is worthless. Stanley has economic capital (property, income) but no cultural capital (crude, uneducated)—yet economic capital translates into power, making cultural capital irrelevant. Williams shows capitalism's reduction of value to economic exchange: only money matters, everything else (beauty, poetry, manners) is worthless unless monetized. This reading emphasizes how different class systems value different forms of capital—aristocracy valued cultural/symbolic capital highly; capitalism prioritizes economic capital exclusively.
Key Quotations to Memorize
The Duchess of Malfi
"Shall our blood, / The royal blood of Aragon and Castile, / Be thus attainted?"
Ferdinand | Act 2, Scene 5
Ferdinand's fury at the Duchess's marriage focuses on class contamination. "Our blood" = shared aristocratic lineage; "royal blood" emphasizes high status; "attainted" = corrupted, stained, legally dishonored. Blood metaphor treats class literally—noble blood polluted by mixing with common blood. Reveals aristocratic ideology that class is biological essence, not social construction. Yet the metaphor's absurdity (blood doesn't change based on marriage) exposes this as fiction.
"I do here put off all vain ceremony / And only do appear to you a young widow / That claims you for her husband"
The Duchess | Act 1, Scene 1
The Duchess attempts to transcend class through asserting shared humanity. "Put off all vain ceremony" = strip away class markers as superficial ("vain"). "Only do appear" = reveal essential self underneath social status. "Young widow" vs. "Duchess" = human identity vs. class title. "Claims you" = active verb, taking traditionally male role. Webster stages romantic idealism where love transcends social hierarchy—individuals are equal humans despite class difference.
"His nature is too honest for such business"
Delio about Antonio | Act 1, Scene 1
Establishes Antonio's virtue explicitly—"too honest" suggests moral goodness exceeds what's necessary or expected. "Such business" = court politics and intrigue. Antonio is virtuous despite being steward (commoner), not because of noble birth. Webster questions aristocratic ideology that claims nobles are inherently virtuous—here, the commoner is most moral character while aristocrats (Ferdinand, Cardinal) are vicious. Virtue and class status don't correlate.
"These wretched eminent things / Leave no more fame behind 'em than should one / Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow"
Delio | Act 5, Scene 5
"Wretched eminent things" = villainous nobles (Ferdinand, Cardinal)—their high status ("eminent") doesn't create lasting legacy. They're as quickly forgotten as footprint in snow that melts. Delio contrasts this with the Duchess whose "integrity of life is fame's best friend"—virtue creates enduring reputation, not aristocratic birth. Webster's final rejection of equation between class and worth: nobles are morally empty despite status; virtue comes from character, not birth.
A Streetcar Named Desire
"The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation"
Blanche | Scene 2
Euphemism for death (or debt)—Blanche's refusal to name it directly shows class's discomfort with economic talk. Belle Reve lost through accumulated deaths and expenses, not single catastrophe. "Deprived us" = passive construction suggesting victimhood, though economic mismanagement likely contributed. Represents Old South plantation aristocracy's complete economic collapse—without land, they're nothing. Blanche's homelessness literalizes class displacement.
"Thousands and thousands of years have passed him by, and there he is—Stanley Kowalski—survivor of the Stone Age!"
Blanche | Scene 4
Social Darwinist rhetoric treating Stanley as evolutionary throwback. "Thousands of years" = exaggeration suggesting vast distance between them. "Survivor of the Stone Age" = primitive, uncivilized, subhuman vs. her refinement representing civilization. Class contempt masquerading as objective assessment. Yet ironically Stanley survives economically while Blanche fails—"primitive" thrives, "civilized" dies. Williams exposes aristocratic ideology's bankruptcy while showing cost of Stanley's "survival" (brutality).
"I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it!"
Stanley to Stella | Scene 8
Stanley frames Stella's class descent as liberation. "Columns" = plantation architecture, literally and metaphorically supporting Old South aristocracy. "Pulled you down" = seduction and class demotion simultaneously—sexual attraction enabled Stella's betrayal of her class. "How you loved it!" = his ideology that working-class authenticity and sexuality are superior to aristocratic refinement and repression. Claims Stella preferred his world to Blanche's—economic security and sexual satisfaction vs. genteel poverty.
"I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard!"
Blanche | Scene 2
Blanche's stuttering "I, I, I" shows emotional intensity and defensiveness. She frames herself as victim who suffered watching family die and estate decline—"took the blows" = absorbed violence of loss. "Long parade to the graveyard" = Gothic evocation of dying aristocracy, literal and metaphorical. Multiple deaths consumed wealth through funeral expenses and inheritance divisions. Blanche wasn't equipped to maintain plantation economically—educated to be ornamental, not productive. Her class has become obsolete.
"What's this here? Ambler and Ambler. Hmmmm... 'I love you one hundred dollar—Mr. Ambler.'"
Stanley | Scene 2
Stanley mockingly reads love poetry but interprets it economically—"I love you one hundred dollar" reduces romantic sentiment to monetary transaction. Parodies Blanche's aesthetic values while asserting his materialist ideology: money talks, poetry doesn't. His crude literalism (missing the poetry's actual meaning) shows cultural capital gap, but his economic power means this gap doesn't disadvantage him. Williams shows capitalism's reduction of all value to economic exchange—beauty and art are meaningless if they can't be monetized.