Semyavin, to Slothrop (261) "Life was simple before the first war. You wouldn't remember. Drugs, sex, luxury items. Currency in those days was no more than a sideline, and the term 'industrial espionage' was unknown...Is it any wonder the world's gone insane, with information come to be the only real medium of exchange?"
I'm not sure if Pynchon wrote this as pertaining to wartime vs. peacetime (information being the currency of war?) but it made me think of changes in education over time. Today we seek information in the form of education much more vehemently than ever before and competition for good colleges is at its highest. Most jobs that are to be had are knowledge based instead of skills based, which does sort of translate to knowledge being a form of currency. On the other hand, Pynchon may have just meant that in times of war the exchange of information is more important: it can save your life, win the war, etc. When your life is on the line, information may be more important. I'm not sure what to think....
Perhaps a little prophetic, the war itself provided one major catalyst toward to the new economy where knowledge is a sort of currency. The G.I. bill of 1944 essentially provided a means for many many more people who would never have gone to college and set the stage for rising college enrollment. As this first generation went to college, they expected their children to follow in their footsteps.
True. The GI Bill helped many more universities spring into existence to educate men who had returned from war and a means of housing was also provided. You cannot forget that this influx of education, if you will, also led to the rise of suburbia in the 1950s as more moved away from the cities to raise their children in the peaceful neighborhoods of the surrounding areas.