But, then again, we do not stand at the gates of Socialism’s New Jerusalem, but at the hard edge of the developers’ millennium. Llano itself is owned by an absentee speculator in Chicago who awaits an offer he cannot refuse from Kaufman and Broad. Setting aside an apocalyptic awakening of the neighboring San Andreas Fault, it is all too easy to envision Los Angeles reproducing itself endlessly across the desert with the assistance of pilfered water, cheap immigrant labor, Asian capital and desperate homebuyers willing to trade lifetimes on the freeway in exchange for $500,000 ‘dream homes’ in the middle of Death Valley.

Is this the world-historic victory of Capitalism that everyone is talking about?