Heller makes it clear that the real enemy, the source of the true danger, is that principle which can allow Milo so glibly to overlook Nazi crimes against human life. And that principle, as the text makes abundantly clear, is an economic one. For Milo contract, and the entire economic structure and ethical system that it embodies and represents, is more sacred than human life. (pp. 77-8)

The most important manifestation of this thanatotic American morality, important because it extends the responsibility from particular individuals or groups to American society at large, is Milo's bombing of his own troops as part of a deal with the Germans…. In Heller's America war is merely another way of making money and getting ahead…. It is an America in which the Protestant ethic has run wild, so it is hardly surprising that Yossarian, who believes in the paramount importance of the...