5 Miles, 4 Cupcakes, and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

The four finalists of the cupcake search: clockwise, from top left:
Dean & Deluca Flower Vanilla Cupcake (Prince & Broadway): $5.50
Whole Foods Market R.I.P. Chocolate Cupcake (E. Houston & Bowery): $4.99
Pinisi Red Velvet Cupcake with Strawberry (128 E. 4th. St.): $3.50
Sugar Sweet Sunshine Pumpkin Cupcake (126 Rivington St.): $1.50

"The cultural, if not moral, justification of capitalism has become hedonism, the idea of pleasure as a way of life. And in the liberal ethos that now prevails, the model for a cultural imago has become the modernist impulse, with its ideological rationale of the impulse quest as a mode of conduct. It is this which is the cultural contradiction of capitalism. It is this which has resulted in the double bind of modernity.

-Daniel Bell, Introduction, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, 1976

Stay tuned for the winning cupcake and more discourse on social class.