Well -- if you can't beat it, appropriate it.

In his new book, "The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno-Affluence," Dinesh D'Souza offers up this assertion: The new economy, the high-tech boom, all the wealth and innovation of the early 21st century owe their existence to the ideological legacy of 1980s freewheeling capitalism.

D'Souza, a research scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, would like us to believe that capitalism itself deserves credit for the new economic model that unites technologists, entrepreneurs and investors in risky start-up ventures. "Whether by design or by luck, Reaganism produced great changes," D'Souza explained during a recent interview. "We can't understand the new shift to entrepreneurism without understanding Reaganism."

In this book-length apologia for the tremendous wealth reaped by the savvy entrepreneurs and investors of the technological revolution, D'Souza links the long evolution of capitalism -- which culminated in Reagan's supposed triumph over communism -- to the new momentum of start-ups and entrepreneurs.

This appropriation of Silicon Valley's progress is cultural warfare at its finest. Reagan had nothing to do with the Internet, and very little to do with entrepreneurs. He was, after all, the president of big business and big defense, not of the little guy. But D'Souza is untroubled by such details. Leapfrogging these other contradictions with ease, he continues on to an even more troublesome thesis: Reagan-style competition, his theory goes, is the force that drives us to wealth and, in turn, to virtue.

D'Souza originally intended to name the book "The Moral Conundrum of Success," but because of the difficulties of "conundrum" for the vocabulary-challenged, he settled on "The Virtue of Prosperity." It was an unfortunate choice, as virtue implies human effort, not a bull market. The revised title reveals D'Souza's basic fallacy: that wealth and virtue go hand in hand.

According to the dictionary, prosperity can never be virtuous because virtue infers the human qualities of "general moral excellence; right action and thinking; goodness." These are not traits subscribed to wealth in and of itself; they are the characteristics of noble human endeavor. Wealth and virtue are independent characteristics. They do not share, as D'Souza would have you believe, a relationship of cause and effect.

According to D'Souza, capitalism actually makes people more virtuous by channeling their greed through the moral conduit of entrepreneurism. "Capitalism civilizes greed in much the same way that marriage civilizes lust," he writes, adding, "Capitalism encourages empathy, consideration, and fair dealing with others." This is more than a stretch, as the media emphasis on designer sneakers certainly does not induce empathy in the kid who lacks a pair.

In fact, the struggle for money results in competition, not consideration, but D'Souza is too busy singing the praises of capitalism to address such shortfalls in logic. Quickly, he brings his premise to the dot-com world, going on to quote several 20-somethings who cannot outdo one another in the extent of their unabashed avarice. These young people openly worship at the altar of personal wealth, and so they illustrate D'Souza's point that it is OK to be greedy again, just as in the good ol' Reagan days.

This unseemly preoccupation with extreme wealth and greed is a central focus of "The Virtue of Prosperity." As D'Souza exclaims with obvious glee, "I have mentioned, but neglected to discuss, the most obvious new aspect of the new economy: money! Being filthy rich is fashionable again." To dramatize this observation, he describes the outrageously gaudy homes purchased by certain valley kingpins, including over-the-top, 40,000-square-foot mansions that mimic Italian villas and Japanese imperial palaces.

Likewise, he cheerfully notes the battle of egos among tech executives as they agonize over who can earn the highest nine-digit annual income. Indeed, D'Souza's giddiness over the fortunes amassed in Silicon Valley leaves him little time to address the actual innovations of the Internet or the growing income gap in these boom days.

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