Against the backdrop of the concept of love generated in the 18th century by the Romantic movement as an ongoing force in contemporary society, argues that such notions did not exist during classical Greek and Roman periods. Also severely critiques popular culture as using Romantic love to perpetuate the oppression of the new poor by commodifying affectionate sentimentality. Borrowing the master and slave vocabularies from Nietzsche, finds that the prevailing sexual code for the rich is pornography and libertarianism reminiscent of decadent Rome, while the poor live by a version of love that turns them into a colonized mass. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR