Capitalism and Commerce in Imaginative Literature

Perspectives on Business from Novels and Plays

Contributions by Andrew Bernstein, Walter Block, Susan Love Brown, Troy Camplin, Paul Cantor, Stephen Cox, Carmen Elena Dorobt, Mimi Reisel Gladstein, Carl Horner, Cynthia Hunter, Heather King, William Kline, Zennure Köseman, Felix Livingston, Matt McCaffrey, Allen Mendenhall, Virginia Murr, Theodore Pauls, Jeff Riggenbach, Sarah Skwire, Michael Spindler, Gennady Stolyarov II, Frederick Turner, Michelle Albert Vachris, Amy Willis, Gary Wolfram, Derek Yonai, Edward W. Younkins Edited by Edward W. Younkins

Not available to order

Publication date:

07 March 2016

Length of book:

468 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498519304

Capitalism and Commerce in Imaginative Literature are committed to treating literary texts with integrity and believe that business should have a larger claim upon people’s literary consciousness. In addition, they all value the important role of literature in dealing with the complexities of a capitalist culture. This collection of essays provides a means to appreciate the richness and variety of fictional portrayals of businesses and businesspersons. The works selected for examination reflect the variety of philosophical, political, economic, cultural, social, and ethical perspectives that have been found over time in American society. The novels and plays analyzed include high literature, mid-range literature, popular literature, ancient epics, grand narratives, hero tales, masterpieces, ideological texts, science fiction, and more. There are a great many works of literature waiting to be read and studied by business and economically-minded individuals from many different viewpoints and fields of study. This volume provides a space to explore a wide range of fictional works and opinions about them.

Chapter 1 Capitalism and Commerce in Novels and Plays
Chapter 2 Epic and the Medium of Exchange
Chapter 3 The Cost of War and the Profits of Peace in Aristophanes’ Archarnians
Chapter 4 A Time for Bonding: Commerce, Love, and Law in The Merchant of Venice
Chapter 5 Human Action: Pursing Happiness Inside and Outside the Happy Valley
Chapter 6 The Rime of the Neoclassical Economist: The Economist’s Failure at Spreading the Passion of Capitalism
Chapter 7 Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South: Industrial Energy Versus “The Idiocies Of Rural Life”
Chapter 8 Where Have You Gone, Horatio Alger: A Long Gone Literary Hero and the Bourgeois Virtues
Chapter 9 Crony Capitalism in The Gilded Age by Twain and Warner and its Relevance for Today
Chapter 10 Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People
Chapter 11 William Dean Howells’ Work Ethic in The Rise of Silas Lapham
Chapter 12 Capitalism Contra Ethics: William Dean Howells and the Moral Ambivalence of Business
Chapter 13 The Panic of ’93: The Literary Response
Chapter 14 Heroism Redefined: Integrating Mind and Emotion in Calumet “K”
Chapter 15 Women’s Work: Edna Ferber, Emma McChesney, and the Portrait of the American Businesswoman
Chapter 16 The Great Gatsby: A Commentary on the Wealthy in America of the 1920s
Chapter 17 Steinbeck’s Perspectives on Capitalism: From The Grapes of Wrath to East of Eden
Chapter 18 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, and Libertarianism
Chapter 19 The Freedom Gradient in Ayn Rand’s Novels
Chapter 20 Identity, Professional Ethics and Substantive Style in The Fountainhead
Chapter 21 Business in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
Chapter 22 Business as an Agent of Human Progress in Time Will Run Back, Methuselah’s Children and The Transhumanist Wager
Chapter 23 Rabbit in the Showroom: Healthy, Wealthy, and No Place Left to Run
Chapter 24 Roger Rueff’s Hospitality Suite
Chapter 25 Writing, Money, Markets, Slavery & Unintended Consequences at the Beginning of History: Samuel R. Delany’s Return to Nevèrÿon
Chapter 26 “We Do Not Sow”: The Economics and Politics of A Song of Ice and Fire
Chapter 27 Harry Potter and the Invisible Hand; or, the Virtue of Business that is Not Serious
Chapter 28 Race, Rules, and Real Estate in August Wilson’s Radio Golf

We have too long spoken of the opposition between business and literature, but in this remarkable collection that distorted perception is not only corrected, but overridden. With impressive diversity of both topics and authors, this collection of essays highlights the synergies between commerce and culture. I have little doubt that this volume will also inspire future artistic endeavors with business as the central subject.