Capitalism and Commerce in Imaginative Literature

Perspectives on Business from Novels and Plays

Edward W. Younkins

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498519304
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Fiction can be a powerful force to educate students and employees in ways that lectures, textbooks, articles, case studies, and other traditional teaching approaches cannot. This anthology includes articles from a number of individuals from a range of different disciplines and perspectives. All of the contributors to 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.

Table of contents

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