The new science of economic man: Prose literature and political economy in eighteenth-century Britain.

摘要

My dissertation traces a cultural logic that situates economic writing against imaginative narrative. While political economy and the novel both addressed the consequences of economic development, their relationship was mediated by evolving theories of discourse, science and literary kinds.; Chapter One examines the development of political economy as a science. Agrarian, financial, commercial, and industrial revolutions had social consequences that were debated extensively. Only gradually did this produce the idea of an economy governed by forces and laws akin to those of the physical world. Authors who aligned their writings with the new sciences chose only one of many possible textual identities.; Chapter Two explores these alternate textual identities. Theories of prose genre emerged for the first time in the work of Adam Smith and Hugh Blair. They drew from Francis Bacon in transforming the focus of rhetorical theory from oral to textual discourse and mapping out relations between prose forms.; Works analyzed in Chapter Three have been retrospectively classified as literary or economic, but they often overlap. Essays by Thomas Mun, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and George Berkeley exhibit the indeterminancy of prose genre in discussing trade and empire. By articulating the “natural” state of trade, Mun and Defoe develop socio-economic models that elide their political bias. Swift and Berkeley exploit this contradiction to develop a political economy of colonies.; By the end of the century, the novel is distinguished from political economy. Poor relief became an important subject of debate in both. Adam Smith attacked the Corn Laws and parish relief as interfering with the maximization and optimal distribution of national wealth. He believed the natural force of individual self-interest would resolve the problem of want. Private relief is not considered in The Wealth of Nations. But The Theory of Moral Sentiments analyzes the social role of benevolence. A symptomatic ambivalence runs through Smith's discussion. Admiration and respect for the rich is needed to maintain society, but leads to neglect of the poor. Benevolence is ideal, but most individuals are not inclined to it. This tension is resolved by appeal to universal benevolence, to God's unfathomable system.