Robinson Crusoe's Economic Man : A Construction and Deconstruction

ISBN-13: 9780415701099 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 272 str.

Ulla Grapard;Gillian Hewitson

Opis

Robinson Crusoe is a favourite subject of economists in that conditions on his island were, at least until the arrival of Friday, the closest one could get to those of a laboratory, with the concept of ceteris paribus as near as it comes to being the case. Crusoe has thus come to be seen as a kind of 'economic man', a rational actor for whom issues of sex, race and class were irrelevant.

But we don't all live on desert islands and to use Crusoe as a viable guide to how we all should act is, in the opinion of the contributors to this book, quite wrong. Besides, on close reading, Defoe's original novel fails to support this view.

A worldwide team of contributors have been brought together to provide a productive engagement between economics and literature where the tools of literary and cultural theory are applied to the discipline of economics.

Spis treści

1. Introduction Ulla Grapard and Gillian Hewitson  Part 1: The Robinsonades: The Development of the Unencumbered Rational Economic Man  2. Reading and Rewriting: The Production of an Economic Robinson Crusoe Michael V. White  3. Robinson Crusoe and the Secret of Primitive Accumulation Stephen Hymer  4. Robinson Crusoe and the Economists William S. Kern  5. Robinson Crusoe and the Subject of Economics Antonio Callari  Part 2: The Quintessential Rational Economic Man: Feminist Interrogations  6. Robinson Crusoe: The Quintessential Economic Man? Ulla Grapard  7. Robinson Crusoe: The Paradigmatic ‘Rational Economic Man’ Gillian J. Hewitson  8. Family Troubles Brian Cooper  9. Economic Man Lost in Space Ulla Grapard and Gillian Hewitson  10. Robinson Crusoe and the Female Goddesses of Disorder Christine Owen  Part 3: The Quintessential Rational Economic Man: Postcolonial Interrogations  11. Towards a Friday Model of International Trade Melanie Samson  12. Mercantilism and Criminal Transportation Anna Neill  13. What Would an African Student make of Robinson Crusoe? Eiman Zein-Elabdin  14. J.M. Coetzee’s Foe: the ‘Amazement of Reading’ Nicole Bracker