Literature and Liberty

Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism

Business & Finance, Economics, Free Enterprise, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book Literature and Liberty by Allen Mendenhall, Lexington Books
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Allen Mendenhall ISBN: 9780739186343
Publisher: Lexington Books Publication: February 19, 2014
Imprint: Lexington Books Language: English
Author: Allen Mendenhall
ISBN: 9780739186343
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication: February 19, 2014
Imprint: Lexington Books
Language: English

The economic theories of Karl Marx and his disciples continue to be anthologized in books of literary theory and criticism and taught in humanities classrooms to the exclusion of other, competing economic paradigms. Marxism is collectivist, predictable, monolithic, impersonal, linear, reductive — in short, wholly inadequate as an instrument for good in an era when we know better than to reduce the variety of human experience to simplistic formulae. A person’s creative and intellectual energies are never completely the products of culture or class. People are rational agents who choose between different courses of action based on their reason, knowledge, and experience. A person’s choices affect lives, circumstances, and communities. Even literary scholars who reject pure Marxism are still motivated by it, because nearly all economic literary theory derives from Marxism or advocates for vast economic interventionism as a solution to social problems.
Such interventionism, however, has a track-record of mass murder, war, taxation, colonization, pollution, imprisonment, espionage, and enslavement — things most scholars of imaginative literature deplore. Yet most scholars of imaginative literature remain interventionists. Literature and Liberty offers these scholars an alternative economic paradigm, one that over the course of human history has eliminated more generic bads than any other system. It argues that free market or libertarian literary theory is more humane than any variety of Marxism or interventionism. Just as Marxist historiography can be identified in the use of structuralism and materialist literary theory, so should free-market libertarianism be identifiable in all sorts of literary theory. Literature and Liberty disrupts the near monopolistic control of economic ideas in literary studies and offers a new mode of thinking for those who believe that arts and literature should play a role in discussions about law, politics, government, and economics. Drawing from authors as wide-ranging as Emerson, Shakespeare, E.M. Forster, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry Hazlitt, and Mark Twain, Literature and Liberty is a significant contribution to libertarianism and literary studies.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The economic theories of Karl Marx and his disciples continue to be anthologized in books of literary theory and criticism and taught in humanities classrooms to the exclusion of other, competing economic paradigms. Marxism is collectivist, predictable, monolithic, impersonal, linear, reductive — in short, wholly inadequate as an instrument for good in an era when we know better than to reduce the variety of human experience to simplistic formulae. A person’s creative and intellectual energies are never completely the products of culture or class. People are rational agents who choose between different courses of action based on their reason, knowledge, and experience. A person’s choices affect lives, circumstances, and communities. Even literary scholars who reject pure Marxism are still motivated by it, because nearly all economic literary theory derives from Marxism or advocates for vast economic interventionism as a solution to social problems.
Such interventionism, however, has a track-record of mass murder, war, taxation, colonization, pollution, imprisonment, espionage, and enslavement — things most scholars of imaginative literature deplore. Yet most scholars of imaginative literature remain interventionists. Literature and Liberty offers these scholars an alternative economic paradigm, one that over the course of human history has eliminated more generic bads than any other system. It argues that free market or libertarian literary theory is more humane than any variety of Marxism or interventionism. Just as Marxist historiography can be identified in the use of structuralism and materialist literary theory, so should free-market libertarianism be identifiable in all sorts of literary theory. Literature and Liberty disrupts the near monopolistic control of economic ideas in literary studies and offers a new mode of thinking for those who believe that arts and literature should play a role in discussions about law, politics, government, and economics. Drawing from authors as wide-ranging as Emerson, Shakespeare, E.M. Forster, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry Hazlitt, and Mark Twain, Literature and Liberty is a significant contribution to libertarianism and literary studies.

More books from Lexington Books

Cover of the book George W. Bush and China by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Economic Injustice and the Rhetoric of the American Dream by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book The Hollywood Connection by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Academic Freedom at American Universities by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book The Political Theory of I Love Lucy by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Wittgenstein at the Movies by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book A Man Apart by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Liberalism under Siege by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Migrant Revolutions by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Protest Politics and the Democratization of South Korea by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Girls' Series Fiction and American Popular Culture by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Reasonable Perspectives on Religion by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Gender in Hispanic Literature and Visual Arts by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin's Foreign Policy, 1945–1953 by Allen Mendenhall
Cover of the book Lost in the Long Transition by Allen Mendenhall
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy