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The Representation of Business in English Literature

      This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

      The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as a design element in Liberty Fund books is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

      © 2009 by the Institute of Economic Affairs. Reprinted by permission.

      The Representation of Business in English Literature was first published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, London; December 2000.

      This eBook edition published in 2012.

      eBook ISBN: E-PUB 978-1-61487-245-0

       www.libertyfund.org

Contents

       Note on the Liberty Fund Edition

       Foreword

       John Blundell

       The Authors

       Introduction

       Arthur Pollard

       Eighteenth-Century Attitudes Towards Business

       W. A. Speck

       Early Nineteenth Century: Birmingham—“Something Direful in the Sound”

       Geoffrey Carnall

       The High Victorian Period (1850-1900): “The Worship of Mammon”

       Angus Easson

       The Early Twentieth Century: Uniformity, Drudgery and Economics

       Allan Simmons

       Mid-Late Twentieth Century: “An Unprecedented Moral Quagmire”

       John Morris

       Index of Fictional Characters

       Subject Index

       Note on the Liberty Fund Edition

      The Institute of Economic Affairs has long acted as a bridge for ideas between the United States and Europe. Austrian economics, Public Choice or rather the Virginia School of economics, and of course the Chicago School lead the list. Working full-time in the United States from 1982 to 1993 was a real eye-opener for me. Here was this extraordinarily rich, compassionate and vibrant society set in such a massive and beautiful country. Yet every night on the TV news, in prime time and in movies and elsewhere, the great engine of personal liberty and prosperity—free-market capitalism—was almost universally denigrated.

      But even here relief was at hand as scholars such as Emily Stipes Watts (The Businessman in American Literature) were examining the issue and groups such as the Media Institute (Crooks, Conmen and Clowns: Businessmen in TV Entertainment) were carrying out studies on it. I was deeply impressed by this work, and on returning to the United Kingdom in January 1993 my second priority (after introducing free-market environmentalism to Europe) was to begin addressing both the cultural and the moral attacks on wealth creation.

      When the Institute of Economic Affairs published this volume in 2000, we were stunned by the volume of publicity it garnered. It probably received the most coverage of any IEA book, and considering we publish more than 120 authors each year (over a thousand books total), and among them ten Nobel laureates, that is amazing. The coverage was wall to wall and mostly critical, yet we had obviously touched a raw nerve and the book was a positive addition to the debate.

      We are delighted that our friends at Liberty Fund have brought out this edition. My only regret is that Professor Arthur Pollard, who edited and introduced the IEA edition, passed away in 2002. He was a great scholar, a friend of liberty and a very early influence on me.

      JOHN BLUNDELL

       General Director and Ralph Harris Fellow,

      April 2009

Foreword JOHN BLUNDELL

      At first glance it might seem a little out of the ordinary for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to publish a collection of essays on the representation of business in English literature over the past three centuries, however good those essays may be.

      However, the mission of the IEA is to broaden public understanding of the functioning of a free economy. Thus a very significant part of its work has to do with understanding the processes by which public opinion evolves and, against such analysis, to consider how the free economy is viewed, why it is so viewed, and how such a view might be improved.

      When the IEA’s founder, the late Sir Antony G. A. Fisher, met with future Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the summer of 1945,¹ Hayek was between The Road to Serfdom and The Intellectuals and Socialism. The former was his call to arms, the latter his blueprint for change. In that blueprint he lists the types of people he believes make up the class of “intellectuals.”² Before doing so, however, he makes these points:

       before you try making such a list yourself “it is difficult to realise how numerous it is”; try it now yourself before going any further—list all the intellectual professions you can think of;

       the “scope” for the “activities” of this “class” or group constantly increases in modern society; and

       “how dependent on it (that is, the class of intellectuals) we have become.”

      Hayek’s list then goes on as follows:

       “journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction (my emphasis), cartoonists, and artists—all of whom may be masters of the technique of conveying ideas but are usually amateurs so far as the substance of what they convey is concerned”; and

       “many professional men and technicians, such as scientists and doctors, who through their habitual intercourse with the printed word become carriers of new ideas outside their own fields and who, because of their expert knowledge of their own subjects, are listened to with respect on most others.”

      To Hayek the term intellectual is not very satisfactory because it does not give a full picture of the size of this group of “secondhand dealers in ideas.” This lack of a precise term he thinks has deterred serious study