Economics is often used in literary studies, but rarely free market economics. Austrian economics, with its emphasis on subjective value (Menger), human action (Mises), spontaneous order and knowledge (Hayek), and entrepreneurship (Kirzner), seems a particularly fruitful source of ideas for literary studies.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Tragic View of Human Nature
Is tragedy the literature of Austrian economics? That may be going a step too far (comedy was famously described as "tragedy plus time"), but there is little question that the Austrian school view of human nature is the tragic view. That is how Hayek described it. This is contrasted with the Unrestrained View of human nature. Let me ask: is there such a thing as a literature that expounds the unrestrained view? Or is all literature tragic? If there is no literature of unrestrained human nature, what does that say about that world view?
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