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| Venue for Huntington Beach AGM |
“She drew up plans of
economy, she made exact calculations, and she did what nobody else thought of
doing: she consulted Anne…”
Persuasion chapter 2
Event: JASNA CWNY January Meeting
Title: Jane Austen and Economics, a reprise of a talk given at the 2017 AGM
Speaker: Chris Cassidy
When: Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 1:00 pm
Where: Pittsford Barnes and Noble, Second Floor Community Room
In 2014 an odd thing happened in the world of books. A
700-page exposition of economic theory became a number one best seller on the
New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction. The book was Capital in the Twenty-First Century by
Thomas Piketty. It is not often that an economics text makes the bestseller
list, and Jane Austen had a role in making it happen.
Piketty’s work deals primarily with the distribution of
wealth within populations across both space and time. He looks carefully at the
composition and ownership of wealth in several developed nations from the
eighteenth century to the present. In order to demonstrate the effects of
wealth distribution and bring some life to his statistics, Piketty uses
examples from the works of Jane Austen and Honore de Balzac. Piketty writes in
his introduction:
“Film and literature, nineteenth
century novels especially, are full of detailed information about the relative
wealth and living standards of different social groups, and especially about the
deep structure of inequality, the way it is justified, and its impact on
individual lives. Indeed, the novels of Jane Austen and Honore de Balzac paint
striking portraits of the distribution of wealth in Britain and France between
1790 and 1830.”
While Piketty uses many examples from Jane Austen’s work to
illuminate his theories of wealth inequality, Michael Chwe’s successful book, Jane Austen, Game Theorist, explains how
the work of Jane Austen previews the field of game theory. Game theory is a set
of ideas that encompasses understanding how people make decisions based on the
anticipated decisions of others, and it has become important in modern theories
of economics. According to Chwe, Jane Austen had it all wrapped up two hundred years ago.
Both Piketty and Chwe have been very successful in using the
works of Jane Austen to illuminate different aspects of modern economics. In
both cases, her work provides both insight into the economics and a hook to
interest and engage readers.
Our speaker at this month’s meeting will examine how Jane
Austen has influenced modern economics and has become a bridge between academic
fields and the general public. This talk was originally given at the 2017 AGM and, apparently, no one fell asleep.
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| British Two Pound Coin with Jane Austen |
