Plans of Economy

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.

British Two Pound Coin with Jane Austen