BUS 3221 - Capital, Class, and Conflict in the Victorian Novel

The Victorian era initiated heated debates about the great divide between rich and poor, about the government's place in the accumulation and distribution of wealth, and about the relation between individuals and corporations that strike us as pertinent and timely today. We will begin this course by looking at Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" and Thomas Carlyle's "Signs of the Times." While Smith argued that laissex-faire capitalism would lead to the increased liberty, security, and prosperity of all people involved, Carlyle saw the dawning of a "Mechanical Age" that would lead to the cheapening of social relations and individual character. Questions about how individuals prosper and how they figure in the larger corporate body are at the heart of the novel as well, and it is not surprising that Victorian novels entered the debate staged by Smith and Carlyle about how economic systems can enable or alternatively, arrest individual freedom. using Smith's and Carlyle's arguments to frame our discussion, we will read five Victorian novels that are also some of the best (and in some cases wittiest) examples of the genre and explore how the literature of the period engages concerns about labor, agency, productivity, creativity, and value within new economic markets, commercial systems, and social networks.