The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market SocietyUniversity of Chicago Press, 2000 - 255 pages What is the relationship between our conception of humans as producers or creators; as consumers of taste and pleasure; and as creators of value? Combining cultural history, economics, and literary criticism, Regenia Gagnier's new work traces the parallel development of economic and aesthetic theory, offering a shrewd reading of humans as workers and wanters, born of labor and desire. The Insatiability of Human Wants begins during a key transitional moment in aesthetic and economic theory, 1871, when both disciplines underwent a turn from production to consumption models. In economics, an emphasis on the theory of value and the social relations between land, labor, and capital gave way to more individualistic models of consumerism. Similarly, in aesthetics, theories of artistic production or creativity soon bowed to models of taste, pleasure, and reception. Using these developments as a point of departure, Gagnier deftly traces the shift in Western thought from models of production to consumption. From its exploration of early market logic and Kantian thought to its look at the aestheticization of homelessness and our own market boom, The Insatiability of Human Wants invites us to contemplate alternative interpretations of economics, aesthetics, and history itself. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 46
Page 4
... moral category : it did not matter whether the good desired was good or bad , just that the consumer was willing to pay for it . Value ceased to be comparable across persons : it became individual , subjective , or psychological . The ...
... moral category : it did not matter whether the good desired was good or bad , just that the consumer was willing to pay for it . Value ceased to be comparable across persons : it became individual , subjective , or psychological . The ...
Page 8
... Morals by Agreement ( 1986 ) , in which Gauthier announced that it was " neither unrealistic nor pessimistic to suppose that beyond the ties of blood and friendship , which are necessarily limited in their scope , human beings exhibit ...
... Morals by Agreement ( 1986 ) , in which Gauthier announced that it was " neither unrealistic nor pessimistic to suppose that beyond the ties of blood and friendship , which are necessarily limited in their scope , human beings exhibit ...
Page 11
... moral in small things but to lack a noble purpose and a larger vision . An aesthetic education was needed that would inspire exalted feelings and the kind of idealism that would lift the British toward richer lives and a more harmonious ...
... moral in small things but to lack a noble purpose and a larger vision . An aesthetic education was needed that would inspire exalted feelings and the kind of idealism that would lift the British toward richer lives and a more harmonious ...
Page 13
... morally Good ; and only because we refer the Beautiful to the morally Good does our liking for it include a claim to everyone else's assent . Probably the most famous statement in Western aesthetic philosophy , Kant's referral of the ...
... morally Good ; and only because we refer the Beautiful to the morally Good does our liking for it include a claim to everyone else's assent . Probably the most famous statement in Western aesthetic philosophy , Kant's referral of the ...
Page 15
... no beauty , and you 21. Angelique Richardson , " The Eugenization of Love : Sarah Grand and the Moral- ity of Genealogy , " Victorian Studies 42 ( 1999-2000 ) : 227-55 , 244 . will see no beauty in the clothes they wear , INTRODUCTION 15.
... no beauty , and you 21. Angelique Richardson , " The Eugenization of Love : Sarah Grand and the Moral- ity of Genealogy , " Victorian Studies 42 ( 1999-2000 ) : 227-55 , 244 . will see no beauty in the clothes they wear , INTRODUCTION 15.
Contents
On the Insatiability of Human Wants Economic and Aesthetic Man | 19 |
Is Market Society the Fin of History? Market Utopias and Dystopias from Babbage to Schreiner | 61 |
Modernity and Progress toward Individualism in Economics and Aesthetics | 90 |
Production Reproduction and Pleasure in Victorian Aesthetics | 115 |
Practical Aesthetics Rolfe Wilde and New Women at the Fin de Siecle | 146 |
Practical Aesthetics II On Heroes HeroWorship and the Heroic in the 1980s | 176 |
Other editions - View all
The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society Regenia Gagnier No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith Aestheticism Arnold beauty Bebel biological body bourgeois Britain British called capital chapter choice civilization commodification commodity consumer consumption contrast critical critique culture Decadence desire division of labor economic economists elite Essays ethical feeling feminist fin de siècle freedom Gagnier gender global Hedonism homeless human idea ideology individual industrial insatiable interest Jevons John John Ruskin John Stuart Mill Jude literature living London male marginal revolution market society Marx Menger Milken Mill Mill's models modern moral nature neoclassical neoclassical economics nineteenth century nomic novel object Oscar Wilde Owenites Oxford Pater percent pleasure political economy poor poverty prison production productivist progress psychological race reproduction Rolfe Ruskin San Francisco Chronicle Schreiner self-interest sexual Smith socialist Stanford subjective sublime taste theory thetics tion utility Victorian wage Walter Pater wants wealth welfare Wilde's woman women workers writes York