Looking for Adventure and Finding Economics

Economics is not a popular topic, and understanding of it is not widespread.  Accordingly, literature, film, music, and popular culture in general are almost completely devoid of solid economic understanding.  Economists usually confound the problem by writing for fellow economists and not the public at large—although the latter trend has been shifting of late.  Indeed the giants of economics (Adam Smith, von Mises, Hayek, etc.) can be almost unreadable—at least on the first try.

With this in mind, I was delighted to find an excellent piece of good economics in an unlikely place.  Being a big history geek with a fondness for swash and buckle, I have been going through Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series of books, which are set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.  The following little speech by Colonel McCandless to Private Sharpe struck me as a succinct and clear summation of the forces behind a prosperous (not to mention livable) society.

Without trade there is no wealth and without wealth there is no society worth having. Without trade, Private Sharpe, we would be nothing but beasts in the mud.  Trade is indeed worth fighting for, though the good Lord knows we don’t appreciate trade much.  We celebrate kings, we honor great men, we admire aristocrats, we applaud actors, we shower gold on portrait painters, and we even sometimes reward soldiers, but we despise merchants.  But Why?  It is the merchant’s wealth that drives the mills, Sharpe, it moves the looms, it keeps the hammers falling, it fills the fleets, its makes the roads, it forges the iron, it grows the wheat, it bakes the bread, and fills the churches and the cottages and the palaces.  Without God and trade we would be nothing.

If only there was more such economic wisdom in literature, film, and the arts.  Of course, it might put me out of a job, but it would be worth it.

Comments

[David McGinnis]

Yeah... aren't you supposed to put yourself out of a job (and into the next one) with creative destruction?

[Alastair Walling]

Working on it--five to ten students at a time.

[Becky]

Thanks for writing this.