The Fictions of American Capitalism

The Fictions of American Capitalism: Working Fictions and the Economic Novel introduces a new way of thinking about fiction in connection with capitalism, especially American capitalism. These essays demonstrate how fiction fulfills a major function of the American capitalist engine, presenting various formulations of American capitalism from the perspective of economists, social scientists, and literary critics. Focusing on three narrativesfictitious capital, working fictions, and the economic novelthe volume questions whether these three types of fiction can be linked under the sign of capitalism. This collection seeks to illustrate the American economys dependence on fictitiousness, Americas ideological fictions, and the nations creative literary fiction. In relation to what the credit and banking crisis of 20072008 exposed about the unreal base of the economy, the volume concludes with a call to recognize the economic humanities, arguing that American fiction and American literary studies can provide a useful mirror for economists.