What Does Literature Give Us for Understanding Economics

International audienceAt the center of the current work are two parallel processes that took place in the 18th century. On the one hand, this is a statement of the literary genre of a novel in which an important place is given to fundamental economic concepts: labor, needs, and financial or real wealth. On the other hand, this is the birth of economic theories, in which reasoning about economics takes the form of political economy or positive science aimed at the legislator when wealth becomes a political issue and states aim to increase, even maximize, people’s and sovereigns’ wealth. Based on specific works by Georges Perec, Svetlana Aleksievich, and Edouard Louis, the author attempts to show that literary works, since they excite or revive readers’ emotions, possess a certain power that lacks economic thinking in order to inform the reader about their own expectations or anxiety in regard to economic processes and demonstrate how interesting it is. As a result of the analysis, the author arrives at the following two theses. Firstly, economics strives to show the organizational conditions of society in which economic actors best meet their own needs. Secondly, by being involved specifically with this, science moves away from the ideas that economic actors have about wealth, from happiness which they hope for, and from painful experiences they encounter. Literature leads its reader to his own inner state and illustrates what is at stake in this endeavor for wealth