Literature vs Economics. A Conversation

Abstract

The conversation with the famous French sociologist and historian of political thought, Christian Laval, is dedicated to how and on the basis of what principles the division occurred between economic rationality and the symbolic power of literature, which determines the culture of the New Age. His main theses are formulated in the following manner. It is necessary to define literature to or in relation to the economic world, but this does not interfere in taking the claim of literature seriously to fulfill a specific social function in modern societies, this function differs from the function of economics and opposes the latter. In other words, writers who defined themselves as irreconcilable enemies of economic society, those who often displayed the most radical contempt for modern civilization, did this not only with the goal of creating an autonomous social field with its own rules, but they also had their own idea of man and society. They contrasted economic value with a different value — aesthetic, and claimed that aesthetic value requires a different world, a different man, and a new people. Literature has been the dominant form of the sacred in modern societies beginning from the 19th century, but it may not have occupied this position forever, and it will have to part with this symbolic force which makes a writer similar to a sorcerer, magician, shaman, and priest. However, can this policy of literature, which deals with the sacred and strives to create another community “beyond usefulness,” be expressed differently than in the register of magic, religion, sovereignty, and aristocracy? Should not the policies of literature today change over to the side of the forces of the imagination, openness, and to the possibilities of another life and, ultimately, an ideal, which through fiction, would become the basis for a new understanding of the commune?