Danek: "Economic novel"

Since I remember, in – let's call it so – the circles of the economical right it is assumed that at least 1 of the sources of improvement problems of Poland is simply a mediocre level of cognition of economics in society, and its increase remains essential to overcome them.

Maybe that's true. cognition of how the economy functions is in any case useful. However, while this general postulate grows out of good intuition, the choice of means of implementation leaves many to be desired. The collection of publications and another publications of a popular technological character has its good sides, as it possibly reaches a wider audience than the hermetic technological literature of its nature, but it besides seems to have limits of influence. Especially if the intention is not only to form the cognition of the subject at the recipient, but besides to influence the value of certain solutions or institutions.

For this purpose, alternatively of the cognition itself, 1 must besides talk to his imagination, due to the fact that imagination always provides a average of reasoning – and possibly more stimulating than dry facts. To trigger imagination, it is not adequate to convey information; cultural means must be used. And if we want to influence the widest scope of audiences, it will be essential to enter the sphere of popular culture, which makes society aware of a more lasting track than frequently more valuable, but elite or hermetic circles of ideas.

Examples even from fresh years (I will not mention them by name, due to the fact that due to their subject substance and character they are not worthy of it) indicate that despite the expansion and ubiquitousness of electronic media, the fresh remains a cultural product that is inactive powerfully influencing the reasoning of societies. On the place of the economical right, who like to complain about the mediocre orientation of Poles in economical matters and talk about the request to improve it, I would not underestimate this fact – due to the fact that it is simply a culture, more than formalised knowledge, it is simply a sphere of deep absorption of crucial content for people. Contact with culture is accompanied by the minute of experiencing its content, contact with formalized cognition – most frequently not. From the point of view of our promoters of economical knowledge, it would undoubtedly be a successful occasion to make a kind of fresh that would show the functioning of the economy and its function as a fundamental component of individual and collective human life in a vibrant, colourful, absorbing way. Let's call this kind of book an economical fresh [1].

The ellipse of the economical right repeats to boredom that the social function of the entrepreneur, despite the passing of years, remains seriously underestimated in our country, and its image in public perception – unsatisfactory. The mentality of nations is shaped by culture. Where, if not in specified a novel, is simply a good place to show the heroism of the entrepreneur, to make him a hero worthy of imitation, guided by a advanced ethos, to paint him as a creator of value, alternatively than a mundane gromorob, as a man of work – a work useful to his fellowmen – and not only as an egotistic “man of success” to a toxic American prayer?

However, in times of mass flooding of the book market, indistinguishable titles, each of which is preventively hailed by the publisher with excellence and bestseller, we may forget a small that writing a fresh is not an easy thing. The book does not consist solely of themes and messages; it must besides have normal, independent literary qualities. economical novels tried to compose Ayn Rand (1905-1982), The most celebrated example is “Atlas Rebellious” (1957). The consequence is at least mixed feelings – teaching in literature will not make up for the mediocre level of writing, but will make it even more visible.

In Polish literature, it is not easy to find works entering the pattern outlined here. Even during a period of positivism, which would seem to have laid the perfect subsoil for their formation. The subject of economical life and mission and dilemmas of entrepreneurs are addressed by any of the themes of the "Doll" (1890), but they are only part of the construction of this 1 of the most prominent in the achievements of the fresh era. At the same time as Bolesław Prusa's work appeared a forgotten drama present Aleksandra Świętochowski "Aureli Wiszar" (1888), about the factory-humanist and the turbulent past of his management of the industrial plant (the title hero tries to introduce in his mill forms of worker share ownership, which later, in the 1930s, was popularized under the name "human capitalism").

As with many issues, it is besides essential to emphasize the peculiar position it holds in Polish culture. Stefan Kisielewski – the author, from whom the modern multi-nurtary right in Poland should reap abundantly, putting him first in his spiritual fathers, alternatively than doing so [2].

Some of Kisielewski’s most outstanding literary works consider his first novel, “Swearing" (1946). I am inclined to put 5 alleged political novels that the writer, for censorship reasons, published in Paris in the emigration series Library of Culture under the pseudonym Tomasz Stalinski. Kisielewski developed in them an first not only in the past of Polish literature, but possibly even in the background of planet literature, a genre of political novel. Yes – political, not political. They are not simply novels with a key (using authentic characters under changed names as heroes); they are besides not typically political novels that express the author's political point of view – but analytical novels. In the tracks ‘Seen from above" (1967), "investigation" (1974) or "People in the Aquarium" (1976) Kisielewski presents in literary form an excellent analysis of the political strategy of the Polish People's Republic, with the insight that would be vain to look for in uncounted publications produced by the Institute of National Memory.

Two of the novels, “Winter Romance" (1972) and "InvestigationThey besides present a image of the functioning of the PRL economy, showing the inefficiency of the state-socialist economical strategy and the failure of its mechanisms – the second making it more convincing than abstract, with a tendency to Talmudize, Mises's statements or another liberal economists writing in English. These 2 books can be classified as literary works that popularize basic cognition of economics, so they form a kind of economical novel. And at the same time, they are simply well-designed works, which cannot be cast in a purely written layer. The author proved his ability to build a storyline and mood, while avoiding the threat of breaking the literary text with intrusive, flaological didacticism.

Since the publication of Kisielewski's books, however, half a century has passed, and fresh achievements in the field of economical novels in Polish literature cannot be heard. In the meantime, the marketplace economy has returned to Poland, but – like everything else – needs to be enhanced. And those who support the ideology of the “free market” usually do not know how to do it.

Adam Danek

[1] As far as I know, it's never been utilized before. But in 1833, Edward Tomasz Massalski published a fresh “Mr Podstolice, or what we are, what we can be. Administrative affair’. If there could be an administrative affair, why wouldn't there be an economical novel?

[2] For example, more than 30 years after the fall of the Polish People's Republic on the right, the compulsory environmental component of the ethos is usually referred to as “anti-communism”, understood as condemning in the pulpit of the Polish People's Republic and everything and everyone who co-created it in various ways; but who, instead, is distancing himself from specified a devoid real designation, neurotic “anti-communism” as a traitor to right-wing ideals. The Kisielewski era of the Polish People's Republic survived from the beginning to the end and left behind a criticism of the political and economical order of that time much deeper than would be able to be formulated by the "anti-communists" of the 3rd day of the Polish Republic, but from the nihilistic, unproductive basis of "anti-communism" was as far as possible.

Photo: wikipedia commons

Think Poland, No. 45-46 (6-11.11.2022)