Penurious Payments

This dissertation analyzes literary misrepresentations of economic life in eighteenth-century Britain. Following recent work in early-modern social and economic history, we can no longer see credit as an expedient used to navigate a cash economy. Just the opposite: cash was the expedient used to navigate an economy primarily based on credit. Yet in much of the literature of the period, from novels to sermons, credit is presented as an exceptional phenomenon laden with grave moral significance, a troubling expedient to be avoided except in emergencies. This is a pattern of representation that fails to capture the economic reality faced by people of any class. Instead, eighteenth-century Britons saw their use of credit as expressive of the boundaries and status gradations of the organic, hierarchical communities to which they belonged. The utility of credit as a category in moral argument came at the expense, I suggest, of its descriptive potential, and this distance from economic-historical verisimilitude provides new openings for literary and historical interpretation. I read texts by Defoe, Wesley, Tillotson, Mackenzie, Goldsmith, Johnson and Walpole to argue that key aspects of eighteenth-century literary history (formal realism, sentimentalism, and the putative decline of literary patronage) and political theology (toleration and anti-enthusiasm) responded to imperatives originating in informal credit economies based in Anglican parishes. I further argue that the late-century decline of this parish communal form prompted a reorganization of social thought which brought swift and simultaneous changes to contemporary understandings of the economic and literary alike.

Albert Stark takes us on a journey through his first fifteen years as a lawyer. Sixteen chapters, written with the pace and interest of a novel, teach lessons in time management, fee negotiation, finding information, and using it advantageously. From his first assignment as a public defender to a maze of legal challenges and the clients and adversaries that go with them, Stark poignantly describes the pitfalls and disillusionments, as well as the triumphs, that lay in the path of a lawyer seeking independence by making a name for himself, becoming financially independent, and intellectually independent. Insightful, humorous and human, just like Albert Stark himself. Should be must reading for every young lawyer - and anyone who relishes a fascinating and superbly written book. Bob Denney, President, Robert Denney Associates, Inc. An extraordinarily well-written account of the life of a lawyer. Absorbing! David Maister, author and consultant

In The Price We Pay, Margaret Randall interviews women from a wide range of economic, racial, and cultural backgrounds to reveal the role money plays in their lives. These women speak of their changing expectations and attitudes regarding money. Daughters of immigrants remember what money meant in the transition between worlds. They disclose the feelings that they have of stigma or shame at not having enough, guilt at having too much, and the lies, secrets and silences caused by these feelings. These personal stories are woven into a history of women's economics and chapters on family, work, the media, power and control, and lesbian economics.

How can the American social welfare system be repaired so that workers and families receive adequate protection and, if necessary, provision from the ravages of the market? This book addresses this fundamental problem and analyses how the 'privatization of risk' has increased hardships for American families and increased inequality. It also proposes a series of solutions that would distribute the burdens of risks more broadly and expand the social safety net.