| This dissertation explores the relationship of several of Dickens's texts with the financial system itself, both as reflections of the evolution of that system, and as attempts to shape and influence, if not the system itself, at least public opinion about the system and the actions of those who participated in finance. Specifically, this dissertation examines elements of Dickens's work that form a critique of financial capitalism. Dickens's critique is rooted in the difference between use-value and exchange-value, and in the difference between productive circulations and mere accumulation. The critique details how, in a money-based society, exchange-value and accumulation become dominant to the point where they infect even the most important and sacred relationships between parts of society and individuals.; The core concepts of this critique and their fundamental relationships are constant in the novels, but the critique itself broadens and becomes more pessimistic over time. The ill effects of living in a money-based society are presented more as the consequences of individual evil in earlier novels, while in the later books they are seen as far more systemic and pervasive. For example, in Nicholas Nickleby (1839), such evils cluster around Ralph, and fighting Ralph, as Nicholas does, can lessen but not contain them; in Our Mutual Friend (1865) the evils of capitalism are reflected in the very fabric of the world itself, as the exchange-value ethic infects everything—even human biology.; Dickens's critique alters over time, too, in the choices and outcomes it offers for those who would oppose the way of life inherent in a world of financial capitalism. While in earlier works the creation of a protected, non-capitalist enclave supported by individual benevolence is presented as a potential, if flawed, “solution,” the scope of such solutions continues to narrow as Dickens's career progresses. In Our Mutual Friend, the only credible “solution” is not social but individual—the attempt to isolate and preserve the true value of the individual in spite of the pervasive contamination of capitalism. |
