Chamisso, Adelbert von. Peter Schlemihl

Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso (1814). Peter Schlemihl exchanges his shadow for the purse of Fortunatus, which produces everlasting riches. But he finds himself shunned by society and unable to marry the woman he loves. The Devil offers to return him his shadow in exchange for his soul but Schlemihl chooses to go shadowless.

Some snippets (trans. Leopold von Lowenstein-Wertheim):

"I only crave for your permission to lift up your noble shadow right here and to put it into my pocket; how I do it is my own affair. In return, and as a token of my profound gratitude to the gentleman, I will leave him to make his choice among all the treasures which I carry in my pocket. The genuine mandrake root, magic pennies, robber's ducat, the magic napkin of Roland's Knights, the gallows mandrake; but all this may not be of sufficient interest to you. I have something much better: Fortunatus' wishing cap restored as new and also a lucky purse exactly like the one he possessed."

And:

As soon as I found myself alone in the cab, I burst into tears. It was already beginning to dawn on me that even as gold on this earth is more highly esteemed than merit and virtue, so the shadow might be more highly esteemed than gold; and that as I had previously held my conscience higher than wealth, I had now given up my shadow for the sake of gold [...]

And:

I dismissed the driver with gold, selected the best front room and shut myself up in it immediately.
     And what do you think I did? Oh, my dear Chamisso, it makes me blush to confess it even to you. I pulled out the cursed purse from underneath my coat and in a kind of frenzy, which burned me up like a conflagration, I extracted gold from it; more and more gold, which I scattered over the floor. I trampled on it, making it tinkle and feasting my senses on its glitter and sound; I piled gold upon gold till I sank exhausted onto my luxurious bed, wallowing in a yellow flood. Thus the day went by and the evening. I did not open my door, and when night finally came, I fell asleep embedded in gold.

And:

"It seems to me rather a weighty matter to give my soul in exchange for my shadow."
"Weighty!" he repeated after me and burst out laughing. "And what, may I ask, do you imagine your soul is? Have you ever seen it? And what do you intend doing with it once you are dead? Thank you stars that you have found a collector sufficiently interested to wish to buy, even during your lifetime, the reversion of this quantity X, this galvanic force, this polarized potential, or whatever we may like to call this illusive something.; and to be willing to pay for it with something really tangible -- your very own shadow, which will give you the hand of your sweetheart and the fulfilment of everything you want. Or would you rather hand over the innocent young girl to that despicable schemer, Mr Rascal? [...]"

And:

"[...] But enough of this -- you possess me while you possess my gold. [...]"

And:

Remember, my friend, while you live in the world to treasure first your shadow and then your money.

(JLW) 

Dick, Philip K. Ubik

Philip K. Dick, Ubik (1969)

A snippet:

The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please." 

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. 

"I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you." 

"I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt." 

...he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. 

"You discover I'm right," the door said. It sounded smug.

Novik, Naomi. Spinning Silver

Naomi Novik, Spinning Silver (2018).

Many of the entries in this database have a few passages with economic themes, or some interesting worldbuilding with intriguing economic implications. Novik's Spinning Silver is different. The entire novel is a sustained meditation on value, debt, and exchange, also touching on themes of debt peonage, honour and gift-giving, justice and mercy, economic antisemitism and pogroms, sexual division of labour, bridewealth and dowry, affective labour, the objectification and commodification of women and girls, domestic violence, and sisterhood and solidarity. 

The book is filled with instances of expansive and transformative magic, from the everyday metamorphoses of the market, to gowns that are made more splendid by dearly-bought sorcery: all these moments speak of Novik's method of spinning this rich adventure from her slight source material, the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Or perhaps more accurately, from the cluster of Rumpelstiltskinesque fairytales called 'Name of the Helper' stories. Here is one, for instance, that features an elf kingdom:

One time a beautiful peasant girl was gored by a steer. She screamed aloud and called for help. The friendly elf came immediately, comforted her, and promised to help and rescue her, if she would marry him and go with him to the elf kingdom. She had no choice but to say yes, and upon her agreement the elf rescued her.

The episodes in the cottage at the edge of the Staryk kingdom, with its glitching domestic space and invisibilised labour, offers another subtle link: a rumpelstilt is a sort of poltergeist or goblin. These episodes might equally suggest 'The Elves and the Shoemaker', just as the magic mirror and abduction to a wintry kingdom might suggest 'The Snow Queen.'

So what is the deal with Staryk society? It has strong elements of a heroic, honour-based society, except that these elves also seem ... kind of libertarian? Any gift obliges you to the giver in complex ways (cf. Mauss, Levi-Strauss, Strathern, etc.), but for the Staryk these obligations have a magical, binding quality. They therefore shun gifts (even in the sense of simple instinctive acts of kindness and care) and try to turn everything into explicit exchange.

The story opens with young Miryem, uninvited, taking over her soft-hearted moneylender father's business. As I interpret the story, it is partly about Miryem encountering, in the Staryk, the preposterousness of her own chilly and indignant ideas of fair dealing, writ large. Debts, whether formal or informal, are not necessarily bad, exactly, but ... the equal moral worth of contracting parties should never be confused for equal power or freedom. What actions count as gifts, which obligations need to be repaid, what should count as repaying them? The answers are always matters of power, circumstances, feelings, perceptions, and imagination, much more than they are the kind of thing that can be carefully written down in a ledger. 

But does Miryem actually ever learn this, or anything like it? Miryem has a kind of fairytale comeuppance, and she does grow and change in various ways (making a boast and stepping into the shape she has made), but in all the excitement I'm not sure she ever really does revisit her early mercilessness. Perhaps it is the limitations of a critique of commercial society (nascent capitalism) that is rooted in feudal ideals (hospitality, the abundant table, the honourable household where hard work and loyalty are rewarded). I'm not completely sure, but I think that -- although I kind of love this book -- its politics are pretty abhorrent to me. 

Further reading:

• Carol Jones, Women's Worth: A Western Misconception
• David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
• Jerry Z. Muller, Capitalism and the Jews
• Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract
• Amanda Mandzik, Once Upon an Economics Course: Using Fairy Tales to Teach Economics
• Workers' Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables and Allegories from Great Britain
• Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

Onwualu, Chinelo. 'The Fine Print.'

 Chinelo Onwualu, 'The Fine Print' (2019).

Reprinted online 2021 in Apex.

A story that explores notions of contract, consent, debt, slavery, consumerism, socially reproductive labor, and interactions between powerful corporate bureaucracies and their stakeholders.

The spell frowned and looked through the sheaf of papers again. “The terms of the contract indicate that you are to yield your first-born child in payment for your bride. Normally, I would be able to offer you some compensation, but you have not placed enough wishes to qualify for any of our promotions or rewards. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” 

Stross, Charles. 'Lobsters'

Charles Stross, "Lobsters" (2003). (Later expanded into Accelerando). A sort of "bursting with ideas" piece of comic economic science fiction, partly to do with the legal rights of AIs (who are also sort of lobsters). Also, it's about consent and contract. (One quibble: I'm pretty sure in Europe Manfred wouldn't need to patent his ideas and give them away: it would be sufficient to publicize them so they form part of the prior art. By being a science fiction writer and a blogger, for instance. In the US, the approach is a bit closer to "let's all just patent the shit out of everything and let lawyers sort it out." I think. Sounds a bit like a stereotype).