Here’s something you might want to try at home: Make a note of every businessman you see portrayed in a film or a novel or any other work of fiction. Note in particular whether the character is depicted as being good, bad or morally ambiguous. In all likelihood, he’ll be a wrong ’un – and quite possibly the villain of the piece.
In popular fiction – the crime and thriller genres especially – this is only to be expected. But what about literary fiction, where you might expect serious character studies instead of lazy stereotypes?
You won't have much luck there either, says Stephen Miller, in a fascinating overview for the Weekly Standard. Serious writers rarely show much sympathy for, or understanding of, the business world:
Merchants continued to be viewed with suspicion right through to the early modern era – the most famous example being the Merchant of Venice. But then things change:
Other business-friendly writers of the era include David Hume and Samuel Johnson. However, with the dislocations of the Industrial Revolution, the literary pendulum swung back the other way – with villainous factory owners and double-dealing tycoons all over the shop.
American literature was something of an exception:
Some may doubt whether the good opinion of the scribbling classes is of any great relevance. But if it is the case that great art shapes culture and that cultural change influences economic development, then, yes, literature does matter.
We should, therefore, be concerned by the relentlessly negative portrayal of commerce in our contemporary culture. From Gordon Gecko to Montgomery Burns, fiction seems to provide only negative role models.
It would help if real life didn’t produce characters like Fred ‘the Shred’ Goodwin, but that still leaves thousands of other business people who put everything on the line to create real wealth. Doesn’t their story deserve to be told too?
Stephen Millar concludes on a pessimistic note:
Can that really be true? Surely, the causality runs the other way round. In any case, there are many wonderful conservative writers – it’s just that they’re more likely to be writing columns than novels. Perhaps it’s just a question of mindset. Rightwingers like facts and argument; while leftwingers are naturally drawn to fiction.