The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society

Combining cultural history, economics, and literary criticism, Regenia Gagnier's new work traces the parallel development of economic theory and aesthetic theory, offering a shrewd reading of humans as workers and wanters, born of labor and desire. The story told in The Insatiability of Human Wants begins in the 1870s, a key transitional moment in aesthetics and economics, when both disciplines underwent a turn from production to consumption models. In economics, an emphasis on the theory of value and the social relations between land, labor, and capital gave way to more individualistic models of consumerism. Similarly, in aesthetics, theories of artistic production or creativity bowed to models of taste, pleasure, and reception. Using these developments as a point of departure, Gagnier deftly traces the shift in Western thought from models of production to models of consumption.Regenia Gagnier is the author of 'The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society', published 2000 under ISBN 9780226278537 and ISBN 0226278530.