"British Disease",Ideas of State Intervention,and Imagination of Financial Empire in Early Modernist Literature
The economic history of 20th-century Britain is actually a process of showing how the"British disease"has occurred,intensified,and been diagnosed.In fact,even in the relative-ly prosperous early 20th century,the British economy already showed some initial symptoms of the"British disease"and foreshadowed its subsequent long-term decline.These symptoms found adequate expressions in the concurrent early modernist literature which,in turn,exerted profound influence on the social climate and government decisions of the era.Works by Con-rad,Shaw,Tressell,and Wells,for instance,illustrate the historical causes,literary representa-tions,and corresponding reflections on some major types of"British disease"of the early 20th century,including the disintegration of the colonial system,the deterioration of poverty,the intensification of labor-capital conflicts,and the decline of the traditional economy.The organic interactions between the transitioning British economy and modernist literature are evident as discussed in these works.It is also clear that although the dominant ideology of the time was still the classic laissez-faire policy,ideas incorporating state-interventionism,such as human-ized capitalism,Fabianism,and Marxism,began to take effects;meanwhile,the British econ-omy's transformation to financial capitalism foreshadowed the subsequent rise of monetary regulation theories and the Keynesian revolution,reflecting the authors'imagination of future Britain as a financial empire in response to the"British disease".
early modernist literature"British Disease"humanized capitalismFabianismMarxismfinancial capitalism
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