The Invisible Hand in The Remains of the Day
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/philologia.2020.18.18.5Keywords:
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, the invisible hand, behavioural economics, heuristics, game theory, the prospect theory, interdisciplinaryAbstract
The modern economist Eric D. Beinhocker rightly states that economies stem from people’s choices and decisions. The miniature model of reality within the confines of any fiction book could offer a bird’s eye view of the decision-making process. This is what the English writer of Japanese origins Kazuo Ishiguro indirectly proves in his third novel, The Remains of the Day, which thus gives a literary answer to a question all economists, past and present, have asked themselves at least once: Why is the invisible hand concept, proposed by the father of modern economics Adam Smith, so unfeasible in the real world?
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