Journal of Economic Studies
Economics and literature: an examination of Gulliver’s Travels
Marcelo Fernandes
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Journal of
Economic
Studies
28,2
92
Economics and literature: an
examination of Gulliver's
Travels
Marcelo Fernandes
Department of Economics, European University Institute,
San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy
Keywords Literature, Social economics, Philosophy, History
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Abstract Jonathan Swift's masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, considered at first a children's
book, has been for a long time the subject of a debate among philosophers, political scientists, and
literary critics. Apart from its keen political satire, Gulliver's Travels approaches in a very nonstandard way interesting socioeconomic topics such as the legal system, political science, and
colonisation. Moreover, Swift provides interesting insights about human nature and behaviour
when describing the nations visited by Captain Gulliver. This paper examines to what extent
economic philosophy can contribute to the understanding of Gulliver's Travels, and what
economists can learn from Swift's extravagant digressions.
Introduction
Jonathan Swift (Dublin, 1667-1745) was without a shadow of doubt a great
pacifist, satirist, and moralist. Mainly through pamphletism, he criticised
imperialism and war with ferocity. Gulliver's Travels, first published in 1726,
can be seen as Swift's ultimate pacifist pamphlet, summing up his views
concerning moral and sociopolitical justice (Williams, 1959). Although
Gulliver's Travels is cherished as a children's book[1]. it has triggered an ardent
debate among philosophers, political scientists and literary critics. For
instance, part four ``A voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms'' was, for a
long time, regarded by literary critics as the writings of an immoral,
misanthropic, and obscene monster. According to Clubb (1941), this view
derives from a too literal interpretation of the allegory and from the common
fallacy that Gulliver's opinions reflect Swift's.
Indeed, the first key to understanding Gulliver's Travels is to discriminate
Swift's moral and political outlook from Captain Gulliver's accounts. For instance,
the latter sees the Houyhnhnms as ideal beings who are governed by the principles
of reason and truth, and are completely ignorant of the evils of controversy,
dispute, and falsehood. In contrast, Swift seems to indicate that it should be rather
dull and stifling to live in the utopic society of the Houyhnhnms[2]. In this respect,
the wise, but still human, Brobdingnagians introduced in part two of Gulliver's
Travels are more likely to represent Swift's ideal beings.
Journal of Economic Studies,
Vol. 28 No. 2, 2001, pp. 92-105.
# MCB University Press, 0144-3585
I am indebted to Jacob Gyntelberg, Giuliana Palumbo, Martin Ruckes, and an anonymous
referee for valuable comments. I acknowledge with gratitude the financial support from
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientõÂfico e TecnoloÂgico, CNPq-Brazil (grant 200608/959). The usual disclaimer applies.
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This interpretation conforms to the reading provided by misanthropology Examination of
(Morson, 1996). Misanthropology is named after the study of the cussedness of Gulliver's Travels
human nature and aims to investigate all sorts of human vices. In particular,
misanthropy is viewed as the typical position of a disillusioned Utopian, whose
former faith takes the form of unremitting contempt. According to Morson
(1996), Gulliver is clearly an Utopian who becomes disillusioned and eventually
93
misanthropic. The visit to the land of the Brobdingnags teaches Gulliver to
appreciate the physical and moral deformity of human beings. The king
exposes the cultural misanthropology to Gulliver, whereas the country's most
beautiful women teach him its physical facet for being filthy and repulsive due
to their size. However, Gulliver's experience in Houyhnhnmland impedes him
from drawing the right lesson from cultural and physical misanthropology.
The close connection of his Utopianism with his misanthropy is also clear in
the letter to the editor. Gulliver complains that neither his accounts nor his
social prescriptions produce any improvement in British society. Accordingly,
Morson (1996) views Gulliver's Travels as both misanthropic and a satire on
misanthropy, for Swift demonstrates that he despises humanity for such vices
as misanthropy.
Yet, Gulliver's Travels is not only about Swift's philosophy. The book is also
full of political and literary allusions. For instance, in part one, Lilliput
represents England, whereas Blefescu is France. The Lilliputian treasurer
Flimnap stands for Swift's old enemy Sir Robert Walpole, chief minister of
England from 1715 to 1717 and from 1721 to 1742. Gulliver represents, for most
of the time, Swift's personal friend Lord Bolingbroke. Thereby, Gulliver's
escape to Blefescu clearly refers to the exile of Lord Bolingbroke, who was
ungratefully accused of high treason in 1715, after playing a major role in the
settlement of peace with France some years before. Similarly, in part three, ``A
voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan'', the
episode of the Lindalinian rebellion is an allegory of the successful Irish
resistance to the poor quality of a new coinage of copper half-pence (1722-1725).
This paper revisits Gulliver's Travels from the perspective of economic
philosophy. The motivation is twofold. First, economists may have something
to learn from Swift's high-sounding digressions on justice, imperialism, morals,
and politics. Second, economic analysis and philosophy may provide useful
tools for a better understanding of these digressions. With this objective in
mind, I build heavily on the works of Silveira (1991, 1992) and take advantage
of several concepts from the philosophy of science, e.g. the role of rhetoric,
scientism, indetermination of Senior and Ricardian vice, dialectic and
aritmomorphism.
Gulliver's Travels
As already noted, Gulliver's Travels is above all the ultimate political writing of
Swift, and so it abounds in sarcasm. Therefore, before investigating the
philosophy of Gulliver's Travels in more detail, it is interesting to discuss
briefly some provocative issues tackled by Swift. Hence, in the following, I offer
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some comments on his critique of lawyers and politicians, and his brilliant
description of the colonisation process.
Attacks on the rhetoric and hypocrisy of lawyers are recurrent in both
classic and modern literature. In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (1861), it
is almost comical how the fierce lawyer Jaggers and his clerk Wemmick are
extremely concerned with stating things in the least possible incriminating
way. Dickens uses Jaggers to indicate in a subtle way that, although highly
praised by lawyers, the production of truth by contest of liars is more likely to
bring about dizziness than knowledge. Similarly, in Ben Jonson's Volpone
(1607), Mosca ironically praises the lawyer Voltore for his proficiency in
advocating any case and in standing for opposite positions. Note that Voltore is
the old Italian word for vulture, and the main characters of Volpone were
named after animals in accordance with their personalities.
Swift's assault upon lawyers was also aimed at the rhetoric of the profession.
Gulliver's Travels describes lawyers as individuals that are trained in the art of
providing words for supporting and justifying any statement (or situation)
according to the interest of their clients. In fact, the appreciation of Swift and
Jonson seems close to Plato's view that rhetoric is mainly bad. Plato despised
the amoral lawyers' world in which, for every statement, there is a plausible
counter-argument by which a lawyer can hope to improve his case. This gift of
producing opposing arguments is known as `` invention'' in the lexicon of
rhetoric, and it is exactly this component of rhetoric that troubles people in
general.
First, my lawyer, being practiced almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out
of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which as an office unnatural, he
always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. [. . .] The first [way to win a
case] is to gain over my adversary's lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client
by insinuating that he hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my
cause appear as unjust as he can, [. . .] and this if it skilfully done will certainly bespeak the
favour of the Bench (pp. 295-6)[3].
In turn, modern economic theory says that ``advocacy'' may be a desirable
feature (Milgrom and Roberts, 1986). The economic approach relies on the
notion that ``truth'' is an empty word, and a legal dispute is a contest between
two parties who attempt to illustrate that their version of the fact is the most
likely. The result follows then from the fact that, under asymmetric
information, the incentive structure of the agents (judge and lawyers) is such
that the adversarial procedure may be superior to the inquisitorial in
arbitration (Shin, 1998; Dewatripont and Tirole, 1999). The normative
conclusion that entails from economic theory seems quite robust if one
considers that, as pointed out by Aristotle, rhetoric is more than just
``invention''. It is an art of practical reasoning concerned with inter-disciplinary
premises such as ethics, politics and psychology. The rhetoric speech leans on
an ethical appeal to gain the sympathy and receptiveness of the audience, and a
plausible argument to convince the audience. Aristotle also stressed the role
played by enthymeme (relying on an unstated premise that is considered a
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matter of common knowledge) in the rhetoric line of reasoning[4]. In rhetoric, Examination of
both the appeal to argument and to empirical evidence are more informal than Gulliver's Travels
in logic. Accordingly, Silveira (1991, 1992) suggests interpreting rhetoric as the
natural language for the art of science, i.e. the less abstract sphere of science
that is intimately concerned with the reality.
The attack on the corrupted behaviour of politicians is in the same tone.
95
Swift's venom is explicitly directed to politicians when Gulliver describes the
``ingenious'' propositions of a political scientist at the Academy of Lagado.
After discussing the need for monitoring the mental health of politicians and
the way to prevent politicians from forgetting their promises, the same
professor proposes the following mechanism for ``the great council of a nation'':
He likewise directed, that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered
his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote directly
contrary; because if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the
public (p. 234).
Corruption and the hypocrisy of politicians are mentioned once again when
Gulliver is discussing with his master Houyhnhnm about the nature of
government and the character of the minister of state. Swift's description of the
chief minister is clearly a poised allusion to Sir Robert Walpole's great ability in
parliamentary tactics and political intrigues:
[The chief minister of state] applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind;
that he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with
a design that you should take it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs
are in the surest way to preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others or to
yourself, you are from that day forlorn (p. 302).
Perhaps, Swift's most impressive account relates to the cruel process of
colonisation. The lucidity of his account is awesome. A crew of pirates is driven
by chance to some unknown coast, where they land to maraud and sack. Given
the harmless nature of the natives, they name the country, take formal
possession of it for the king, and erect a sort of memorial to mark their
discovery. With the king's pardon in their minds, the pirates force some natives
to come along with them as a sample when returning home. Evidently, this
process can be bloody and can result in dozens of murdered natives.
Nonetheless, the incorporation of this new dominion to the kingdom is seen as a
matter of divine right. Then, ships are sent to subdue and enslave the natives,
and collect their gold. Most ironically, all acts of inhumanity are committed
under the presumption of converting and civilising the ``barbarous'' natives.
However, after rebuking the imperialism, Swift ironically exempts England of
perpetrating these atrocities:
But this description, I confess, doth by no means affect the British nation, who may be an
example to the whole world for their wisdom, care, and justice in planting colonies; their
liberal endowments for the advancement of religion and learning; their choice of devout and
able pastors to propagate Christianity; their caution in stocking their provinces with people of
sober lives and conversations from this the mother kingdom; their strict regard to the
distribution of justice, in supplying the civil administration through all their Colonies with
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officers of the greatest abilities, utter strangers to corruption; and to crown all, by sending the
most vigilant and virtuous Governors, who have no other views than the happiness of the
people over whom they preside, and the honour of the King their master (p. 344).
A voyage to Lilliput
At first sight, part one of Gulliver's Travels seems to be a fairy tale about a
giant dwelling with midgets. However, it contains clear innuendoes about the
politics of the reign of Queen Anne, such as the feud between England and
France. Furthermore, a flavour of Swift's ideal model of justice is hinted at
when Gulliver describes the laws and customs of Lilliput (Orwell, 1946).
Gulliver's Travels is neither the first nor the last literary work to discuss and
stigmatise the legal system. In fact, Posner (1988) examines the legal contents
in other classics such as William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1600),
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (1880), and Franz Kafka's The
Trial (1925). At any rate, the model of justice proposed by Swift seems quite
interesting from the law and economics perspective.
The maxims of the Lilliputian legal system are stringent punishments and
rewards. For instance, if the defendant is proven innocent, there are three
outcomes:
(1) he receives a compensation for the waste of his time and for undergoing
the stress of a trial;
(2) the emperor must do a public proclamation of his innocence to keep
spotless his reputation; and
(3) the accuser is immediately killed.
Capital punishment is also recommended to fraudulent individuals because
honest people are defenseless against fraud, whereas prudence and care suffice
to mitigate the likelihood of thefts. Nonetheless, the Lilliputian justice is equally
disposed to reward and to punish: a citizen can claim, among other privileges, a
financial reward and the status of ``Snilpall'' if he is able to provide enough
evidence that he has been strictly lawful during the last 73 moons.
Note that when an individual is accused of some crime, the conventional
notion of fairness in a trial implies that the defendant is considered innocent
until proven otherwise. Nonetheless, the burden of proof is inverted when a
citizen claims the title of ``Snilpall'' for he is assumed guilty until proven
otherwise. A shift in the burden of proof from plaintiff (in this case, the state) to
defendant (the citizen claiming the status) presumably increases the likelihood
of denying the reward to a lawful citizen, but decreases the probability of
rewarding unlawful citizens.
The economic approach to dispute resolution says that if the objective is to
maximise the social value of the trial process, it is often better to place the
burden of evidence production on the party with the higher cost of providing
evidence (Sobel, 1989). Thus, if that party has a relatively weak claim, it will
not present a case. Conversely, if it has a relatively strong claim, the
presentation can be worthwhile, despite the high cost of evidence production. In
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addition, a financial reward is at stake, so that shifting the burden of proof from Examination of
the state to the citizen helps in minimising public costs. Under these Gulliver's Travels
circumstances, the Lilliputian justice system is quite plausible in the efficiency
standard of law and economics.
Such reasoning depends, of course, on interpreting Swift's proposal of
capital punishment for plaintiffs who are proven to be wrong at trial as a
97
rhetoric device. Because death is usually seen as infinite disutility, it is evident
that there will be no claim assertions if individuals are minimally uncertain
about the trial outcome. To appreciate this in terms of modern economics, it
suffices to write down the incentive vs participation constraints of potential
plaintiffs. It is more plausible then to consider another sort of stringent penalty
instead of capital punishment. In the British legal system, for instance, the
party that loses at trial is responsible not only for its own costs, but also for the
costs of the winner party.
There is a non-economic explanation for rebuffing the Lilliputian system of
justice, though. One may argue that switching the burden of proof disregards
the fundamental notion of equal procedural fairness. Thus the Lilliputian
justice is intrinsically inconsistent from this perspective. Of course, such
argument takes both moral and ethical issues into account, hence it is not
surprising that it escapes the pure theoretical underpinning of law and
economics.
A voyage to Brobdingnag and Laputa
Part two of Gulliver's Travels, ``A voyage to Brobdingnag'', reverses the
situation presented in part one, where Gulliver was 12 times the size of a
Lilliputian. The Brobdingnagians are giants who are exactly 12 times bigger
than Gulliver. The change of perspective is precise and mathematically
performed by Swift to strip European pride, arrogance, and imposture.
Gulliver, the mighty ``mountain-man'' of Lilliput, is reduced to a cute and fragile
toy in Brobdingnag.
Swift seems to propose Brobdingnag as an ideal state due to its wise maxims
in morality and government. The kind-hearted Brobdingnagians are still
subject to err, but they appear less inclined to corruption and other acts of evil.
Swift's views concerning an ideal state become clear when the king of
Brobdingnag confines the art of governing to common sense and reason, to
justice and tolerance, and to the prompt resolution of civil and criminal causes.
Furthermore, Swift ironically discloses the ignorance of Gulliver who criticises
the king's opinion by saying that the king is unable to reduce politics to an
exact science. It shows clearly Swift's concern with the tendency of some
political scientists to apply indiscriminately methods from other sciences, that
is, to commit a scientism (Hayek, 1952, 1975).
The interaction among different fields and sciences does not represent a
problem. On the contrary, it is even recommendable. Economics, for instance,
deals with several issues that should be analysed using tools from other social
sciences, psychology, statistics, and mathematics. Hayek's (1952, 1975) critique
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only applies to cases in which methods from other sciences are borrowed
without proper consideration. As noted by Schumpeter (1954, p. 17), ``there
cannot be the slightest doubt that Hayek is right ± and so were all who in the
nineteenth century preceded him in uttering protests similar to his ± in holding
that the borrowing by economists of any method on the sole ground that it has
been successful somewhere else is inadmissible''. In view of part three of
Gulliver's Travels ``A voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg
and Japan'', it seems more accurate to assert that protests against scientism in
social sciences date back to the eighteenth century.
But what I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong disposition
I observed in them [the Laputians] towards news and politics, perpetually enquiring into
public affairs, giving their judgements in matter of state, and passionately disputing every
inch of a party opinion. I have indeed observed the same disposition among most of the
mathematicians I have known in Europe, although I could never discover the least analogy
between the two sciences; unless those people suppose, that because the smallest circle hath
as many degrees as the largest, therefore the regulation and management of the world require
no more abilities than the handling and turning of a globe. But, I rather take this quality to
spring from a very common infirmity of human nature, inclining us to be more curious and
conceited in matters where we have least concern, and for which we are least adapted either
by study or nature (p. 206).
Laputa and the grand Academy of Lagado turn out to be havens for
scientism[5]. Through the description of weird methods and inventions, Swift
recriminates the tendency of scientists to commit scientism. For instance, there
is an engine at the Academy of Lagado that permits the most ignorant person
to write books on philosophy, poetry, mathematics, and politics. The purpose of
this passage is twofold. First, it serves to ridicule the works studying the
mathematics of poetry and music which were starting to appear at that time.
Second, together with the description of the projects regarding ``plots and
conspiracies'', it asserts that one of the aims of totalitarianism is not merely to
make sure people will think the right thoughts, but actually to make them less
conscious (Orwell, 1946).
The Brobdingnagians cannot be accused of scientism for a simple reason.
They are focused on the direct application of science, the improvement of
agricultural productivity and mechanical arts. There is no concern with
philosophy and abstract concepts that do not have direct usefulness in life.
Accordingly, the likelihood of being trapped in the snare of scientism is
mitigated. In contrast, pure theory is what troubles the Laputians. Despite their
excellence in pure theory, they are completely unable to understand less
abstract concepts and subjects like agriculture, law, and politics. Swift was
definitely sceptical about the usefulness of pure science and in favour of a more
pragmatic view of science. Orwell (1946) emphasises indeed that there is no
sign whatsoever in Gulliver's Travels that Swift may consider pure science as a
worthwhile activity, though he proclaims on a number of occasions the
uselessness of all learning not directed towards some practical end.
The fact that Swift gave more importance to applied than pure science is a
common fallacy. The division of tasks in science is not clear sometimes. In
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physics, for example, there are three quite distinct characters: the physicist, the Examination of
applied physicist, and the engineer. The first works in the most abstract realm Gulliver's Travels
of physics. Concepts like perfect gas and vacuum are far beyond our reality.
Applied physicists and engineering scientists, in turn, are more likely to
develop models that can be actually implemented in the real world.
Nonetheless, theoretical physics is crucial for their work, which is typically
99
based on the generalisation of some abstract theory in order to capture more
realistic phenomena. Finally, the engineer works in the art of science, where a
more interdisciplinary approach is required. It is true that the development of
machines, products, and processes does rely on physical arguments, but other
aspects, such as efficiency and costs, are also essential. The existence of
different, though interdependent, levels of abstraction implied by the division
of scientific work is known in economic philosophy as the indetermination of
Senior (Silveira, 1991, 1992). Ignoring this indetermination, e.g. drawing
practical conclusions from abstract generalisations, constitutes a Ricardian
vice according to Schumpeter (1954, pp. 473, 541).
Schumpeter praises the efforts of economists such as Senior and Mill, who
were constantly calling attention to the fact that economic policy issues involve
a series of non-economic elements and hence practical considerations must not
be drawn from purely economic reasoning. Silveira (1991, 1992) extends
Schumpeter's argument and stratifies economics in three spheres according to
the degree of abstraction: pure, social and art of economics. The pure economist
deals with abstract positive models that aim at understanding, rather than
providing pieces of advice. Theory is in a hypothetical-deductive form and has
a clear commitment to Occam's razor: logical consistency and fertility, multiple
connection, simplicity and elegance. Social economists, in turn, focus not only
on the know-why but also on the know-how. Theory is now normative and
articulated in a directly applicable form by intertwining all sort of noneconomic elements. Finally, the art of economics practiced by professional
economists advocates solutions ``on the basis of a careful analysis of fact as
they are, and, so far as possible, in the light of comparisons with the industrial
laws and habits of other peoples and other times'' (Wagner, 1886, p. 127).
The motivation underlying the indetermination of Senior is also in
Marshall's (1870) ``On the method and history of economics'' edited by
Groenewegen (1990). Marshall treats political economy, i.e. pure economics, as
a deductive and purely abstract science which takes certain arbitrary
assumptions to deduce laws of value. As so, it is as valuable to the
understanding of social philosophy, i.e. social economics, as other branches of
social sciences. Further, Marshall recognises the fact that, though pure and
social economics have different targets and levels of abstraction, they are quite
interdependent. In his own words, ``Political economy will answer scarcely any
social question but scarcely any social question can receive answers
independent of political economy'' (p. xiv). Nonetheless, Wagner (1891) accuses
Marshall of succumbing to the Ricardian vice for analysing the institution of
property without taking historical elements into account.
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From this perspective, it seems that Swift was not aware of the
indetermination of Senior when defending a more pragmatic approach to
science. It is true that, in Swift's time, science had done little to improve life and
some of its contributions were quite deadly. On the one hand, medicine was
useless against disease and doctors were as likely to shorten life as to prolong
it. On the other hand, gunpowder was the prime example of science's
achievements. However, Gulliver's Travels goes too far in warning about
putting too much faith in science. Had Swift embraced the optimism of the
enlightenment, he might have focused more on what pure science could become
and thus escaped the pitfalls of the Ricardian vice.
A voyage to Houyhnhnmland
Part four of Gulliver's Travels is so lacerating in its corrective satire on human
nature that it was considered immoral, misanthropic, and oppressive. In this
remote nation visited by Captain Gulliver, the Houyhnhnms are horses
provided with the gift of reason, while the Yahoos are abominable and filthy
men disprovided of rationality and dominated by a degenerate and brutal
nature. The Houyhnhnms ± ``the perfection of nature'' in their own etymology ±
represent everything of right and good, in contrast to the Yahoos that, due to
their disposition to mischief, stand for all wrongness and evilness.
By what I could discover, the Yahoos appear to be the most unteachable of all animals, their
capacities never reaching higher than to draw or carry burthens. Yet I am of opinion this
defect ariseth chiefly from a perverse, restive disposition. For they are cunning, malicious,
treacherous and revengeful. They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and by
consequence insolent, abject, and cruel (pp. 313-14).
Although reason utterly governs the way of the Houyhnhnms, the absence of
self-interest prevents a Machiavellian behaviour. Power, war, evil, falsehood,
jealousy, greed, avarice, bribery, forgery, prostitution, robbery, and
punishment are therefore unknown to the Houyhnhnms. By the same token, the
Houyhnhnms cannot understand concepts like love, fondness, and courtship.
When Gulliver admits that all these concepts belong to his homeland, his
master Houyhnhnm reacts with extreme grief. The Yahoos cannot be blamed
for their odious habits, because they lack reason. However, when a creature
pretending to be rational is capable of committing such atrocities, ``the
corruption of faculty might be worse than brutality itself'' (p. 295).
This last statement seems almost a reply to Bernard Mandeville's (1732) The
Fable of the Bees, which attempts to demonstrate how private vices may lead to
public benefits[6]. Mandeville's model of man (or bee!) is presumably based on
the empirical observation that all men use reason to satisfy their passions, so
that it resembles by a long chalk the homo úconomicus (Lallement, 1993). He
argues then that, as long as free trade holds, the pursuit of individual interests
can be manipulated in order to engender economic and social progress. The
economic alchemy is in turning vice (self-interest) into virtue (social welfare).
The Houyhnhnms' opinion was clearly not in concert with Mandeville's: if the
Yahoos were granted the power of reasoning, they would be even more
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monstrous. Notwithstanding, the fourth part of Gulliver's Travels seems to Examination of
accord with Mandeville's masterpiece in recognising the major role played by Gulliver's Travels
the working classes in society. The latter points out that economic prosperity
comes at the expense of poverty. Indeed, Mandeville argues that the needs of
the working class must be partially alleviated, though never cured, otherwise
no one would work to sustain the vices of the wealthier class. By the same
101
token, the Houyhnhnms' society is rooted in the servitude of the Yahoos, who
do all the dirty work for the ruling Houyhnhnms.
In the ambit of literary criticism, there are basically two approaches to read
the dichotomy implicit in the description of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos
(Clifford, 1974). The hard school argues that the Houyhnhnms correspond to
Swift's norm of conduct, which is possibly unattainable. The soft school deems
that the Houyhnhnms serve a largely ironic function and Swift does not
indicate any absolute standard for conduct. Therefore, the ending directs
laughter at both Gulliver and the reader. Wedel (1926) and Case (1945) explore
the interpretation that Yahoos and Houyhnhnms represent two extremes
between which human behaviour may range, to reason that Swift's attack is on
the philosophic optimists of that time, with their unrealistic faith in progress
and reason. Similarly, Ross (1941) and Stone (1949) claim that Swift's target is
Gulliver himself for his stupid attacks on human weaknesses, which accords
with the arguments recently supplied by misanthropology (Morson, 1996).
Orwell (1946) argues that Swift is not actually inventing worlds, he is merely
leaving some aspects of the real world and human behaviour out. To appreciate
how this reductionism takes place, it is convenient to identify the model of man
corresponding to the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos. The Houyhnhnms are the
ultimate moral beings and their actions are always dictated by reason and
common sense. Conversely, the Yahoos are the ultimate amoral beings, since
they do not possess any rudiment of reason to be immoral, and their actions are
clearly governed by instinct. But, both reason and instinct are two traits
belonging to man, thus the characterisation of Houyhnhnms and Yahoos stems
from a reductionism comparable to the one implied by other models of man
used in economic theory, e.g the homo úconomicus and the homo sociologicus
(Simon, 1957; Brunner and Meckling, 1970). The homo sociologicus does not
take decisions, she is just an actor following the stream. Her actions are then
completely determined by the environment. The Marxist school, for instance,
typically assumes this sort of behaviour. The homo úconomicus, on the other
hand, rationally decides on his actions with the objective of maximising his
own interests. It is exactly this rational and self-interested behaviour that
usually characterises individuals in economic theory.
The reductionism is evident afresh when Lemuel Gulliver recognises his
countrymen and family as monstrous Yahoos, and so demonstrates antipathy
towards mankind. The crew from the Portuguese ship that ``rescues'' Gulliver,
after his forced departure from Houyhnhnmland, is extremely generous and
gentle with him. Even under these circumstances, Gulliver reacts with horror
and disgust. Swift is using an extreme situation to show that living with the
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Houyhnhnms has biased Lemuel Gulliver so much that he cannot recognise the
good qualities of mankind for he can only see a Yahoo when looking at a man.
It is like an economist who thinks that every action is motivated by self-interest
and rationally taken. Finally, as noted by Bloom (1986, p. 6), ``Swift rather
dubiously seems to want it every which way at once, so that the Yahoos both
are and are not representations of ourselves, and the Houyhnhnms are and are
not wholly admirable or ideal''.
Swift's resentment with respect to the world reality was interpreted by
Aldous Huxley as a consequence of his incurable sentimentalism and
romanticism. Huxley's interpretation is consistent with his own critics on Brave
New World: two extremes are shown, the tribal life and the artificial life of a
world governed by science, though the ideal convex combination of them is
missing. Gulliver's Travels also shows two moral extremes, the Houyhnhnms
and the Yahoos, though it can be argued that Gulliver, the Lilliputians, and the
Brobdingnagians stand half-away between them. Similarly, there is an absence
of dialectics in Houyhnhnmland: actions are rational or irrational, right or
wrong, good or evil. For the Houyhnhnms, what is black from one perspective,
cannot be white from another. Reason is absolute in the sense that there is no
way to argue with plausibility on both sides of a question given the same set of
information; there is no such thing as opinion. Their statements are always
within certitude because reason does not give margin to conjectures. Thereby,
controversies and disputes have no place in Houyhnhnmland. It is an
aritmomorphic world in Georgescu-Roegen's (1967, 1979) sense: something is
either zero or one.
It is interesting to note that the situation is exactly the opposite in Virgil
Gheorghiu's La Vingt-CinquieÁme Heure (1949). For instance, the peasant Moritz
is aware that men are never completely good or evil; they are always good and
evil at the same time. The non-contradiction principle of logic is not valid for
the concepts of goodness and evilness. The same holds for several other
concepts like passion, love, justice, democracy, and freedom. A dialectic
dimension is exactly what they have in common; there is a blur in the frontier
between what is zero and what is one. The aritmomorphism of the
Houyhnhnms prevents them from grasping that a dispute can be good and can
even give satisfaction to the disputing parties. It is not surprising that passion
and love are concepts completely strange to them. From this perspective, it
seems evident that the ideal world imagined by Swift is far away from
Houyhnhnmland. Mankind is not perfect, we are corrupted by our emotions
and interests, so that the perfect moral country of the Houyhnhnms would
suffocate us in a similar way that the civilisation smothers Savage in Brave
New World.
Concluding remarks
Despite the comics and cartoons based on it, Gulliver's Travels was not planned
to be a children's book. Although each sentence seems completely
comprehensible, the whole subject is immensely deep and complex. The great
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entertainment proposed by the book depends substantially on Jonathan Swift's Examination of
wit, sarcasm, and irony. Gulliver's Travels not only abounds in political satire, Gulliver's Travels
but also stands for Swift's treatise on morality, human nature and art of
government.
The tools of economic analysis and philosophy provide some interesting
perspective to Swift's viewpoints. First, Swift precedes to some extent Hayek's
103
critique by denouncing the habit of uncritical copying of the method of exact
sciences. Despite his awareness with respect to the dangers of scientism,
Swift's attitude towards science uncovers his addiction to the Ricardian vice.
Swift openly rejected the allocation of time and effort to pure sciences with no
direct applicability. He could not understand that, as Marshall would probably
put it, ``Pure science will answer scarcely any less abstract issue, such as those
which permeate applied sciences, but scarcely any less abstract issue can
receive answers independent of pure science''.
By the same token, economists generally neglect methodological issues and
may learn from reading the accounts of Captain Lemuel Gulliver. The passages
in which such issues are tackled pinpoint the pitfalls of some common practices
in modern economics, such as scientism and ignoring the indetermination of
Senior. One may argue that modern economics would fit well in Laputa for the
recurrent scientism and its bias towards pure economics. Indeed, modern
economics often adopts the Houyhnhnms' absoluteness of reason in detriment to
the broader approach of social economics, which demands an inter-disciplinary
approach possibly rooted in dialogic ± quantum logic in Heisenberg's (1963)
notation. Of course, social economics may also benefit from evolutionary and
experimental models that incorporate bounded rationality (Simon, 1985),
Knightian uncertainty (Dow and Werlang, 1994), imitation and tradition
(Conlisk, 1980), inequity aversion (Fehr and Schmidt, 1998), self-organisation
(Lesourne, 1993), and creation of novelty (Georgescu-Roegen, 1967).
Finally, it is also interesting how some episodes of Gulliver's Travels can be
even seen as ``allusions'' to events that only occurred after its first publication. For
instance, the Lilliputian king's decision of retaining Gulliver is, to some extent,
comparable to the outrageous strain endured by the Soviets to produce an atomic
bomb in the Cold War. Despite the extreme costs implied by his permanence,
Gulliver represented an enormous power to the kingdom, in particular, because of
the war against Blefescu. In order to have the ultimate weapon to subdue
Blefescu, the king decides to incur the costs of supporting Gulliver. During the
Cold War, in order to keep a destructive power comparable to the USA, the Soviet
Union channelled its resources to build an atomic bomb. This militaristic policy
had extreme consequences for the population, such as the lack of consumption
goods and even famine. Just to conclude with another prophecy, I quote the words
of Michael Foot in his introduction to Gulliver's Travels:
If the story of the king and his ingenious scientists, who invented an all-conquering
contraption which could only be used at the price of blasting all Laputa to kingdom come, is
not a prophecy of the H-bomb, I will eat my academic hat and surrender my literary critic's
cloak altogether (p. 29).
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Notes
1. The plain and simple style of Swift evidently contributed to this classification, but it can
hide only partially the furious and scornful assault upon state tyranny, human nature and
behaviour, lawyers, and scientists.
2. The situation is quite analogous to the one described in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
(1932), where there is always something missing to the passionates Bernard Marx,
Helmholtz Watson and Savage. Note that Houyhnhnmland is utopic in a moral sense,
whereas Utopia is more a matter of efficiency in Huxley's picture of the future. However,
both worlds have something in common: there is no place for passion.
3. The pages refer to the Penguin Classics edition by Peter Dixon and John Chalker (1985),
which includes an introduction by Michael Foot (1967).
4. The use of enthymeme and examples are the rhetorical counterparts of logic syllogism and
induction, respectively (Posner, 1988).
5. Laputa is the floating island where the supreme king of Balnibarbi resides. Actually, the
royal family cannot leave this island in a clear reference to the Act of Settlement (1701).
Lagado is, in turn, the capital of Balnibarbi.
6. I thank an anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this particular issue.
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