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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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James Madison University

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Economics

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Blade Runner And The Divine Menace, Alexander W. Pickens Apr 2017

Blade Runner And The Divine Menace, Alexander W. Pickens

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

Following the decline of Christianity in mainstream Western culture, a void rose in the moral and societal code. Those writers that emerged presented alternate visions that worked their way into the literature of the 20th century. Karl Marx's interpretation of the structure of labor in capitalism presented a new societal hierarchy whose finer points have been worked out in the complex film Blade Runner. This dystopian nightmare, in which a Marxist interpretation of current society bogged down by the ennui of capitalist accumulation is confronted, describes a new religious order based upon this economic theory. Central to this reimagining …


Holly Martins And The Impartial Spectator: The Economics Of The Third Man, Alexander W. Pickens Mar 2016

Holly Martins And The Impartial Spectator: The Economics Of The Third Man, Alexander W. Pickens

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

The film The Third Man is often critiqued for its portrayal of post-war Vienna and the abusive nature of totalitarian regimes in a nearly-anarchic state. However, this film does something that few other films do: it tackles the primary dilemmas facing economists using a visual medium and featuring some of the debates that have been plaguing economic thinkers for years (what is a just allocation of resources, competition in free markets, what happens when corrupt governments control resource allocation). Ultimately, the film is a unique analysis tension between the costs and benefits of the philosophies of Keynes and F. A. …