ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

I am planning on making an economic profile of Auric Goldfinger.

Goldfinger represents the gold standard where currency is backed and can be freely converted into gold. It is a system where there is a limited amount of money circulating because it is restricted to the amount of gold in reserve. What is good about a gold standard is that prices will be stable and there is a low chance of inflation. Government would also have less power to inflate prices out of hand.

The weakness of goldfinger or “gold” is that there is only a limited supply of it therefore it becomes hard to keep a gold standard when the population is growing exponentially. Stimulating the economy is very hard when you can only make more money to the rate at which gold is being mined. A gold standard benefits savers and makes life harder for people in debt.

This kind of economy will benefit those who save because they will have an excess of gold to use and can keep increasing their wealth by lending. Those who are in debt will find it hard because they will have to focus their efforts on less spending and paying off their debts.

I plan to use Adam Smith where he talks about the invisible hand and the interaction between the rich and poor. Also I plan to use some excerpts from Marx that include the division of labor or existence.