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The Invisible Man and the Invisible Hand: H.G. Wells’s Critique of Capitalism
Sep 17th, 2010 @ 07:30 am › Mises Daily

Wells’s vacillation between socialism and heroic individualism helps explain his conflicted portrayal of the Invisible Man, indeed the basic incoherence of the Invisible Man as a symbol. FULL ARTICLE by Paul Cantor

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  1. Seattle
    32 mos, 2 wks ago

    One can detect a strong element of the socialist equivalent of noblesse oblige in Wells; his concern for the common man is mixed with a good deal of condescension, if not outright contempt. By virtue of his superior intellect and cultivation, Wells thought himself entitled to show Englishmen how they should live, how they should organize their social and economic existence.

    Those who know their limits are healthy.
    Those who do not are sick.
    The Master accepts this sickness as a limitation
    And thus becomes immune.

  2. gene
    32 mos, 1 wk ago

    I am working on an article…………

    “Count Dracula is a radical Marxist”.

    Without divulging the entire storyline, the count and his followers are a fringe Marxist group who attempt to derail Capitalism by sucking the blood out of its elites. They take too long in the planning stage and the fabrication of the CDS and the CDO by the elites themselves does it for them. The story is a bit anticlimatic.

  3. J Cuttance
    32 mos, 1 wk ago

    you’re a sick person…but I like that in a guy

    capitalism took a similarly-fashioned revenge on H G Wells with Tom Cruise’s version of War of the Worlds

  4. Franklin
    32 mos, 1 wk ago

    Excellent scholarship. Sorry to state the obvious, but this article gets a “wow” of the first order.
    Outstanding, thought-provoking, fascinating. I’m a great fan of Wells as an author, though his half-baked socialism was something of an irritant, even during my schoolboy reads. Years later, still enjoyable tales.
    _First Men in the Moon_ is also worth a look, especially considering the “Selenite’s” ant-like collectivism, more paradoxes of individualism and slavery, and his arresting indictment of war.
    And what an ending.

    Silly tangent, by the way, but I do have to say the James Whale / Claude Rains _Invisible Man_ still stands as a well-deserved cinema classic.

  5. Arman
    27 mos, 1 wk ago

    Excellent! A very interesting article recommend to all!