DOI: 10.36344/ccijhss.2020.v06i11.004

Pages: 142-154

This paper deployed poststructuralist theory to investigate Marxist historical materialism as a classical paradigm of the knowledge economy. After a probe into the mechanisms of economic determinism in literary narratives, the paper argued that the historicism of knowledge is essentially marked by skepticism in class conflicts and struggles, with alternative models of social democracy and anarchy. The influence of ideas, culture and geography was shown to be even more critical than the basic infrastructure of the economy or technology. Human consciousness drives the progress of technology and social relations of mankind. The transition to socialism did not take place in developed economies as was anticipated but no nation state has attained the status of a communist paradise because they are based on the inefficient infrastructures of state bureaucracies. Particularly poetry has the power to move people emotionally to take actions in unpredictable ways that are inconsistent with rationalist, economic infrastructures. Thus, literature is not merely an economic tool of propaganda for the ruling elites, but it can construct a powerful counter hegemonic order of its own. New issues like rights of people is more critical than the economic model of a nation state. Questions of efficiency and unfalsifiability in the literary narrative can play into the profitability metanarrative of capitalism.