“Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich” by Leacock Essay

Introduction

The book entitled “Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich” that was authored by Stephen Leacock and published in 1914 is classified as one of the fictitious works that integrate funny articulations compiled by the author regarding the aspects of finance and wealth in the society. The short story that is found in the second chapter of the book describes a significant flowering of the seeds of individualism and corrupt materialism that occur in Plutoria Avenue in a large city in the US. The inhabitation of plutocrats in Plutoria Avenue with the focal objective of attaining wealth and power through unrestricted capitalistic approaches resulted in the deterioration of the city’s social, educational, religious, and political structures. In the short story, Leacock exposes the greed of the capitalists in a manner that reveals their greed, pride, and hypocrisy through humor and satire. In this light, this paper aims at analyzing Leacock’s assumptions regarding the book’s production period before assessing the nature of money as depicted by the chronicle. Further, this paper would evaluate the political and moral insinuations of the arguments put forward by the author.

The production period

Leacock’s work was published in 1914, a period that heightened his success in writing fictitious works. The author assumes that during the period, the low-class subdivision of the society was illiterate on financial matters, by considering financial issues as “unfathomable”. In this light, the newspaper reviews about the Wizard of Finance, Mr. Tomlinson, covered the different financial aspects that make the greedy to continue accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor. Therefore, Leacock’s context of the period assumed that a revolution was inevitable for the low class to liberate itself from social, political, and economic inequalities.

Further, the author applies humor and a satirical approach to the issue of capitalistic inequalities that adversely affected the city’s religious and political institutions. The satire used by the author purposes to expose the moral decay triggering the negative alteration concerning the functionality of the government and religion as induced by individualism and exploitative materialism. Thus, Leacock employs humor to depict how the upper class accumulated wealth through unethical procedures in the early 1990s by reflecting on the outcomes concerning political and religious values.

Leacock perceives the society of that period as a utopian one by incorporating humorous labels that unmask the “Plutonian” attributes. For instance, the greed and individualism of the upper class, considered as the modern people, is manifested by their preference of the “Ourselves Monthly” magazine. Hence, the period through which the story was based on assumes that the emergence of the capitalistic social class accounted for the increased financial frauds and other unethical processes that subjected the poor to adversity.

The nature of money

Throughout the story, Leacock paints money as the definition of success among the people of Plutoria Avenue. Super-rich individuals like Tomlinson sought to accumulate wealth in the easiest way possible, even if it was through corrupt deals to emphasize his definition of personal success. In this light, social mobility in the City was characterized by the accumulation of money through corrupt and exploitative capitalism.

Furthermore, likening money to gold underscores its preciousness in the capitalistic world. The author uses satire to insinuate that Tomlinson’s acquisition of a gold mine would result in the generation of a lump sum amount of money. In this instance, the author refutes investments in the stock markets by buying shares for companies like Erie Auriferous Consolidated would render one a rich mogul. Financial investments denote and characterize money generation in modern society according to Leacock. In this respect, individual materialism is an essential ingredient to financial success as argued by Leacock.

Additionally, the nature of money is associated with power. The press published that Tomlinson rose from a mere farmer to a controller of the trading activities in 17 states. In this case, the authority that the super-rich individuals have in the Plutonian Avenue emanates from financial investments that grant the rich power over the poor. The nature of money implies that those who have it are warranted control over the financially weak.

Land, as a crucial factor of production, constitutes the nature of wealth as described by Leacock. Various parties pointed out that the forest and mines at Lake District and the Lake Superior region respectively accounted for Tomlinson’s fortune. Particularly, owning a farm near Lake Erie implied that one would heighten their chances of getting rich just like Tomlinson. The nature of money as depicted in the fictitious story is tied to materialism, power, land, and the manifestation of an individual’s success.

Political and moral implications of Leacock’s arguments

Leacock’s satire traces its roots to the traditional moralistic beliefs that affect all the sectors of society and most importantly, the political aspect. Since the political feature purposes to formulate policies that regulate the economy, every party is expected to adhere to the stipulations that uphold equality. Conversely, in Plutoria Avenue, the rich accumulated wealth through the manipulation of stock and financial speculation. Consequently, the unfair marketplace breeds unequitable chances of generating wealth leading to significant economic disparities among the citizens. Therefore, the corrupt, exploitative, and individualistic approaches to wealth creation in society reveal the absence of morality.

Politically, the people of Plutoria Avenue converted and joined the Clean Government League to protect their investments in the financial markets. Through rhetoric delusion, the individuals found themselves in a situation whereby they could not identify their hypocrisy concerning their corrupt endeavors. The depiction of graft in the political system penetrated in diverse agencies of the political structures as witnessed among the city councilors belonging to the middle class. Furthermore, the members of the Clean Government League organized celebrations through their social clubs without considering the welfare of the lower-class citizens thereby inhibiting equitable development across the society.

Those are the end lines of Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. Suggesting the correspondence of geographical and financial area that was an unmistakable component of Montreal’s social scene, Leacock communicates through a tone that shows seriousness instead of humor towards the end of the text. The public vividly revealed that it was corrupted and the rich subjected the poor to difficult work to and the individuals, who made due by it, yet valorized the amassing of riches and accepted the prevalence of the affluent. The public delivered unfathomable social imbalances and Leacock denounces the subsequent good debasement with all his aptitude both as a humorist and as a social commentator. Rather than the compassionate, even liberal, diversion of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, what is evident in the text is sincere, outdated satire.