Abstract

In Stephen King’s horror novel Needful Things, a stranger comes to town and opens a shop wherein any inhabitant can find exactly the thing s/he desires most, in exchange for playing “pranks” that cause distress to other members of the community, until the whole town is caught in a war of all against all. The paper analyses the novel as a “satire of Reaganomics,” as the author himself happened to describe it. Using insights from economics, economic sociology, and economic anthropology, it aims at demonstrating that the book provides an opportunity to explore the actual and possible evolution of individual behavior in consumer societies, as well as the tensions that such societies engender between ideals of self-realization (via market logics and consumption) and social relationships.

摘要

在斯蒂芬金的恐怖小说《需要的东西》中，一个陌生人来到镇上开了一家商店，任何居民都可以在那里找到他/她最想要的东西，以换取对社区其他成员造成困扰的“恶作剧”，直到整个城镇都陷入了一场所有人反对所有人的战争。该论文将这部小说分析为“对里根经济学的讽刺”，正如作者本人所描述的那样。它利用经济学、经济社会学和经济人类学的见解，旨在证明这本书提供了一个机会来探索消费社会中个人行为的实际和可能的演变，以及这种社会在自我理想之间产生的紧张关系。实现（通过市场逻辑和消费）和社会关系。