Merkantilne legende postindustrijskog društva
Mercantile Legends of Post-Industrial Society Studies by Gary Alan Fine

Author(s): Dragana Antonijević
Subject(s): Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure
Published by: Srpski genealoški centar
Keywords: Gary Alan Fine; mercantile legends; folklore postindustrial society; corporate capitalism;
Summary/Abstract: Gary Alan Fine, American sociologist and folklorist, has devoted considerable attention to the study of the phenomena of folklorization and narrativization of post-industrial societies. Starting from the premise that the entirety of modern societies is a folklore community, Fine studied narratives used to reflect on the structural changes that took place in the second half of the twentieth century and led to the creation of global post-industrial society and its adjacent form, corporate capitalism. He concluded that urban, especially mercantile (or corporate) legends narrate the difficulties and problems people are facing, and that their study can open the path to understanding the complex interrelation between transitional societies. Fine undertook the classification and interpretation of mercantile legends, pointing to the social, economic and psychological context of their creation and transmission. He also offered an interpretive concept he named "Goliath effect", pertaining to the set of ambivalent feelings, destruction of traditional values and, above all, fear, impotence and frustration common people experience when faced with the impenetrability of the phenomena that deeply influence their lives. Fine coined the term "dangerous capitalism" to point to the key topic of rumors and stories which narrate the cultural and psychological effect of power and influence that dominant corporations exert in contemporary world. At the end of this paper, I elaborate on the implications of Fine’s analyses for the future folklore research of similar phenomena in Serbia.

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