America's Obsession with British Class System, Learning Finance from Lit & Pop Culture

America's Obsession with the British Class System Guests: Jamie Horrocks, PhD, Assistant Professor, English, Brigham Young University; Nick Mason, PhD, Professor, English, Brigham Young University; Matt Mason, PhD, Associate Professor, History, Brigham Young University America is fascinated with British society. Not just the royals (though we’re plenty excited about them, with American actress Meghan Markle marrying into House of Windsor). What we’re mostly looking to understand this hour is why so many movies and shows centered on Britain’s class system are popular right now: Victoria, The Crown, Poldark, Downton Abbey.  The costumes are spectacular. The sets are lush. The romance titillating. But the real drama in these shows is almost always rooted in class. The landed gentry and the commoners. The lords and ladies upstairs and the servants down. The forbidden love of an aristocrat and a peasant. The American businessman or heiress considered far too vulgar to get a warm welcome in British high society, but their money sure gets a warm welcome. We’ve assembled a panel of cultural and historical experts to explore why these themes so fascinate us. What Austen, Trollope and The Simpsons Can Teach Us About Finance Guest: Mihir Desai, PhD, Professor, Harvard Business School; Professor, Harvard Law School, Author, “The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return” You don't have to have seen the 1987 film Wall Street to know the famous quote from the show’s villainous corporate raider, Gordon Gecko: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” With Hollywood depictions like that, is it any wonder people think the financial world is morally bankrupt? Harvard Business School finance professor Mihir Desai says even people who work in the field struggle with that perception. But Desai says that’s getting the industry all wrong. His new book, “The Wisdom of Finance” uses examples from history, humanities and Hollywood to show how the underlying principles of finance are not immoral, at all. In fact, they make the world a better place. Click here for more information about the Wisdom of Finance video contest for high school students running now.