Works like a Charm

Robert O. McDonald is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Metastatic Logic of the Incentive1. Incentives, Retroactive Causality, and the Rhetorical Unconscious 2. This Is Not a Pipe, or Incentives from Antiquity to Modernity 3. Gary Becker, the Godfather of Incentives 4. "What Does Woman Want?" Equal Pay and "Women's Incentives" 5. Nudge Theory and the Politics of Neurosis 6. Nudging Ourselves to Death Conclusion: Breaking the Spell Notes Works Cited Index

"Well-researched and clearly argued, Works like a Charm is the first book-length humanistic study of economics from a rhetorical and Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective. McDonald deftly negotiates complex vocabularies to present sophisticated concepts in these fields without becoming mired in their various shibboleths. His significant contributions include his focus on the key figure of 'incentives,' a powerful political watchword long overdue for an incisive rhetorical critique." — Calum Lister Matheson, author of Desiring the Bomb: Communication, Psychoanalysis, and the Atomic Age