Human Become Coin: Neoliberalism, Anthropology, and Human Possibilities in No Country for Old Men

Abstract

No Country for Old Men figures the convergence of economics and human nature as the emergence of a new kind of humanity arising from a shift in economic processes. Key to this shift is the conviction that market logic governs human nature, social decision-making, and reality itself. We show how No Country For Old Men details the anthropology of neoliberalism both in the character of Chigurh and in its framing of the characters and narrative of the novel as a whole. In doing so, we unify for the first time two dominant themes in McCarthy scholarship: human nature and economics.