Re: People who think that "rational economic man" is sociopathic might find this a bit humorous

[Julio Huato <juliohuato@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walt Byars wrote:

> Of course, the more sophisticated treatments of homo
> economicus basically reduce him/her to an irrefutable
> tautology: people choose to do what they desire to do.

I don't think this criticism is valid.

It would only be a "tautology" if the reasoning ended in the premise
on which it started: some definition of "rationality," the "homo
economicus," etc.  But, if it is a "sophisticated treatment," then it
doesn't end there.  From this premise -- *plus others included to
address particular questions* -- many nontrivial, often unexpected
("counterintuitive") implications may follow.  In principle, this is
not a bad way to advance knowledge, because the implications are not
necessarily evident in the premises.  I'm not defending a specific
application, but much of human knowledge exists in the form of
deductive structures of this kind.  Knowing that "IF people behave
purposefully *and* X happens, THEN Y can be expected to happen as
well" is not necessarily trivial.

The premise that "people choose to do what they desire to do" -- i.e.,
that they're purposeful in their economic actions -- is not a
neoclassical invention.  In mid 19th-century Europe, a revolutionary
critic wrote that "what distinguishes the worst architect from the
best of bees is that the architect raises his structure in imagination
before he erects it in reality."  Purposefulness is a material
attribute of human labor -- and, more generally, of all conscious
activity, in all historical epochs.  It doesn't disappear under
capitalism: it only takes particular, in some cases perverse forms.

So, in principle, deductive structures based on this premise (and,
again, others) are not necessarily useless in understanding social
life.  In practice, if the extra premises are not plausible or well
chosen, the conclusions might be irrelevant, insufficient, or
misleading.  But that doesn't mean we should discard that premise or
deductive reasoning.  It just calls for showing why particular
deductive structures fail -- and for building better ones.

Julio