{"id":67861,"date":"2024-05-05T10:25:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T15:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67861"},"modified":"2024-05-05T10:25:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T15:25:30","slug":"the-homo-economicus-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67861","title":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Homo Economicus\u00a0Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Homo Economicus<\/em>\u00a0Myth<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Among the larger albatrosses burdening the economics profession is the idea of\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>. To this day, most economics undergraduates hear about it in the context of neoclassical economics.\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>, we are told, is the ideal economic man who always seeks to maximize profits and minimize costs. He only acts \u201crationally,\u201d and rationalism is defined as, well, always seeking to maximize profits and minimize costs. Even worse, \u201cprofit\u201d is often assumed to mean \u201cmonetary profit\u201d measurable only in dollars (or some other currency).<\/p>\n

Yes, many economists will say, \u201cIt\u2019s just a model,\u201d and note there are many caveats that come with its use. These protestations are often less than convincing given the use of models based on \u201crational\u201d behavior. But, for now, let\u2019s just take the economists at their word. Even if what the defenders of\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>\u00a0say is true, the fact remains that the vast majority of sociologists, political scientists, politicians, and journalists never got that memo. In scholarship and media pieces on public policy, the concept of\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>\u00a0is routinely employed to illustrate the problems with economic theory. What\u2019s worse, anticapitalists\u2014many of whom view neoclassical economics as the primary foundation of laissez-faire thinking\u2014present the shortcomings of\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>\u00a0as an illustration of the foolishness of market economies.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just hard-line leftists who take issue with\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>. Conservatives have also attacked the\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>\u00a0straw man for its inability to provide a \u201cholistic view of humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s not enough to just wave away critics of\u00a0Homo economicus<\/em>\u00a0as a bunch of people who don\u2019t understand the sophisticated ways of professional economists. The theory\u2019s shortcomings remain a real-world problem.<\/p>\n

Homo economicus Is Not Foundational to Sound Economics<\/strong><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Homo Economicus\u00a0Myth Among the larger albatrosses burdening the economics profession is the idea of\u00a0Homo economicus. To this day, most economics undergraduates hear about it in the context of neoclassical economics.\u00a0Homo economicus, we are told, is the ideal economic man who always seeks to maximize profits and minimize costs. He only acts \u201crationally,\u201d and rationalism is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[560,34474,6199,14776,25781],"class_list":["post-67861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-neoclassical-economics","tag-profit-maximisation","tag-rationality","tag-ryan-mcmaken","tag-the-mises-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67862,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67861\/revisions\/67862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}