by From Blair Fix and RWER issue #90 Is it obvious to you that humans are evolved social animals? Is it also obvious that our sociality is central to how we distribute resources? If you think so, you’re probably not an economist. Through years of schooling, mainstream economists are trained to ignore the obvious facts about human nature. The theories that economists learn make it impossible for them to understand human sociality. Economists are trained that humans are asocial “globules of desire”. This is Thorstein Veblen’s satirical term for “homo economicus”, the economic model of man. Here’s Veblen describing homo economicus: “The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator of pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under
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from Blair Fix and RWER issue #90
Is it obvious to you that humans are evolved social animals? Is it also obvious that our sociality is central to how we distribute resources? If you think so, you’re probably not an economist.
Through years of schooling, mainstream economists are trained to ignore the obvious facts about human nature. The theories that economists learn make it impossible for them to understand human sociality. Economists are trained that humans are asocial “globules of desire”. This is Thorstein Veblen’s satirical term for “homo economicus”, the economic model of man. Here’s Veblen describing homo economicus:
“The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator of pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact. He has neither antecedent nor consequent. He is an isolated, definitive human datum, in stable equilibrium except for the buffets of the impinging forces that displace him in one direction or another. Self-poised in elemental space, he spins symmetrically about his own spiritual axis until the parallelogram of forces bears down upon him, whereupon he follows the line of the resultant. When the force of the impact is spent, he comes to rest, a self-contained globule of desire as before” (Veblen, 1898).
As Veblen makes clear, economists’ model of human behavior is bizarre. Indeed, the assumptions are so far-fetched that one wonders how this “theory” ever gained acceptance. I have spent years trying to make sense of homo economicus as a scientific theory. I have concluded that this is a waste of time. Economists’ selfish model of humanity is best treated not as science, but as ideology.
Unlike scientific theories, ideologies are not about the search for “truth”. Instead, they are about rationalizing a certain worldview – usually the worldview of the powerful. Economists’ selfish model of humanity is a textbook example.
The discipline of economics emerged during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. During this period of social upheaval, business owners battled to wrench power from the landed aristocracy. To supplant the aristocracy, business owners needed to frame their power as legitimate (and the power of aristocrats as illegitimate). Their solution was devilishly clever. The new business class appealed to autonomy – the mirror opposite of the ideals of feudalism.
Feudalism was based on ideals of servitude and obligation. Serfs were obligated to perform free work for feudal lords. And these lords, in return, were obligated to protect serfs from outside attackers. This web of obligation was rationalized by religion – it was a natural order ordained by God.
To upend this order, business owners championed the ideals of autonomy and freedom. Business owners claimed to want nothing but to be left alone – to pursue profit unfettered by government or aristocratic power. From this world view, the autonomous model of man was born. It had nothing to do with how humans actually behaved. It was about rationalizing the goals of business owners. They wanted power, but they framed it as the pursuit of freedom and autonomy. “Power in the name of freedom” is how Jonathan Nitzan puts it (in conversation with me).
The ideals of autonomy, championed by business owners, became enshrined in the new discipline of economics.[1] Every individual was modeled as a selfish globule of desire – an aspiring capitalist.
[1] Were economists aware that they were serving the interests of business owners? Some definitely were. Others were probably not. My guess is that progenitors of ideologies are often unaware of what they are doing. Church clergy, for instance, were probably not aware that their faith justified the power of feudal lords. For the clergy, their faith was simply the way the world worked. And so it is with many economists. The world “is” how their theory imagines it. That their ideas justify the power of business owners is not on (most) economists’ radar.