Talk:Homo economicus/Archive 1

Transendential rationalism
As well as ignoring human emotions, 'rational' economics makes bizarre assumptions about what people know. It is supposed that people on average know how their own best interests are served. How? Real business people find it hard work just to keep track of their own little bit of the economy. (If you look at managerial theory, it also has very little connection with what's taught as 'capitalism'. It is all about human relationships and how to encourage sympathy - tricky, since rather few people are inclined to sympathise with people who are richer and more powerful than they are. When economists say 'rational', they actually mean 'let's leave out the actual imperfections of the world, to allow me to elaborate some fancy maths that might be valid for rat-like people who were also full of transcendential wisdom'. If this produces results that look nothing like the real world, it is hardly surprising. --GwydionM 13:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

John Quidort
Is this true? If so, Quidort should be mentioned here. Sam Spade 23:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Ethics
"Economic man is also amoral, ignoring all social values unless adhering to them gives him utility. Some believe such assumptions about humans are not only empirically inaccurate but unethical."

Can assumptions be "unethical"? An action or ideology, yes, but a mere fact taken for granted? --Lode Runner 07:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Smith
As far as polish wikipedia informs, the one who invented Homo economicus concept was Adam Smith. Why is he not mentioned in english version of that concept? cheers, Piotr

It's likely that Smith would have hated the concept of Homo economicus. See the essay "Inside Economic Man" by Paul Albanese in Morris Altman's "Handbook of Contemporary Behavioral Economics". Albanese quotes Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments -- original version written before Wealth of Nations, but the final revision was after WoN -- that man has a natural symphathy for his fellow man. Albanese concludes "This passage (quoted above) should leave no doubt that Adam Smith never intended that the individual pursue his or her self-interest selfishly. We can leave behind forevermore the misconception of Economic Man as selfish." Ericbalkan (talk) 00:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ayn Rand
"Although not typically used this way, Homo economicus could probably also be used, with some degree of felicity, to critique the characters of Ayn Rand."

What the hell? A non-sequitur dig at Ayn Rand has no place in the Wikipedia. If you want to make a criticism, go ahead. What this looks like to me is a massive NPOV violation where someone read the article, drew a connection with their own flawed understanding of Rand, and decided to comment on it. Philwelch 16:24, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Presentation issues

By now, WP contains an impressive wealth of information on the controversy surrounding the model. I am afraid the criticisms and responses sections are somewhat confusing, though -- quite a few paragraphs may belong to the other section, or to both. I am wondering if, instead of splitting criticisms/responses, we could split by issue (e.g. empirical studies / sociology / intrinsic motivation / self-fulfilling prophecy / ...) and discuss the pros and cons per issue. Comments? Rl 14:27, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The mention of Ayn Rand is a valid topic, as Rand is well-known for popularizing the rational self-interest concept. John Galt's model society in Atlas Shrugged is an extrapolation of Homo Economicus, with the entire novel -- as well as her other writings -- being an attack on non-rational and non-selfish behavior. Ericbalkan (talk) 00:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Economic Anthropology
Seems to me that if economists see themselves as empirical scientists and not a priori moral philosphers, rather than theorizing about "human nature" in a sort of empty abstract space, they could simply use a comparative approach to different types of social structures. Only features that are being found in all types of societies will qualify as being rooted in human nature; whatever varies over time in history and across different types of social structure can´t be just "natural" but has to be a result of social construction / organization / institutions /habits. Of course, economic anthropologists have provided empirical evidence against homo oeconomicus for decades, but for the most part, economicst haven´t even bothered looking at that evidence.

So I wasn´t really surprised to find a reference to economic anthropology in this article. I added 2 paragraphs to provide that missing argument (which seems a pretty strong and convincing one to me), and would like to ask why economists tend to be so uninformed about economic anthropology. --Thewolf37 02:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

--

If economists see themselves as empiracal scientists they could start making testable predictions. Behavioural economics is no better than String Theory, and if the economists keep burning all academic criticism (see:, no wait, don't.) they are in serious danger of not being taken seriously by the academic community. Nah, I'm kidding, we never took you seriously in the first place. --122.106.251.190 (talk) 00:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The Trap - Documentary by Adam Curtis.
"....studies show that only 2 groups of people in society actually behave in a rational, self interested way (i.e.: like Homo Economicus) in all experimental situations. One is the economists themselves. The other, is psychopaths."  (Around the 58 minute mark). --85.92.186.210 12:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Recent neurological studies -- sorry, no references at this time -- show that in virtually every decision that humans make both the rational and emotional circuits of the brain are involved. Other studies, of people who have suffered damage to the emotional part of their brain, such that only the rational part is active, show them to be largely incapable of making any decision at all. E.g., put two similar pencils in front of them and ask them to write their names, and they'll spend the next 20 minutes deciding which pencil to use. Ericbalkan (talk) 00:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Since Curtis declines to actually say what those studies are, he can be dismissed from encyclopedic discussion. It doesn't help that he's misunderstood what economists are talking about. 188.74.111.222 (talk) 19:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of finding?
Can someone look at the citation of "Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?" (cite number 12). The sentence that cites the article reads: "Although studying economics tends to make graduates slightly less like Homo economicus (e.g. having a lower defection rate in Prisoner's dilemma experiments)[12] this evolution is slower than for students of other disciplines." However, all I saw in the article is that economics students are much less cooperative than others. Nothing about them being more cooperative than non-graduate students. Am I missing something? Fredclaymeyer (talk) 18:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Etymology
It would be great to see an etymology of the term here- when did it appear, in what context, etc. It must post-date Veblen, who is mentioned here as having railed against homo economicus.


 * I looked in the Oxford English Dictionary and I updated the main page accordingly. If you can find the exact place where Veblen used the term, tell the OED and they'd probably be pleased to update their next edition.  --GwydionM 13:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I have traced it back to Pareto (1906) and added the information. seglea 20:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The OED now does have a quote for Homo oeconomicus from 1883. Sdoerr (talk) 19:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Two economic historians, Joseph Persky and Julie Nelson, trace the term back to critics of John Stuart Mill. The English term seems to have predated the Latin form. I added a section on the history of the term. --Mankad 21:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

4th footnote seems to be wrong
I do not own the penguin classics edition, but you can find that quote in the second chapter (not the first) of Wealth of Nations: "Of the Principle which gives occasion the the Division of Labour". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.157.1.171 (talk) 18:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Rants?
Phewee, there's a bit of a rant happening on this page! -	-	:I don't see a lot of ranting. The only part that was NPOV was the following section which I have now replaced. -	 -	::But you can be taught economics formally for more than 5 years without being taught that work. (Try asking for your money back from a neoclassical tutor. Increasingly people drop out of economics after 1 year). See post-autistic economics network to change 1st year Economics at http://www.paecon.net/. The Economics Textbook Industry is also looking for textbooks which are neo-classical dominated only for the first 200 pages of 600. Otherwise Wikipedia Schumpterian Creative destruction will wipe them out! -	 -	:mydogategodshat 21:25, 10 Feb 2004 Christopher Deegan (Master of Economics) has written several statements that were published in journals worldwide. He has stated that in terms of economics as a whole, the public would have the most effect taken out on them -	-	-	::That's exactly the bit of a rant to which I was referring. Much improved, thanks. Psb777 23:01, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC) -	-	:The article is still a rant, completely ignores NPOV, and was probably written by some pathetic sociology student so wrapped in his moral norms that he finds it offensive to suggest a model of rational behaviour not constrained by normative behaviour. -- 10:58, 20 October 2005

Accidentally removed this while updating, sorry. Now restored, I hope. --GwydionM 14:05, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Homo economicus is a latin term for economic human or economic man. brogan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.98.50.129 (talk) 00:15, 25 March 2015 (UTC)