Abstract
Robert Heilbroner, in his essay ‘Behind the Veil of Economics’1 takes up a fundamental issue — individual motivation and its relation to economic agency. In particular, he explores the psychological underpinnings of exchange behaviour, seeking to understand both how such behaviour contributes to economic order, and how it may be problematic from the standpoint of the ordinary precepts of self-identity and motivation. If one considers, in general terms, what its subject matter requires of economic theory, this hardly seems an unusual inquiry. In the actual practice of economists, however, it is. For the issue has, for the most part, either been ignored, or sidestepped through a priori assumptions. The value of Heilbroner’s work in this, as in other instances, lies both in his insistence on the existence of a problem for economics, and in his willingness to draw on other disciplines, when the existing resources of economics prove deficient.
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© 1993 Ron Blackwell, Jaspal Chatha and Edward J. Nell
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Urquhart, R. (1993). Adam Smith between Political Economy and Economics. In: Blackwell, R., Chatha, J., Nell, E.J. (eds) Economics as Worldly Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22572-9_8
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