Abstract
Criticism of the concept of economic man probably heads most lists of complaints about economics. Look at the assumptions about this gentleman one after the other and you will certainly find reason to complain about each one. You will find some to be oversimplifications and others to be flat wrong. At the end of the exercise you will be satisfied that you’ve destroyed the poor guy and will then be puzzled by the fact that after a century and more of these exercises he is still standing, even thriving.
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Notes
This section is informed by Scott Freeman’s fine Biological Science (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2005), which develops the structure and function of animals as a group, including humans as a variant member on pp. 933–1141. Michael Johnson’s Human Biology, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson 2012) follows essentially the same format while restricting himself to humans. Elsewhere (p. 788) Freeman makes it succinct: “Humans are … intensely social, bipedal mammals.”
This list is adapted, partly as a result of discussions with students over the years, from Maslow , “A Theory of Human Motivation” Psychological Review 50, no. 4 (1943), 370–96;
William Classer, Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom (New York: Harper Collins, 1999); and Anthony Robbins’s blog.
Host and Genie is adapted from Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
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© 2016 Benjamin Ward
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Ward, B. (2016). Human Natures. In: Dionysian Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137597366_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137597366_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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