rational choice theory

Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer
by Duncan J. Watts
Published 28 Mar 2011

Harsanyi (1969, p. 514) and Diermeier (1996) both reference Newton, while the political scientists Donald Green and Ian Shapiro have called rational choice theory “an ever-expanding tent in which to house every plausible proposition advanced by anthropology, sociology, or social psychology” (Green and Shapiro 2005). 8. The “success” or “failure” of rational choice theory, it should be noted, is highly controversial, with rational choice advocates claiming that it is unfair to evaluate rational choice theory as a “theory” in the first place, when really it should be regarded rather more as a family of theories unified only by their emphasis on purposive action as the cause of social outcomes over accident, blind conformity, or habit (Farmer 1992; Kiser and Hechter 1998; Cox 1999). Perhaps this is an accurate statement of what rational choice theory has become (although interestingly some rational choice theorists include even habit within the gambit of rational incentives [Becker and Murphy 2000]), but it’s certainly not what early proponents like Harsanyi intended it to be.

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We also care about upholding social norms and conventions, and frequently punish others who violate them—even when doing so is costly.3 And finally, we often care about intangible benefits, like our reputation, belonging to a group, and “doing the right thing,” sometimes as much as or even more than we care about wealth, comfort, and worldly possessions. Critics of homo economicus have raised all these objections, and many more, over the years. In response, advocates of what is often called rational choice theory have expanded the scope of what is considered rational behavior dramatically to include not just self-interested economic behavior, but also more realistic social and political behavior as well.4 These days, in fact, rational choice theory is not so much a single theory at all as it is a family of theories that make often rather different assumptions depending on the application in question. Nevertheless, all such theories tend to include variations on two fundamental insights—first, that people have preferences for some outcomes over others; and second, that given these preferences they select among the means available to them as best they can to realize the outcomes that they prefer.

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Barely a year after Merton published his critique, in fact, the economist John Harsanyi, who shared the 1994 Nobel memorial Prize in Economics for his work on game theory, proposed that rational choice theory—the theory of human decision making that I discussed in Chapter 2—was ready to provide precisely the kind of general theory that Merton has just concluded was wildly premature. And so another cycle began, with rational choice theorists drawing parallels between their efforts and Newtonian mechanics, while critics increasingly leveled the same complaints against it that the rational choice theorists themselves had made about the previous round of theories like Parsons’s.7 Nor has the growing realization that rational choice theory cannot provide a universal theory of human behavior any more than its predecessors could yet delivered social science from the green-eyed monster of physics envy.8 Quite to the contrary, if the complaint of my physicist colleague is anything to go by, even if sociologists have finally gotten tired of grand theories of everything, there is a whole generation of physicists waiting to step into the breach.9 When you think about the sheer complexity of human behavior, this approach to doing social science seems kind of implausible.

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
by Tim Harford
Published 1 Jan 2008

In fact, I believe that if you do not understand the rational choices that underlie much of our behavior, you cannot understand the world in which we live. Drug addicts and teenage muggers can be rational. Suburban sprawl and inner-city decay are certainly rational. Those endless meetings at the office and the grotesque injustices of working life? Rational. In the hands of economists, “rational choice theory” produces an X-ray image of human life. Like the X-ray, rational choice theory does not show everything. Nor is the picture necessarily very pretty. But it shows you something important, and something that you could not see before. At our destination, my daughter wriggled out of her stroller and scampered off to daub her hands in bright blue poster paint.

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It can help us to strip forbidding layers of complexity from intractable-seeming problems—for instance, inner-city deprivation—and guide us toward possible solutions. If crime rates are high in some areas, then rational choice theory says that crime must pay in those areas: We need to look for a way of raising the cost or lowering the benefit of committing crime. If inner-city teenagers don’t have qualifications, then rational choice theory says that they must believe the benefits of getting the qualifications are outweighed by the costs: We need to work out if they’re right, and see if we can change the incentives for them.

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So to understand the complexities of these interactions, we need a special branch of economics: game theory. In principle, game theory is just a special case of rational choice theory. In practice, game theorists have to be sensitive to small human irrationalities, because they have large effects when people are trying to anticipate and respond to one another’s decisions. Game theorists, then, need to understand both rational behavior and human peculiarities. Far from being fatally undermined by the psychological tics that make us all-too-human, rational choice theory is offering us insights into our inner battles—thanks to the efforts of a new type of economist more comfortable with a brain scanner than with the latest inflation statistics.

Immigration and Ethnic Formation in a Deeply Divided Society: The Case of the 1990s Immigrants From the Former Soviet Union in Israel
by Majid Al Haj
Published 20 Nov 2003

Rose concludes, however, that ethnicization is used mainly for instrumental needs, because “power is still the name of the game” (ibid.: 157). Rational Choice Theory The aforementioned models of ethnic mobilization have also been criticized for their emphasis on the group level and concomitant assumption that individual interests are submerged within that of the group. In his analysis of ethnic modeling and national relations, Banton emphasizes that a better theoretical approach “starts not from any prior conception of the ethnic group or the nation, but from the human individual” (1994: 2). This approach goes hand in hand with “rational choice theory,” which perceives the individual   31 as the main actor, whose actions and allegiances are based on rational calculations.

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Taking these elements into consideration, rational choice theory assumes that the extent of individuals’ ethnic allegiances is the outcome of rational choice, which is based on the calculation of net benefits and expected costs. Therefore, the extent of continuity or change of ethnic allegiances is also the outcome of rational calculations. As Hechter concludes, “the more costly it is for people to choose a traditional course of action to achieve a given benefit, the more likely it is that they will consider an innovative alternative to reach the same end” (1986: 269). Rational choice theory can make an important contribution to understanding ethnic mobilization in contemporary societies, thanks to its emphasis that such mobilization is “individual-centered” rather than “group-centered.”

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Ethnic Mobilization ................................................................ The Reactive Perspective .................................................. The Competitive Model of Ethnic Mobilization ............ Criticism of the Reactive and Competitive Approaches ...................................................................... Rational Choice Theory .................................................... The Role of the State ........................................................ 13 14 17 26 27 29 Chapter Two. Israeli Society: A Background .......................... Immigration and the Construction of Social Boundaries ..........................................................................

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism
by Evgeny Morozov
Published 15 Nov 2013

Shirky, however, doesn’t just generalize; he uses Lohmann’s theory of information cascades to explain the political effects of “the Internet” everywhere: “the Internet” makes for better information signaling; as such, citizens should be expected to rebel more often. One of Shirky’s pithy sayings—that “behavior is motivation that has been filtered through opportunity”—is as good a slogan that the bland theorists of rational-choice theory are ever likely to get. How well does rational-choice theory explain political change? After several decades, the jury is still out, but its promoters have little to boast of. As Donald Green and Ian Shapiro note in their devastating critique of rational-choice theory—which also takes aim at Lohmann’s work—its leading proponents “share a propensity to engage in method-driven research, and . . . this propensity is characteristic of the drive for universalism.”

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See National Endowment for the Arts Nelson, Mark Networks News industry and international news, and technological intervention Newspaper industry Newspapers Newton, Sir Isaac Nietzsche, Friedrich Noise-abatement campaigns Norms adaptation of, and technology revision of, and technological enforcement Nostalgia Noveck, Beth Nuclear age Nudging Numeric imagination Nussbaum, Martha Nutrition, and quantification Nyberg, David Oakeshott, Michael Obama, Barack and open government and the Pirates Obesity Object-recognition technology Occupy Wall Street On-line shopping O’Neill, Onora Online data, longevity of Online learning Online profiling Online/offline divide Open government Open-government data Open Handset Alliance Openness and Google See also Transparency Openness fundamentalism Originality Ortega y Gasset, José Otter, Chris Page, Larry PageRank (Google) Palantir Paparazzi Pariser, Eli Parking system (California) Parks, Rosa Pasteur, Louis Paul, Ron Payer, Peter Payne, Brent PayPal Paywall Peppet, Scott Perfection, and situational crime prevention Personal analytics Personal.com Perversity-futility-jeopardy triad Peters, John Durham Pharmaceutical industry Philips company Philosophy vs. psychology PhotoDNA (Microsoft) Pirates Places (Google) Plant watering system Play, and games Pocket registrator Political backpacking Political change Political information Political parties Political Reform Act of 1974 (California) Politics and ambiguity and consumerism and fact checking and gamification and hypocrisy and imperfection and mendacity and networks and the Pirates and proxy voting and technocracy and technology and technorationalists and technoscapists and transparency and two-party system Politifact.com Politwoops Poole, Steven Populism vs. expertise Post, David Potholes, and smartphones Power, Michael Power and control Predictive policing dangers of and Facebook and social networks, surveillance of See also Crime prevention PredPol Print culture Printing press as agent of change and the Internet Privacy and digital natives Internet and online data, longevity of and self-tracking and tracking See also Self-disclosure Problem solving Professors Profiling, online Project Glass goggles (Google) Projectors Proposition 8 (California) Protestant Reformation Proust, Marcel Proxy voting Pseudo-crime Psychology vs. philosophy Public broadcasting Public engagement Public information Public information databases Public life, and memes Public relations industry Publishing industry, and gatekeepers Putin, Vladimir Quantification critique of deficiency in and education ethics of in the future and marketing budgets and narrative imagination vs. numeric imagination and needs/desires/necessities and nutrition and water and energy consumption feedback devices and water and energy consumption metering systems Quantified Self movement and authenticity beginning of and correlations and hunches and narrative imagination See also Lifelogging; Self-tracking Quick Response Codes Racial discrimination Radical agenda Radio erratic appliance Rand, Ayn Rapid Content Analysis for Law Enforcement Rate My Professors (website) RateMyDrive Rational-choice theory (RCT) RCT. See Rational-choice theory Reading lamp, Forget Me Not Reality vs. games Recording devices Recyclebank Recycling Regan, Priscilla Regulation Reidenberg, Joel Reputation Reputation.com Restaurant Calorie Counter Restaurant critics Rewards vs. citizenship, and gamification Rich, Michael Rieger, Berhard Robinson, David Romney, Mitt Rosenblum, Nancy Rosenthal, Daniel Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Ruck.us Rupture talk Saint-Simon Sandberg, Sheryl Sandel, Michael Sasaki, David Satellite-navigation technology Schell, Jesse Schmidt, Eric and autonomous search Schneier, Bruce Scholarly Kitchen Schudson, Michael Schwartz, Barry Science Scott, James SCP.

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Take Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, which enjoys a cult status in geek circles as a seemingly original argument about the falling costs of collaboration. For much of his theoretical apparatus, Shirky draws on two sources: Susanne Lohmann’s explanation of the 1989 protests in East Germany by means of rational-choice theory (from which Shirky borrows the notion of information cascades) and Ronald Coase’s theory of the firm (from which Shirky borrows the notion of transaction costs). Alas, neither of them is an unambiguously good or neutral guide to understanding digital technologies once we liberate ourselves from Internet-centrism.

Willful: How We Choose What We Do
by Richard Robb
Published 12 Nov 2019

Behavioral economics has extended rational choice to account for biases and heuristics. A person acting with a behavioral bias also tries to satisfy her desires but routinely misses the mark. Behavioral economists hope that identifying biases will help people mend their ways and act in conformity with economic models. If rational choice theory conceives of people as robots whose behavior is determined by their preferences, then behavioral economists believe that those robots are badly programmed. Both rational choice and behavioral economics assume that action is purposeful, that people seek the outcomes that best gratify their preexisting desires.

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Each morning in my early retirement, I read the New York Times, helped make breakfast for my nine-year-old daughter and fourteen-year-old son, sent them off to school, and jogged around the reservoir in Central Park. At that point, it was 9:00 a.m. I discovered that the day is long. Weekends blended in with weekdays. Sure, I was free from the annoyances that had cropped up at my job, but I didn’t like it at all. My dissatisfaction didn’t arise from low income, as rational choice theory would suggest. My time at DKB had left me with ample savings, and I spent a few hours each week trading for myself. (More on that later.) Shuffling around the apartment in my slippers was a comfortable way to make enough money to cover my family’s expenses. I puzzled over this uneasiness until, one day during my abundant leisure time, I took my daughter to the Bronx Zoo.

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I could no longer accept the traditional economic model that saw a trade-off between work and leisure and emphasized the importance of consumption. Yet I wasn’t ready to turn my back on the orthodoxy altogether. In a way, my experience trading bonds in Chicago, working at DKB, and starting a hedge fund actually reinforced my faith in rational choice theory. Practically every day, useful insight came from assuming that people optimized and markets were in equilibrium. Economic theory often felt like my secret weapon. The second challenge I took on was teaching microeconomics at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, first as an adjunct and then in a full-time position.

The Economics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Microeconomics
by Rod Hill and Anthony Myatt
Published 15 Mar 2010

The next most common student suggestion is addictive behaviour. It is hard to reconcile rational choice theory with addictive behaviour – with someone destroying their own life and the lives of those they love. But mainstream econ­ omists are reluctant to abandon the attempt: if they did, where would they stop? The next step would be to recognize that people can become ‘addicted’ to almost anything: work, eating, television, casual sex, religion and many other activities. Ruling out all addictive behaviour rules out a huge slice of human activity. How can rational choice theory explain addictive behaviour? Addiction to soft drugs like tobacco is somewhat amenable to explanation.

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This definition includes all aspects of life: a couple’s choice to have a child, or a political party’s choice of its platform. Its drawback is that it doesn’t help to differentiate economics from the other social sciences, since they too look at how we make choices. What distinguishes economics from other social sciences is its commitment to rational choice theory. This assumes that individuals are rational, self-interested, have a stable set of internally consistent preferences, and wish to maximize their own happiness (or ‘utility’), given their constraints – such as the amount of time or money that they have. Social situations and collective behaviours are analysed as resulting from freely chosen individual actions.

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Let’s consider how this works. 2.3 The individual versus the community According to Marglin, the textbook focus on individuals makes the community invisible to economists’ eyes. But it is our friendships and deep connections with others which give our lives meaning. So community ties, built on mutual trust and common purpose, have a value – a value that economists ignore when recommending policy. Furthermore, Marglin argues that rational choice theory – emphasized in the mainstream textbooks – reduces ethical judgements and values to mere preferences. Are you working for the benefit of your community? That’s your preference. Are you cooking the books to get rich quick and devil take the hindmost? That’s your preference. Being selfish is no worse than being altruistic, they are just different preferences.

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
by Steven Pinker
Published 14 Oct 2021

People interpret it as claiming that humans are, or should be, selfish psychopaths, or that they are uber-rational brainiacs who calculate probabilities and utilities before deciding whether to fall in love. Discoveries from the psychology lab showing that people seem to violate the theory have been touted as undermining the foundations of classical economics, and with it the rationale for market economies.3 In its original form, though, rational choice theory is a theorem of mathematics, considered quite beautiful by aficionados, with no direct implications for how members of our species think and choose. Many consider it to have provided the most rigorous characterization of rationality itself, a benchmark against which to measure human judgment.

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With God playing dice and all that, choices are not always among certainties, like picking an ice cream flavor, but may include a collection of possibilities with different odds, like picking a lottery ticket. The axiom states that as long as the decider can consider A and B, that decider can also consider a lottery ticket that offers A with a certain probability, p, and B with the complement probability, 1 – p. Within rational choice theory, although the outcome of a chancy option cannot be predicted, the probabilities are fixed, like in a casino. This is called risk, and may be distinguished from uncertainty, where the decider doesn’t even know the probabilities and all bets are off. In 2002, the US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously explained the distinction: “There are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

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In the theory of rational choice, this curve doesn’t actually come from the obvious source, namely asking people with different amounts of money how happy they are, but from looking at people’s preferences. Which would you rather have: a thousand dollars for sure, or a 50–50 chance of winning two thousand dollars? Their expected value is the same, but most people opt for the sure thing. This doesn’t mean they are flouting rational choice theory; it just means that utility is not the same as value in dollars. The utility of two thousand dollars is less than twice the utility of one thousand dollars. Fortunately for our understanding, people’s ratings of their satisfaction and their choice of gambles point to the same bent-over curve relating money and utility.

The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World
by Michael Marmot
Published 9 Sep 2015

Gary Becker, Nobel Prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago (sadly, he died in 2014), applied rational choice theory to everyday life. We weigh up the costs and benefits of different actions and make rational choices to maximise our utility, roughly our satisfaction. In general, people value the present more than the future, so future consequences of our actions will weigh less heavily than present benefits, argue rational choice theorists. Becker and his University of Chicago colleague Kevin Murphy write on rational addiction.11 In their view, addiction, not just to alcohol, tobacco and cocaine, but to television, work and food, can be explained by rational choice theory. The more people discount the future the more can rational choice account for addiction.

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Danny Kahneman, psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, showed that all kinds of things influence our choices, other than simple rational calculation of utility – what we remember, how the evidence is presented, and a whole slew of biases to which we are all subject.12 At a meeting, an economist lecturing on rational choice theory as applied to obesity was asked by someone, rather unkindly I thought, why he was obese. His response: because I choose to be. I have to say: I doubt it. It is most unlikely that he gets up in the morning and says: I think I shall spend the day making myself fatter. I presume his answer was shorthand for: the utility I get from my present pattern of eating outweighs the disutility in the future from the effect of obesity on my health.

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Even if it were the case that, in his model, obese people chose to be so rationally, how then does he account for the prevalence of obesity rising in the USA and elsewhere? And why are more Americans obese than Frenchmen? Telling me that it is because more and more Americans choose to be obese has no explanatory power at all. It simply shifts the question: why are more Americans choosing to be obese? Rational choice theory is probably implicit in the oft-stated notion that people are responsible for their own health. Growing obesity is a result of people increasingly valuing present consumption more highly than future disbenefits; or, in more everyday language, growing more irresponsible. But if increasing fecklessness accounts for increasing obesity, why have rates of smoking declined dramatically?

Strategy: A History
by Lawrence Freedman
Published 31 Oct 2013

William Riker and Peter Ordeshook, An Introduction to Positive Political Theory (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 24. 12. Richard Langlois, “Strategy as Economics versus Economics as Strategy,” Managerial and Decision Economics 24, no. 4 (June–July 2003): 287. 13. Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), X. One counterattack appeared in Jeffery Friedman, ed., “Rational Choice Theory and Politics,” Critical Review 9, no. 1–2 (1995). 14. Stephen Walt, “Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies,” International Security 23, no. 4 (Spring 1999): 8. 15. Dennis Chong quoted in Cohn, The Revenge of the Nerds. 16.

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There is something refreshing about a book purporting to represent game theory to a wider business audience ducking so brazenly the fundamental conceptual issue that had shaped its methodology and potentially limited its application. Nalebuff and Brandenburger, Co-Opetition, 56–58. 7. Introduction in Jon Elster, ed., Rational Choice (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 16. Green and Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory, 20 (see chap. 36, n. 13) cite Elster to demonstrate the burdens strict criteria place on researchers. Elster was an early advocate for rational choice theory who later became disenchanted. 8. On the inability of individuals to manage formal reasoning and understand statistical methods, see John Conlisk, “Why Bounded Rationality?” Journal of Economic Literature 34, no. 2 (June 1996): 670. 9.

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See also al-Qaeda Raff, Daniel, 616 Raiffa, Howard, 161–162, 514 Ramsey, Douglas, 506 RAND Corporation game theory and, 161–162, 513 nuclear strategy and, 161–162, 168 quantitative emphasis of, 147–148, 150, 152–153, 513–514 rational choice theory and, 575–577 Randolph, A. Philip, 356 Raphals, Lisa, 43 Rapoport, Anatol, 585 Rapport, Mike, 250 rational choice theory. See also game theory bounded rationality and, 592 brain physiology and, 592 criteria for, 591 economics discipline and, 577, 580 experiments challenging, 594–597 heuristics and, 593 limits of, 575–576, 589–591, 594–597, 599–600, 605–606 political science and, 580–581 RAND Corporation and, 575–577 Rochester School and, 576–581 social contexts and, 594–597, 599–600 ultimatum game and, 594–596 Ratzel, Friedrich, 122 Reagan, Ronald as California governor, 442–443, 448 political communication strategies of, 442–444, 625–626 presidential campaigns of, 443, 447 religious right and, 443–444 Southern states and, 443, 447 realism doctrine, 30–31 red and blue oceans (Kim and Mauborgne), 537–538 Red Queen effect, 536–537 Reengineering the Corporation (Hammer and Champy), 533 Reengineering Management (Champy), 536 Reflections on Violence (Sorel), 327–328 Reformation of War, The (Fuller), 132, 135 Reid, Brian Holden, 130–131 Republican Party (United States), political communication strategies and, 434–436, 440–441, 443, 447–449, 452–455.

How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means
by John Lanchester
Published 5 Oct 2014

In crude versions of this theory, the utility maximization is always about money; but the idea that we always function to our own best economic advantage in the narrowest sense is so plainly false that you don’t often encounter it in the wild any more. (Mind you, there is an entire school of thought, calling itself rational choice theory, which devotes itself to the belief of utility maximization in its narrow form.) What the theory now does is define utility maximization more broadly, to allow a wider sense of what our interests are, including issues such as status and social capital. Take the question of that perennial political target of opportunity, the unemployed single mother. In a narrow version of rational choice theory, unemployed single mothers are simply doing the best for themselves economically. They are “marrying the state” because that’s a better deal, in cash terms and in terms of reliability, than attaching themselves to any actually available bloke.

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The field of behavioral economics shows us that we simply aren’t economically rational. It does that not through argument but through experiments that demonstrate failures in our ability to calculate accurately. We’re hardwired not to be right about all sorts of calculations, including those of our own self-interest. Rational choice theory and utility maximization run headlong into behavioral economics and crashes. Or at least, it crashes if we think of it as something that is written on stone tablets, maxims that are true always and everywhere. What if utility maximization isn’t that, though, but is instead a model or metaphor?

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When it comes to rationing, it makes sense that “women, the poor, children, the unemployed etc., would be more willing to spend their time in a queue or otherwise ferreting out rationed goods than would high-earning males.” Your partner is certain to defer to your clear Chicago reasoning and may well follow up with an apology. The best justification and explanation of rational choice theory that I’ve read, which is also the best account I know of the use of models in economics, comes in a thriller, The Fatal Equilibrium, whose authors, writing under the pseudonym Marshall Jevons, were two economists, William Breit and Kenneth Elzinga. Their hero solves crimes by using economic principles, and in the course of doing so gives this brilliant peroration on what models are: Economists can’t use laboratories in their research—people would argue and cajole and possibly lie if you experiment with, say, their income and assets over time.

The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World
by Erwann Michel-Kerjan and Paul Slovic
Published 5 Jan 2010

Of course, there are some ways to wriggle out of this implication. You could say that economics is not the study of choices but is instead—and should only ever be—the use of a particular type of theory that is inherently agnostic about brain mechanisms (i.e., rational choice theory). I think that this claim is provably false because many economists have used other approaches than rational choice theory when it has proved interesting or useful to do so (e.g., learning and evolutionary theories applied to strategic choices). It is also reasonable to figure out where preferences come from by rooting them in processes like parental socialization of children and early childhood development, whereby the details of how those processes work will be informed by developmental neuropsychology.

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Rationally, you should be indifferent, or if you think you can guess the color ratios, choose the urn with the better perceived odds of winning. Yet, smart people would knowingly violate this logical advice. The vigorous debates about how widely accepted various “self-evident” principles of rational choice theory are raised two challenges for decision analysis. First, if not everyone buys into them, how rational can they really be? Second, if decision analysts use their authority, intellect, and confidence to persuade clients to revise their basic preferences and beliefs to comply with the dictates of their model, what do these revised opinions represent?

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See also Mitigation insurance and investing in Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (Ricardo) Private sector roles/responsibilities of Probability ambiguous assessing axioms decision making and distribution emotions and estimate experiments on judgmental loss neglect overestimating precise/imprecise principles risks and salient manifestation of subjective theory unknown variations Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, A (Power) Problems, dealing with Project Impact (FEMA) Protagoras, The (Plato) Protection financial investing in risk self- social Psychic numbing(fig.) Psychology decision developmental economics and Psychophysical models Psychophysical numbing Public policy changes in Public sector, roles/responsibilities of Racial superiority, theories of Radiation, exposure to Raiffa, Howard Rational actors Rational choice theory Rational fools Rational model Rationality alternative plans and bounded classic constructed choice and economic emotion and definitions of standard of testing Rawls, John Reagan, Ronald Recovery process Recovery from Natural Disasters: Insurance or Federal Aid (American Enterprise Institute) Reinsurance actuarial value and(fig.)

America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism
by Anatol Lieven
Published 3 May 2010

This ideological dogmatism has always been increased still further by the overwhelming tendency, at universities as well as in schools, to study American history in isolation and to treat it as if no other country's experience could be of any relevance to America—something which, as Herbert Bolton warned, risks raising a "nation of chauvinists."89 Three generations after Herbert Butterfield began the intellectual demolition of the Whig Theory of History among serious historians, a naive nineteenth-century belief in the inevitable march of human progress along a fixed path continues to dominate much of history teaching in the United States.90 Rational Choice theory really is founded on an almost theological faith in the universal validity of a dogmatic (and in part imaginary) American-style economic individualism. In the traditional Christian faith, all human beings, if taught properly and protected from the lures of the devil, will become Christians. That is their default mode. In Rational Choice theory—and in the instinctive belief of many ordinary Americans—the default mode of humanity is to become Americans. This quasireligious, Utopian belief was strengthened still further by the fall of communism.91 The extremely abstruse, "scientistic" style of this and other related approaches makes it very easy to hide such basic assumptions within the model.92 As Edward Shils commented two generations ago, "It is not difficult to understand how the adoption of the scientistic tradition can prepare the way to the acceptance of a secularized millenarianism and thus lead on to ideological politics."

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These sections have tended to downgrade history and regional studies in favor of "disciplines" based not on empirical research but pseudoscientific general theories, which are generally mere facades for Western ideological and cultural assumptions. The most extreme of these, but also one of the most influential within the theoretical sections of international relations studies, is Rational Choice theory.87 Said Professor Michael Lehmann, protesting in 1994 at the growing domination of this trend within the University of California: "I have never understood how a timeless, non-historical analysis that removes itself from technological, institutional and other social developments can be employed to discern the course of human events.

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In the 1990s at least, this whole approach had distinctly theological aspects, being largely impervious to argument and evidence, and promising limitless future benefits which would transcend the miserable present.97 Characteristic of the radical market theories of the past generation and the Rational Choice theory which helped feed them has been a failure in "the basic philosophical test of functioning intelligence and ethics—the ability to imagine the Other."981 can certainly confirm from my own experience that in the case of Russia, only a very small number of American (and, to be fair, Western European) officials and semiofficial experts spent any time imagining themselves in the shoes of ordinary Russians, let alone trying to meet those Russians.

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
by Elinor Ostrom
Published 29 Nov 1990

Since 1930, the Cree have successfully managed the beaver stock using the rules that had been tested by centuries of trial and error prior to the arrival of Europeans on the North American continent. 9 See Coleman (1987c, 1990) and Opp (1979, 1982, 1986) for extended anal­ yses of the relationship between norms and rational-choice theory. 10 Sequential, contingent, and frequency-dependent behaviors may, of course, occur in unorganized settings. Some very interesting game-theoretical results have relied on the potentialities of individuals to rely on such forms of co­ ordinated activities alone, without changing the underlying structures (Keeps et al. 1982; Levhari and Mirman 1980; Schelling 1978). 11 An important aspect of organizing a legislative process, for example, is the set of rules that specify the steps through which a bill must be processed before it becomes a law. 12 Changing the positive and negative inducements is the type of intervention that has received the most attention in the social sciences. 13 Alchian and Demsetz (1972) overtly posit that the key problem underlying reliance on a firm to organize behavior, rather than reliance on the indepen­ dent actions of buyers and sellers in a market institution, is that of an inter­ dependent production function.

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These levels exist whether the organized human activity is public or private. See Boudreaux and Holcombe (1989) for a discussion of the constitutional rules of homeowner associations, condominiums, and some types of housing developments. See, for example, Alexander Field's critiques of the work of institutional theor­ ists who have attempted to develop rational-choice theories of institutional choice (Field 1979, 1984). In designing the constitution of an irrigation community, for example, setting up a legislative body requires determining how many representatives there should be. Determining the number of representatives will be affected by the physical layout.

Trust: The Social Virtue and the Creation of Prosperity
by Francis Fukuyama
Published 1 Jan 1995

Two of the most prolific and renowned contemporary neoclassical economists, Gary Becker of the University of Chicago and James Buchanan of George Mason University (both of whom won Nobel Prizes for their work), have built careers extending economic methodology to what are usually regarded as noneconomic phenomena like politics, bureaucracy, racism, the family, and fertility.7 The political science departments of many major universities are now filled with followers of socalled rational choice theory, which attempts to explain politics using an essentially economic methodology.8 The problem with neoclassical economics is that it has forgotten certain key foundations on which classical economics was based. Adam Smith, the premier classical economist, believed that people are driven by a selfish desire to “better their condition,” but he would never have subscribed to the notion that economic activity could be reduced to rational utility maximization.

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., the study of money or wealth) but as a method that can be applied to a wide range of human behavior. See Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 3-14. 8For critiques of the rational choice school, see Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), and Chalmers Johnson and E. B. Keehn, “A Disaster in the Making: Rational Choice and Asian Studies,” National Interest, no. 36 (1994): 14-22. 9For a fascinating interchange on the limits of the ability of economics to give an account of politics, see the dialogue among James Buchanan, Viktor Vanberg, and Allan Bloom in James Nichols and Colin Wright, eds., From Political Economy to Economics … and Back?

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., “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement,” American Sociological Review 25 (1960): 161-178. Granovetter, Mark, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481-510. Green, Donald, and Shapiro, Ian, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Green, Robert W., Protestantism, Capitalism, and Social Science: The Weber Thesis Controversy (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1973). Grochla E., and Gaugler, E., eds., Handbook of German business Management, (Stuttgart: C.

The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters
by Diane Coyle
Published 21 Feb 2011

See distribution Inconvenient Truth, An (Gore), 60 Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), 36 India, 212; emerging middle class of, 125; fairness and, 122–26, 133; inequality and, 125–26; nature and, 63, 65, 81; posterity and, 108; purchasing power parity (PPP) and, 306n19; Satyam and, 146; trust and, 146, 149, 163, 172; wage penalties and, 133; World Bank influence and, 163 Industrial Revolution, 27, 149, 290, 297 inequality, 4–5, 11, 17, 84, 306n19, 308n34; Bush and, 127–28; consequences for growth, 135–36; decline in trust and, 139–44; dramatic increase in, 126–27, 131; extraction ratio for, 124; fairness and, 114–16, 122–43; fractal character of, 134; Gini coefficient and, 126; globalization and, 122–24, 127, 131, 155; happiness and, 25, 36, 42, 44, 53; high salaries and, 130, 143–44, 193, 223, 277–78, 286, 296; historical perspective on, 126–27; institutions and, 116, 127–31, 141; measurement of, 126; policy recommendations for, 267, 276, 295–97; poverty and, 43, 55–56, 100, 125, 128, 138, 142, 168–69, 261, 267; reduction of, 276–77; Republican administrations and, 127–28; social corrosiveness of, 139–44; structural causes of, 131–35; superstar effect and, 134; taxes and, 115–16, 123, 127–28, 131, 135–36; trends in, 125–30; unequal countries and, 124–30; United Kingdom and, 125–30; United States and, 122, 125–31, 135, 276; values and, 223–24, 234–36; well-being and, 137–43; within/between countries, 123–24 inflation, 37, 43, 61, 89, 102–5, 110–11, 189, 281, 305n17 information and communication technology (ICT), 6–7, 15, 17; data explosion and, 205, 291; decreased cost of, 254; fairness and, 133; happiness and, 24–25; institutional impacts of, 252–53; structural effects of, 194–98; trust and, 156–60, 165–67, 174 innovation, 6–7, 12; consumer electronics and, 36–37; fairness and, 121, 134; growth and, 271–73, 281, 290–92; happiness and, 37; institutions and, 244, 258, 263, 290–91; measurement and, 183, 196, 201–8, 273–74; musicians and, 195; nature and, 69–70, 81; policy recommendations for, 290–91; posterity and, 102; statistics and, 201–7; trust and, 157; values and, 210, 216, 220, 236 In Praise of Slowness, 27 institutions, 18; anomie and, 48, 51; balance and, 12–17; blindness of to financial crises, 87–88; broad framework for, 249–52; capitalism and, 240; consumption and, 254, 263; decentralization and, 246; democracy and, 242–43, 251–52, 262; downsizing and, 175, 246, 255; economies of scale and, 253–58; efficiency and, 245–46, 254–55, 261; extinction crisis and, 288; face-to-face contact and, 7, 147, 165–68; failures of, 240–44, 257, 262–63, 267, 289–90; fall of communism and, 226, 239–40, 252; freedom and, 244, 262; globalization and, 244; governance and, 242, 247, 255–58, 261–62; government and, 240–63; growth and, 258, 261, 263; health care and, 247, 252–53; high salaries and, 130, 143–44, 193, 223, 277–78, 286, 296; impact of new technologies and, 252–54; importance of, 261–63; inequality and, 116, 127–31, 141; innovation and, 244, 258, 263, 290–91; legitimacy and, 8, 16, 50, 66, 68–69, 162–63, 213, 226, 269, 274, 292, 296–97; managerialism and, 259; morals and, 254; nature and, 66–69, 82–84; New Public Management and, 245–47; outsourcing and, 159, 161, 175, 219, 287; policy recommendations for, 269, 284–91; politics and, 239–48, 251, 256–63; pollution and, 15, 35, 228; productivity and, 244–47, 257, 263; public choice theory and, 242–43; public deliberation and, 258–60; reform and, 245–48, 256, 285, 288–91, 296–97; responsibility to posterity and, 296; shareholders and, 145, 248, 257–58, 277; statistics and, 245; technology and, 244–46, 251–54, 257–63 (see also technology); values and, 240–42, 246–47, 258–60 intangible assets: measurement and, 199–201, 204–6; satellite accounts and, 38, 81, 204–6, 271; social capital and, 149–52, 157, 161, 199–201 InterAcademy Council, 66–67 interbank market, 1–2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 59, 66–69, 82, 297 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 90, 101–3, 111, 162–64, 176, 211, 287, 297 International Price Comparison, 124 International Telecommunications Union, 219 Internet, 155, 195, 245, 260, 273, 287–89, 291, 296 invisible hand, 209 iPods, 195 Ipsos Mori poll, 66, 247 Ireland, 172 Iron Curtain, 183, 239, 252 Italy, 95, 97–98, 146, 152 Jackson, Michael, 198 Japan, 42; debt of, 102; equal income distribution in, 125; fairness and, 125–26, 140–41; inequality and, 126; lost decade of, 102; posterity and, 91–92, 95, 97–98, 102; savings rates in, 280; trust and, 169, 175; voter turnout and, 175 Jazz Age, 127 Jefferson, Thomas, 184, 253–54 Johns, Helen, 41 Johnson, Simon, 256–57 Johnson, Steven, 187 Justice (Sandel), 237 Kahneman, Daniel, 215 Kamarck, Elaine, 247–48 Kay, John, 139, 245–46, 257 Kennedy School of Government, 247 Keynes, John Maynard, 101, 183–84, 190 Kleinwort, Dresdner, 87 knowledge economy, 191 Kobayashi, Keiichiro, 102 Korea, 126 Krugman, Paul, 100–103, 127–29, 232, 282 Kyoto Protocol, 62–64 labor: absorbing work and, 10, 48–49; call centers and, 131, 133, 161; creativity and, 166–68, 205–7; downsizing and, 175, 246, 255; global cities and, 165–70; globalization and, 131, 149 (see also globalization); human capital and, 81, 203–4, 282; measurement and, 189–99; migration and, 108–10, 172; outsourcing and, 159, 161, 175, 219, 287; pensions and, 4, 25, 85–86, 90, 92–100, 103–7, 111–13, 174–76, 191, 203, 243, 269–71, 275, 280, 286, 289–90, 293; Protestant work ethic and, 13–14, 236; retirement age and, 94, 97–99, 106–7, 112; skilled, 132–33, 159, 166–67, 276; specialization and, 160–61; technology and, 131–33; unemployment and, 3, 10, 43, 51, 56, 89, 107, 169, 207, 212–13, 243; unions and, 15, 51, 224, 249; unskilled, 132–33, 158, 172, 193; well-being and, 137–39; Whitehall Studies and, 139 lack of control, 47, 138–39 Lawson, Neal, 26 Layard, Richard, 31, 39–40, 43 Lehman Brothers, 1, 85, 87–88, 145, 211, 275–76 Leipzig marches, 239 Leviathan (Hobbes), 114 light bulbs, 59–61 Linux, 205 Lipsky, John, 102, 111 List, John, 117 literacy, 36 Live Nation, 197 living standards, 78–79, 106, 113, 136, 151, 162, 190, 194, 267 lobbyists, 15, 71, 247, 257, 276, 285, 289, 296 Lolapaloozza, 197 Louis Vuitton, 150 Luxury Fever (Frank), 40 Mackenzie, Donald, 221 Madonna, 194 Malthusianism, 95 Mama Group, 197 managerial competence, 2, 16, 150, 209, 259 Manzi, Jim, 231–32 Mao Zedong, 10 markets: asymmetric information and, 17, 186, 214, 219–20, 229, 248, 254, 262–63; black, 225; boom–bust cycles and, 4, 22, 28, 93, 102, 106–9, 136–37, 145, 147, 213, 222–23, 233, 277, 280, 283; capitalism and, 182, 230–38 (see also capitalism); culture and, 230–38; declining population and, 86, 89–90, 95–99, 103, 113; democracy and, 230–38; deregulation and, 7, 212; evidence–based policy and, 233–34; exchange advantage and, 214; externalities and, 15, 70, 80, 211, 228–29, 249, 254; failures of, 226–30, 240–44, 257, 262–63, 267, 289–90; Fama hypothesis and, 221–22; flaws of, 215–16; fractal character of, 134; free market model and, 14, 121, 129, 182–83, 210–11, 218–24, 232, 240, 243, 251; fundamentalism for, 213; gift economy and, 205–7; interbank, 1–2; international trade and, 110, 148, 159, 163; invisible hand and, 209; mathematical models of, 214; merits of, 211–17; missing, 229; moral, 210, 213, 220–25, 230–33; music, 194–98; network effects and, 253, 258; options, 222; as organizing economy, 218; performativity and, 224–25; Protestant work ethic and, 13–14, 236; public choice theory and, 220, 242–45; public domain and, 196; rational calculation and, 214–15; satellite accounts and, 81; shorting of, 86; social, 217–20; stability issues and, 2–4, 25, 70, 101, 124, 135, 140–41, 174, 176, 218, 296; trilemma of, 230–38; values and, 209–10 (see also values); winner take all, 134 Marx, Karl, 14, 28, 131, 221 McDonalds, 27 McKitrick, Ross, 68 Mean Fiddler Group, 197 Measuring Australia’s Progress, 274 measurement: asymmetric information and, 17, 186, 214, 219–20, 229, 248, 254, 262–63; Australian model and, 271, 274; balance and, 12–17; bankers and, 193, 200; capitalism and, 182; challenges of, 188–93; consumption and, 181–82, 198; distribution and, 191–99; evidence–based policy and, 233–34; GDP, 10 (see also gross domestic product [GDP]); Gini coefficient and, 126; governance and, 183, 186; government and, 182–88, 191, 193, 196, 202–3, 206; growth and, 181–85, 188–90, 194, 201–5, 208; happiness and, 35–39; health issues and, 181, 188–93, 200, 207; hedonic techniques and, 274; importance of, 184–85, 187–89; of inequality, 126; innovation and, 183, 196, 201–8, 273–74; intangible assets and, 199–201, 204–6; labor and, 189–99; less publication of, 271–72; living standards and, 13, 65, 78–79, 106, 113, 136, 139, 151, 162, 190, 194, 267; Measuring Progress exercise and, 294; policy recommendations for, 270–74; politics and, 182–84, 191, 193, 203, 208; productivity and, 189–90, 194, 199–201, 206–7; resources for, 294; social capital and, 154; statistics and, 187–89, 198–208; technology and, 181–85, 188–91, 194–201, 204–6; time constraints and, 204–7; trust and, 152–57; uncertainty of accuracy and, 273; unmeasurable entities and, 187; values and, 209, 212–13, 224 Medicare, 93–94 Meek, James, 26 metrification, 184 Metropolitan Museum of Art symposium, 100–101 Mexico, 226 Microsoft, 253, 258 migration, 108–10, 172 Milanovic, Branko, 123–24 Mill, John Stuart, 31–32 Minsky, Hyman, 226 monopolies, 196, 245, 252, 254 Montreal Protocol, 59 Moore’s Law, 156 morals: bankers and, 90, 277–78; criticism of poor and, 142; fairness and, 116–20, 127, 131, 142, 144; greed and, 221 (see also greed); growth and, 275–76, 279, 293, 295, 297; happiness and, 22, 26, 30, 34, 43, 48–49; institutions and, 254; nature and, 55, 70–72, 76, 78; performativity and, 224–25; posterity and, 90; trust and, 149, 174; values and, 185, 210, 213, 220–25, 230–33 MP3 players, 195 music, 11, 194–98, 204, 208, 229, 254 nature: Brundtlandt Report and, 77; carbon prices and, 70–71; climate change and, 57–84 (see also climate change); consumption and, 58–61, 71–76, 79, 82; Copenhagen summit and, 62, 64–65, 68, 162, 292; democracy and, 61, 66, 68; efficiency and, 61–62, 69, 82; environmentalists and, 29, 55–59, 69–70, 99; freedom and, 79; future and, 75–83; global warming and, 57, 64, 66, 68; government and, 58–62, 65–71, 82–84; greenhouse gases and, 23, 29, 35, 59, 61–63, 68, 70–71, 83; green lifestyle and, 55, 61, 76, 289, 293; gross domestic product (GDP) and, 56–60, 75–76, 80–82; growth and, 56–59, 62–66, 69–72, 76, 79–82; happiness and, 56–59, 75–76, 80–84; health issues and, 81; hybrid cars and, 61; innovation and, 69–70, 81; institutions and, 66–69, 82–84; InterAcademy Council and, 66–67; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and, 59, 66–69, 82, 297; Kyoto Protocol and, 62–64; light bulbs and, 59–61; Montreal Protocol and, 59; morals and, 55, 70–72, 76, 78; natural capital and, 79–81, 151, 271, 273; philosophy and, 69–70; plastic and, 61; politics and, 57–71, 75, 77, 82–84; population issues and, 99; productivity and, 78, 82; satellite accounts and, 81; self-interest and, 65; squandered natural wealth and, 181–82; statistics and, 66, 81–82; stewardship and, 78, 80; technology and, 69–72, 76–77, 80, 84; TEEB project and, 78–79 network effects, 253, 258 New Deal, 129 New Economics Foundation, 36 New Public Management theory, 245–47 Newton, Isaac, 214–15 Niger, 122 Nobel Prize, 18, 60, 102, 215, 220, 236, 250, 261 noise, 47 No Logo (Wolf), 34 Nordhaus, William, 37, 70, 73, 156 North, Douglass, 261 Northern Rock, 1, 146 Obama, Barack, 62–63, 87, 173, 260, 285, 288 Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 197 obesity, 137–38, 279 Office for National Statistics, 274 Olson, Mancur, 242 opinion formers, 61 option pricing theory, 222 Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, 194 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 4, 11, 201, 305n11; happiness and, 38, 52; inequality in, 125–26; nature and, 60, 68; policy recommendations for, 273–74, 281, 283, 287, 291, 293; posterity and, 87, 93–94, 97–99, 112; trust and, 160, 171; values and, 212, 243–44, 246 organized crime, 277 Ormerod, Paul, 41 Orwell, George, 56 Ostrom, Elinor, 17, 220, 250–51, 261–63 Pakistan, 81, 226 Paradox of Choice, The (Schwartz), 10–11, 40 Parmalat, 146 partisanship, 2, 16, 101, 128, 269, 285 Peake, Mervyn, 9 pensions, 4, 25, 243; burden of, 92–95; Chinese savings and, 94; measurement and, 191, 203; policy recommendations for, 269–71, 275, 280, 286, 289–90, 293; posterity and, 85–86, 90–100, 103–7, 111–13; retirement age and, 92, 97–99, 106–7, 112; trust and, 174–76 performativity, 224–25 Persson, Torsten, 136 Pew surveys, 140 philanthropy, 33 philosophy, 16; fairness and, 114–15, 123; freedom and, 237; happiness and, 21, 27, 31–32, 49–50; nature and, 69–70; utilitarian, 31–32, 78, 237; values and, 237–39 Pickett, Kate, 137–40 Piereson, James, 183 Piketty, Thomas, 127, 129 Pimco, 287 Pinch (Willetts), 98–99 Pinker, Steven, 118, 305n4 Poland, 239 police service, 5, 35, 163, 193, 200, 247 policy: Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress and, 37–38; deregulation and, 7, 212; errors in standard, 8; evidence–based, 233–34; first ten steps for, 294–98; future and, 75–83, 291–98; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and, 59, 66–69, 82, 297; legitimacy and, 8, 16, 50, 66, 68–69, 162–63, 213, 226, 269, 274, 292, 296–97; measurement and, 187–89; OECD countries and, 4, 11, 38, 52, 60, 68, 87, 93–94, 97–99, 112, 125–26, 160, 171, 201, 212, 243–44, 246, 273–74, 281, 283, 287, 291, 293; population growth and, 95–100; practical recommendations for, 269–91; reform and, 8, 82–83, 85 (see also reform); stability issues and, 2–4, 25, 70, 101, 124, 135, 140–41, 174, 176, 218, 296; stimulus packages and, 91, 100–103, 111; sustainability and, 57 (see also sustainability); tradition and, 9; transparency and, 83, 164, 288, 296; trilemma of, 13–14, 230–36, 275; World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge, and Policy and, 38 political correctness, 173, 231 political economy, 27–28 pollution, 15, 35, 228 Population Bomb, The (Ehrlich), 70 population issues: aging, 4, 95–100, 106, 109, 206, 267, 280, 287, 296; baby boomers and, 4, 106, 109; declining population and, 86, 89–90, 95–99, 103, 113; demographic implosion and, 95–100; environmentalists and, 99; global cities and, 165–70; Malthusianism and, 95; migration and, 108–10; one-child policy and, 95–96; posterity and, 89–90, 94–95, 105–6, 109, 112–13; retirement age and, 94, 97–99, 106–7, 112 Porter, Roy, 184 Portugal, 126, 287 posterity, 298; aging population and, 89–90, 94–95, 105–6, 109, 112–13; bankers and, 85–91, 94, 99–102; consumption and, 86, 104–6, 112–13; current generation’s debt to, 90–92, 112–13; declining population and, 86, 89–90, 95–99, 103, 113; default and, 110–12; democracy and, 106; demographic implosion and, 95–100; freedom of investors and, 108; globalization and, 108; government and, 84–95, 98–113; gross domestic product (GDP) and, 91–94, 98–99, 103, 108, 111; growth and, 90, 95, 97, 99, 102, 105–8, 111; health issues and, 89, 93–94, 97–99, 103, 106, 111–13; higher retirement age and, 94–98, 106–7, 112; innovation and, 102; institutional responsibility and, 296; less leisure and, 106–7; Medicare and, 93–94; migration and, 108–9; morals and, 90; pensions and, 85–86, 90, 92–100, 103–7, 111–13; politics and, 86–94, 98, 101–8, 111–13; poverty and, 100; productivity and, 88, 97–99, 102, 105–8, 112; public debt and, 85–86; reform and, 85–86, 98, 111–12; savings and, 86–87, 94, 98, 100–101, 105–8, 112; Social Security and, 93–94; social welfare and, 85, 100, 112; sustainability and, 79 (see also sustainability); taxpayer burden and, 85–91, 94, 99, 103–5; technology and, 107; welfare burden and, 92–95 poverty, 261, 267; desire to spend and, 55–56; fairness and, 125, 128, 138, 142; happiness and, 43; posterity and, 100; trust and, 168–69 printing press, 7 productivity, 16; balance and, 268, 271, 273–76, 281, 287; bureaucratic obstacles to, 285–86; Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress and, 37–38; fairness and, 131, 135; globalization and, 131 (see also globalization); governance and, 173–77; happiness and, 27, 38, 42, 51; improvements in, 107–8; institutions and, 244–47, 257, 263; measurement and, 189–90, 194, 199–201, 206–7; nature and, 78, 82; posterity and, 88, 97–99, 102, 105–8, 112; public services and, 257; Soviet method and, 246; technology and, 107–8, 157–59, 268; trilemma of, 13–14, 230–36, 275; trust and, 156–59, 162, 166–67, 170, 174 property rights, 80, 174, 195–96, 261 Protestant work ethic, 13–14, 236 psychology: altruism and, 118–22; anomie and, 48, 51; anxiety and, 1, 25, 47–48, 136–38, 149, 174; behavioral economics and, 116–17, 121, 282; choice and, 10–11; coherence and, 49; commuting and, 47; conflict in relationships and, 47; Easterlin Paradox and, 39–44; face-to-face contact and, 7, 147, 165–68; freedom and, 237 (see also freedom); game theory and, 116–18, 121–22; gift economy and, 205–7; greed and, 26, 34, 54, 88, 129, 150, 221–23, 248, 277–79; happiness and, 9–12, 44–50 (see also happiness); lack of control and, 47; noise and, 47; paradox of prosperity and, 174; positive, 9–10, 49–50, 303n51; public choice theory and, 220, 242–45; rational choice theory and, 214–15; shame and, 47; Slow Movement and, 27–28, 205; thrift education and, 283–84, 294–95; well-being and, 137–43 Ptolemy, 274 public choice theory, 220, 242–45 Public Domain, The (Boyle), 196 public goods, 185–86, 190, 199, 211, 229, 249, 261 purchasing power parity (PPP), 306n19 Putnam, Robert, 140–41, 152–54 Quiet Coup, The (Johnson), 256–57 Radio Corporation of America (RCA), 195 Rajan, Raghuram, 136 Rank, Robert, 40 rational choice theory, 214–15 Rawls, John, 31 Reagan, Ronald, 93, 121, 127, 211, 240, 243, 247–48 recession, 9, 11–12, 275; happiness and, 22, 24, 41, 54; nature and, 55–56, 66; plethora of books following, 55; posterity and, 85, 88, 91–93, 100–101, 108, 110; recovery from, 3, 103; trust and, 182; values and, 209–10, 213, 222 reciprocal altruism, 118–22 reform, 8; benchmark for, 218; bankers and, 277–79; bonus taxes and, 278; collective assent to, 269; courage needed for, 203; first ten steps for, 294–98; health care, 285; improving statistics and, 271; institutions and, 245–48, 256, 285, 288–91, 296–97; nature and, 82–85; New Public Management and, 245–46; politics and, 287–88; posterity and, 98, 111–12; public sector, 288–90; trust and, 162–64, 176–77; values and, 218, 233, 275–78, 295 Reinhardt, Carmen, 111 religion, 10; happiness and, 32–33, 43, 50; nature and, 76, 78; Protestant work ethic and, 13–14, 236; trust and, 147 Renaissance, 7 retirement age, 94, 97–99, 106–7, 112 revalorization, 275 Road to Wigan Pier, The (Orwell), 56 Rodrik, Dani, 136 Rogoff, Kenneth, 111 Romantic Economist, The (Bronk), 28 Romanticism, 27 Rothschilds, 147 Rousseau, Jean–Jacques, 114 Royal Bank of Scotland, 146 runs, 1 Ruskin, John, 27–28 Russia, 97–98, 123; Cold War and, 93, 112, 147, 209, 213, 239; Iron Curtain and, 183, 239, 252; production targets and, 246; as Soviet Union, 228, 246 Saez, Emmanuel, 127, 129 salaries: high, 130, 143–44, 193, 223, 277–78, 286, 296; measurement and, 191–99; paradox of, 193; superstar effect and, 134; technology and, 2, 89 Sandel, Michael, 224–25, 237 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 37, 202, 274 satellite accounts, 38, 81, 204–6, 271 Satyam, 146 savings, 1, 280–82, 293; China and, 87, 94, 100, 108; necessary increasing of, 105–6; negative, 105; policy recommendations for, 280–84; posterity and, 86–87, 94, 98, 100–101, 105, 108, 112; thrift education and, 283–84, 294–95 savings clubs, 283 Schumpeter, Joseph, 14 Schwartz, Barry, 10–11, 40 Seabright, Paul, 148–49, 170, 213–14, 228 self-interest: fairness and, 114–22; greed and, 26, 34, 54, 88, 129, 150, 221–23, 248, 277–79; moral sentiments and, 119–20, 142, 221; nature and, 65; reciprocal altruism and, 118–22; values and, 214, 221 Selfish Gene, The (Dawkins), 118 Sen, Amartya, 18, 37, 43, 82, 202, 237, 274, 310n25 shame, 47 shareholders, 88, 145, 248, 257–58, 277 Silicon Valley, 166 Simon, Herbert, 249–50, 254, 261, 270 Simon, Julian, 70 Singapore, 126 Sloan School, 256 Slow Food, 27 Slow Movement, 27–28, 205 smart cards, 252–53 Smith, Adam, 119–20, 209, 221, 255 Smith, Vernon, 215 social capital, 8, 12, 17; definition of, 152–53; fairness and, 116, 121, 139–43; intangible assets and, 149–52, 157, 161, 199–201; measurement of, 154, 185; policy recommendations for, 267, 271, 273, 276; Putnam on, 152–54; trust and, 5, 151–57, 168–74, 177; values and, 223–25, 231, 257 social justice, 31, 43, 53, 65, 123, 164, 224, 237, 286 Social Limits to Growth, The (Hirsch), 190, 231 social markets, 217–20 social networks, 260, 270, 288–89 Social Security, 93–94 social welfare.

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Courtesy of Shutterstock. 259 INDEX Addams, Jane, 131 AEG Live, 197 Affluent Society, The (Galbraith), 190, 230–31 aging population: baby boom generation and, 4, 106, 109; demographic implosion and, 95–100; measurement and, 206; policy recommendations for, 267, 280, 287, 296; posterity and, 89–90, 94–95, 105–6, 109, 112–13; retirement age and, 94, 97–99, 106–7, 112 Alesina, Alberto, 128, 135–36, 171 All Consuming: How Shopping Got Us into This Mess and How We Can Find Our Way Out (Lawson), 26 altruism, 48, 118–22 André, Carl, 27 anomie, 48, 51 anxiety, 1, 25, 47–48, 136–38, 149, 174 Aristotle, 50 Arrow, Kenneth, 81–82, 220, 236–37, 310n25 Arthur Anderson, 145 asymmetric information, 17; institutions and, 248, 254, 262–63; measurement and, 186; values and, 214, 219–20, 229 Australia, 12, 271; Bureau of Statistics and, 274; diversity and, 172; fairness and, 126, 130, 143; measurement and, 188, 202, 206–7; time surveys and, 206–8; trust and, 140 Austria, 239 Axelrod, Robert, 118–19 baby boom generation, 4, 106, 109 bailouts: banks and, 1, 88, 91, 99–100, 145, 267; stimulus packages and, 91, 100–3, 111 Bank of England, 1–2, 174 bankruptcy, 289; Lehman Brothers and, 1, 85, 87–88, 145, 211, 275–76; Northern Rock and, 1, 146; posterity and, 87; trust and, 145–46 banks, 2; bailouts and, 1, 88, 91, 99–100, 145, 267; Baker on, 244; bonus culture of, 87–88, 115, 139, 143–44, 193, 221, 223, 277–78, 295; capital reduction and, 256; competition and, 277; Economy of Enough and, 22, 28; fairness and, 115, 133, 139, 143–44; flaunting of wealth by, 277; Gilded Age of, 144; greed and, 277–78; higher capital requirements for, 277; immorality of, 90, 277–78; interconnected network of, 277–78; interest rates and, 281, 283; lobbyists of, 87–88, 276; measurement and, 193, 200; needed policy recommendations for, 277–78; politicians and, 87–88, 286; posterity issues and, 85–91, 94, 99–102; recovery and, 3, 103; reform and, 277–79, 283, 296; regulation of, 7; runs on, 1; state–owned, 252; structural fragility of, 6; trust and, 88–89, 145–50, 158, 161–64, 174, 176, 257; values and, 211, 213, 217, 223, 226–28, 233 “Battle for Seattle” riot, 211 Baumol, William, 189–94, 206–7 BBC, 226, 247, 288 behavioral economics, 282; fairness and, 116–17, 121; rational choice theory and, 214–15. See also psychology Bell, Daniel, 230, 235–36 Bentham, Jeremy, 31 Berlin Wall, 182, 226, 239 Bhutan, Kingdom of, 40 Biswas–Diener, Robert, 48 Blackberry phones, 205 black markets, 225 Blake, William, 27 Blinder, Alan, 133, 224 Blueprint for a Safer Planet (Stern), 29 Bono, 194–96, 308n13 bonuses: bankers and, 87–88, 115, 139, 143–44, 193, 221, 223, 277–78, 295; as essential, 88; halting of, 278; lobbyists and, 87–88; penal tax on, 278; policy recommendations for, 277–79, 295–96; reform and, 295 boom–bust cycles, 4, 277, 280, 283; fairness and, 136–37; happiness and, 22, 28; posterity and, 93, 102, 106–9; trust and, 145, 147; values and, 213, 222–23, 233 Booth, Charles, 131 Boskin Commission, 37 Bové, José, 27 Bowling Alone (Putnam), 140–41 Boyle, James, 196 Brazil, 63, 65, 123 BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), 123, 160, 164, 176–77 British National Health Service, 247 British Social Attitudes, 140–41 Bronk, Richard, 28 Brown, Gordon, 93 Brundtlandt Report, 77 bubbles, 3, 26, 223, 228, 301n1 Buchanan, James, 220, 242 Bundesbank, 99 Burry, Michael, 86 Bush, George W., 127–28 Calculus of Consent, The: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Buchanan and Tullock), 242 call centers, 131, 133, 161 Cameron, David, 288 capitalism: China and, 234; communism and, 96, 182–83, 209–13, 218, 226, 230, 239–40; community and, 27, 51, 65, 117–18, 137, 141, 152–54; cultural effects of, 25–29, 230–38; current crisis of, 6–9; democracy and, 230–38; Engels on, 14; fairness and, 134, 137, 149; growth and, 268, 275, 290, 293, 297; happiness and, 25–29, 33, 45, 53–54; historical perspective on, 3, 6, 14; institutions and, 240; market failure and, 226–30; Marx on, 14; measurement and, 182; mercantile economy and, 27–28; nutrition and, 10; profit–oriented, 18; Protestant work ethic and, 13–14; protests against, 211–13; rethinking meaning of, 9; social effects of, 25–26; values and, 209–13, 218, 226, 230–32, 235–36; well-being and, 137–39 carbon prices, 70–71 celebrities, 33 charitable giving, 33, 141 Checkpoint Charlie, 147 China, 161, 262, 280; capitalism and, 234; carbon emissions and, 63; changed demographic structure of, 90; convergence and, 122; declining population in, 98; energy use in, 63, 65; global manufacturing and, 149; inequality and, 125–26; Mao and, 10; middle class of, 125–26; as next major power, 94; one–child policy and, 95–96; population growth and, 95–96; purchasing power parity (PPP) and, 306n19; rise in wealth of, 81, 122–23, 125, 212; savings and, 87, 94, 100, 108; wage penalties and, 133; World Bank influence and, 163 cities, 308n29; face-to-face contact and, 165–68; size and, 165–66; structural changes in, 165–70; urban clustering and, 166 City of London, 147, 221 Clemens, Michael, 81 climate change, 5–7, 17, 24, 90, 238; carbon prices and, 70–71; Copenhagen summit and, 62, 64–65, 68, 162, 292; domestic dissent and, 66–71; future and, 75–83; geological history and, 69; global warming and, 57, 64, 66, 68; greenhouse gases and, 23, 29, 35, 59, 61–63, 68, 70–71, 83; Himalayan glaciers and, 66–67; incandescent light bulbs and, 59–60; InterAcademy Council and, 66–67; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and, 59, 66–69, 82, 297; Kyoto Protocol and, 62–64; lack of consensus on, 66–71; Montreal Protocol and, 59; policy dilemma of, 58–62; policy recommendations for, 267, 280, 297; politics and, 62–65; social welfare and, 71–75; technology and, 59–60, 198 Coachella Value Music Festival, 197 Cobb, John, 36 Coca Cola, 150 coherence, 49 Cold War, 93, 112, 147, 209, 213, 239, 252 Collier, Paul, 77–78, 80, 82 Commerzbank, 87 Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, 37–38 communism: Berlin Wall and, 182, 226, 239; capitalism and, 96, 182–83, 209–13, 218, 226, 230, 239–40; Cold War and, 93, 112, 147, 209, 213, 239, 252; fall of, 209–13, 226, 239–40, 252; Iron Curtain and, 183, 239, 252; Leipzig marches and, 239; one-child policy and, 95–96; Velvet Revolution and, 239 community: civic engagement and, 140–41; globalization and, 148–49; intangible assets and, 149–52, 157, 161 (see also trust); public service and, 295; Putnam on, 140–41, 152–54 commuting, 45–47 Company of Strangers, The (Seabright), 148–49, 213–14 comprehensive wealth, 81–82, 202–3, 208, 271–73 consumerism, 22, 34, 45, 138 consumption: conspicuous, 11, 22, 45, 236; consumerism and, 22, 34, 45, 138; cutting, 61; downgrading status of, 11; downshifting and, 11, 55; Easterlin Paradox and, 39–44; global per capita, 72; of goods and services, 7, 10, 24, 35–36, 40, 82, 99, 161, 188, 191, 198, 214, 218, 228–29, 282; green lifestyle and, 55, 61, 76, 289, 293; growth and, 280, 295; happiness and, 22, 29, 40, 45; hedonic treadmill and, 40; increasing affluence and, 12; institutions and, 254, 263; Kyoto Protocol and, 63–64; measurement and, 181–82, 198; missing markets and, 229; natural resources and, 8–12, 58, 60, 79–82, 102, 112, 181–82; nature and, 58–61, 71–76, 79, 82; posterity and, 86, 104–5, 112–13; reduction of, 105; Slow Movement and, 27; trends in, 138; trilemma of, 13–14, 230–36, 275; values and, 229, 236 convergence, 5, 122 Copenhagen summit, 62, 64–65, 68, 162, 292 Crackberry, 205 Crafts, Nicholas, 156–57 credit cards, 2, 21, 136, 138, 283 Csikszentmilhalyi, Mihaly, 45–49 Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, The (Bell), 230, 235–36 Czechoslovakia, 239 Daly, Herman, 36 Damon, William, 48 Dasgupta, Partha, 61, 73, 77–78, 80, 82 David, Paul, 156 Dawkins, Richard, 118 debit cards, 2 decentralization, 7, 159, 218, 246, 255, 275, 291 defense budgets, 93 democracy, 2, 8, 16, 312n19; capitalism and, 230–38; culture and, 230–38; fairness and, 141; growth and, 268–69, 285–89, 296–97; institutions and, 242–43, 251–52, 262; nature and, 61, 66, 68; posterity and, 106; trust and, 175; values and, 230–35 Denmark, 125 Dickens, Charles, 131 Diener, Ed, 48, 49 Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men (Rousseau), 114 distribution, 29, 306n22; Asian influence and, 123; bifurcation of social norms and, 231–32; consumerism and, 22, 34, 45, 138; Easterlin Paradox and, 39–44; fairness and, 115–16, 123–27, 134, 136; food and, 10, 34; of goods and services, 7, 10, 24, 35–36, 40, 82, 99, 161, 188, 191, 198, 214, 218, 228–29, 282; income, 34, 116, 123–27, 134, 278; inequality and, 123 (see also inequality); institutions and, 253; measurement and, 181, 191–99, 202; paradox of prosperity and, 174; policy recommendations for, 276, 278; posterity and, 87, 94; trust and, 151, 171; unequal countries and, 124–30; values and, 226 Dorling, Danny, 224, 307n58, 308n34 Douglas, Michael, 221 downshifting, 11, 55 downsizing, 175, 246, 255 drugs, 44, 46, 137–38, 168–69, 191, 302n47 Easterlin, Richard, 39 Easterlin Paradox, 39–44 eBay, 198 Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project, The (TEEB), 78–79 economies of scale, 253–58 Economy of Enough, 233; building blocks for, 12–17; first ten steps for, 294–98; growth and, 182; happiness and, 24; institutions and, 250–51, 258, 261–63; living standards and, 13, 65, 78–79, 106, 113, 136, 139, 151, 162, 190, 194, 267; Manifesto of, 18, 267–98; measurement and, 182, 186–88, 201–7; nature and, 59, 84; Ostrom on, 250–51; posterity and, 17, 85–113; values and, 217, 233–34, 238; Western consumers and, 22 (see also consumption) Edinburgh University, 221 efficiency, 2, 7; evidence–based policy and, 233–34; fairness and, 126; Fama hypothesis and, 221–22; happiness and, 9, 29–30, 61; institutions and, 245–46, 254–55, 261; limits to, 13; nature and, 61–62, 69, 82; network effects and, 253, 258; productivity and, 13 (see also productivity); trilemma of, 13–14, 230–36, 275; trust and, 158–59; values and, 210, 215–16, 221–35 Ehrlich, Paul, 70 e-mail, 252, 291 “End of History, The” (Fukuyama), 239 Engels, Friedrich, 14 Enlightenment, 7 Enron, 145 environmentalists.

100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family And
by Sonia Arrison
Published 22 Aug 2011

60 She goes on to predict that demand for spiritual guidance will be strong because coming to terms with social changes will cause people to “look to philosophers for a new way of thinking that emphasizes cooperation, calmness, and going with the flow.”61 There will also be room to create new rituals for major life transitions such as “from the fourth divorce to the fifth marriage or from their third advanced degree to their next career.”62 Kohn clearly sees life extension as a great opportunity for Daoists to gain a larger share of the religious market because they have always argued that “death and aging are essentially avoidable, and that life in a perfect and harmonious society, where one is paid for realizing oneself and having fun, is the way to go.”63 That a particular religion already fits well with reality does not guarantee success in obtaining followers. Using rational choice theory, Lawrence Iannaccone explains how strict religious orders, which ask their members to dress in strange ways or follow rules that limit chances for social and economic advancement, remain able to attract members. It seems counterintuitive that such burdens would make a church stronger, but Iannaccone explains it this way: “strictness makes organizations stronger and more attractive because it reduces free riding.

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and innovative ideas Population Growth and Economic Development (National Academy of Sciences) Posner, Richard Poverty Precautionary principle President’s Council on Bioethics Preston, Samuel Prey (Crichton) Prices Productivity Prometheus Property and Environment Research Center Property rights(fig.) Prospect of Immortality, The (Ettinger) Qin Shi Huang Quality of life Quest for Immortality, The (Olshansky and Carnes) Question of Blood, A (Rankin) Race Rankin, Ian Rapamycin Raskin, Virginia Rational choice theory Rational Optimist, The (Ridley) Rats Raw materials RealAge.com Recker, Nancy Recycling Redstone, Sumner Refrigeration Regeneration/replacement of body parts(fig.) Regenerative medicine. See also Regeneration/replacement of body parts Regenerus, Mark Regenexx procedure Rejuvenation Rejuvenation Research (journal) Religion college graduates and belief systems(table)(table) and death fundamentalists percent of population belonging to religion or no religion(fig.)

How Democracy Ends
by David Runciman
Published 9 May 2018

Neither cares because this is democracy: what people really care about is who gets to tell them what to do. The experts don’t much like being told what to do either. Conscious that democratic politics risked infecting nuclear strategy with irrationality, an attempt was made during the Cold War to carve out a separate space for existential decision-making. The branch of economics known as ‘rational choice theory’ was applied to questions of nuclear deterrence. The aim was to ensure that the optimal strategy was pursued at all times. Something as deadly serious as nuclear conflict should be immune from fickle human judgements about who gets to decide what. The best way to achieve that was to treat nuclear deterrence as a kind of game with its own set of rules.

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., 87–8, 108 Khrushchev, President Nikita, 108 Kimera Systems (digital technology company), 189 Kissinger, Henry, 56, 95, 96 knowledge acquisition of, 153 and discrimination, 180 internet and, 153 political, 188–9 and power, 186–7, 204 social, 196 social scientific, 183 Krugman, Paul, 90 Kubrick, Stanley: Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (film), 95–6, 109 L Land, Nick, 165–7 Le Pen, marine, 149 Lenin, Vladimir Ilych: The State and Revolution, 171 libertarianism, 194 Lilla, mark, 150 Limbaugh, Rush, 20 Lincoln, President Abraham, 14 Lloyd George, David, 71 Long, Huey, 49 loss aversion, 175, 188 Luttwak, Edward: Coup D’État: A Practical Handbook, 41, 44 M McCarthy, Cormac: The Road, 113, 118–19 McGinnis, Joe: The Selling of the President, 158 machines, 121–2, 125–6, 127, 196, 197, 199, 200–201, 202, 205, 219; see also artificial intelligence; computers; robots; technocracy; technology McKinley, President William, 74 Macron, President Emanuel, 148, 149–50 Man on Wire (film), 117–18 Marx, Karl: ‘The Fragment on machines’, 196–7 Marxism-Leninism, 171 Mason, Paul: Postcapitalism, 196, 197, 199, 205 Mélenchon, Jean-Luc, 58 Mencius Moldbug see Yarvin, Curtis metadata, 154 Mill, John Stuart, 182–3, 185 Miller, Stephen, 13 mindlessness, 84, 86–8 Mitchell, David: The Bone Clocks, 113 Modi, Narendra, 65–6, 149 monarchs, 167 Monsanto (company): ‘The Desolate Year’, 88 Mugabe, President Robert, 48 Mullin, Chris: A Very British Coup, 58 N NATO, 59 Nazis, 85, 97, 99 Netherlands, 148 networks and anarchism, 193 and change, 196 interconnectedness, 112–15 political movements, 149 social 136, 151, 160, 177; see also Facebook; social media; Twitter utopian, 200 see also internet New York crime, 211 World Trade Center, 117–18 New York Times, 159–60 New Yorker (magazine), 82–3, 84, 106 news, fake, 64, 75, 98, 156, 157 Nixon, President Richard, 56, 90, 158 North Korea, 213 Nozick, Robert: Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 193–4, 195 nuclear disarmament, 107 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), 94–5 nuclear weapons, 56, 83–4, 86, 94, 95, 96–7, 102, 103–104, 106, 107 Nunn, Sam, 95 O Obama, President Barack and climate change, 92 and conspiracy theory, 64 executive initiatives, 55 and inequality, 79 and Trump’s election, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 oil companies, 131 Orban, Viktor, 175 Osborne, George, 208 Oxford and Cambridge Review, 120 P Papademos, Lucas, 39 Papandreou, Andreas, 27 Papandreou, George, 39 paranoia, 67, 74 Parent, Joe, 62 Parfit, Derek, 100, 202–3 Paul, Rand, 154 Perry, William, 95 pesticides, 87–9 Petit, Philippe, 117–18 Piergiacomi, Alessio, 167–8 Piketty, Thomas: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 78 Pinker, Steven: The Better Angels of our Nature, 211 Plato, 179 Poland, 65, 66 police, 171 political parties, 214 artificiality, 145–6 charisma, 147 and identity politics, 150 as machines, 127 membership, 146, 147–8 ‘Net’, 162 partisan nature, 146 ‘Pirate’, 162 United States, 146–7, 221 politicians: and trust, 144–5, 164, 214 pollution, 89, 90 populism, 13, 175 and banality, 98–9 causes of, 67 and conspiracy theory, 65–7, 72, 168 and disconnect, 141 and economic growth, 192 and inequality, 77–8 and movement politics, 148–9 United States, 67–70, 73 and war, 75 precautionary principle, 100–101 pressure groups, 89 prisons, 151, 152, 212 Putin, President Vladimir, 157 R racism, 143 Rand, Ayn, 194 rational choice theory, 108–9 referendums, 47–8, 179, 183 France, 70 Turkey, 52 United Kingdom, 48 reform, 70, 71, 78, 79, 185; see also social change revolutions, 41, 78, 196; see also digital revolution risk, 101–5, 110–12, 116 robots, 7, 103, 111, 128–9, 130, 168, 210 Rockefeller, John D., 131–2 Roosevelt, President Theodore, 70, 71, 131 Russia ‘competitive authoritarianism’, 175 Cuban missile Crisis (1962), 107–8 data harvesting, 156 foreign policy, 30 S Sacco, Justine, 143 San Francisco, 162, 163 Sandberg, Cheryl, 137 Sanders, Bernie, 58, 149 Sarandon, Susan, 198 Scarry, Elaine: Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing between Democracy and Doom, 104 Scheidel, Walter: The Great Leveler, 78 Schlesinger, James, 56 Schultz, George, 95 Shita, Mouna, 189–90 Simon, Herbert, 153 el-Sisi, General Abdul Fatah, 48–9 slavery, 23, 35, 73, 123–4 sleepwalking, 115, 116, 117 Snowden, Edward, 151–2 Snyder, Timothy: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, 97–8, 99 social change, 192, 219; see also reform social media, 149; see also Facebook; networks: social; Twitter socialism 171 Socrates, 38 Spain, 162 Stalinism, 99, 169, 171 suffrage, universal, 187–8 Sulzberger, Cyrus, 27, 28 surveillance, 152–5 Sweden, 162, 163 T taxation, 70, 72, 193 technocracy, 180–81, 191–2, 198, 205, 214 technology, 125, 126 corporations, 131 digital, 144, 151, 154, 161, 162–3; see also internet and dignity, 203 information, 7–8 and mortality, 24–5 and risk management, 105 and ‘the shock of the old’, 122 threat of, 103, 120–21 see also machines terrorism, 74 terrorists, 97, 212 Texas, 163 Thiel, Peter, 198 tightrope-walking, 117–18 totalitarianism, 98; see also tyrannies tribalism, 163–4 Truman, President Harry S., 84–5 Trump, Melania, 13 Trump, President Donald, 49 behaviour, 20–21, 22–3, 159, 173 and change, 198 and Charlottesville demonstrations, 4 and climate change, 93 and conspiracy theory, 64–5 and dignity, 173 election of, 1–2, 5, 13, 16–18, 19, 20, 25, 118, 149, 156 and executive aggrandisement, 92 and fake news, 157 inaugural speech, 11–14, 74 military’s influence on, 59 novels inspired by, 57 and nuclear war, 86 and political violence, 212 presidency, 213 and Silicon Valley firms, 137 supporters of, 98 on surveillance, 154 use of Twitter, 143 Tsipras, Alexis, 33–4, 209 Turkey, 50–3 conspiracy theories, 65, 66 coups, 50–2, 53, 66 and Cyprus, 38 elections, 51 Justice and Development Party (AKP), 51 movement politics, 149 referendum (2017), 52 Twitter, 65, 137, 142, 143, 156 tyrannies 61; see also totalitarianism U United Kingdom austerity, 208 Boer War, 75 Brexit, 48, 156, 179 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), 94–5 Conservative Party, 146, 209 general election (2017), 95 Labour Party, 58, 70, 94–5, 148–9, 150 metadata, 154 political enfranchisement, 76 reform, 185 welfare state, 76 United States, 23–4, 25, 49–50 CIA, 28, 30 climate change, 92 Congress, 19 conspiracy theories, 62, 67 corporations, 132 Cuban missile Crisis (1962), 107–8 democratic failure, 2, 14 demonstrations, 4 direct democracy, 163 economic growth, 175 and Egypt compared, 49–50 environment, 87–90 and Greece, 30 immigration, 183 inequality, 79 judiciary, 19 McCarthyism, 67 metadata, 154 military, 17, 18 National Security Agency (NSA), 152 New Deal, 76, 78 and nuclear war, 86, 95 ‘pax Americana’, 198 pesticides, 87–9 political enfranchisement, 76 political parties Democrats, 15, 62, 64, 108, 146–7, 221 Republicans, 62, 146–7, 221 politicians, 164 populism, 67–70, 73 presidential elections, 14, 16, 54–5, 58, 68, 220–24 Kennedy, John F., 108 Trump, Donald, 1–2, 5, 13, 19, 20, 25, 118, 149 prisons, 212 reform, 70 rights, 72 road accidents, 211–12 Silicon Valley, 137, 204 ‘tyranny of the majority’, 142 violence, 73–4, 211–12 war with Spain (1890s), 75 see also Chicago; New York; San Francisco; Texas Uscinski, Joe, 62 utopias, 126, 194, 195, 201 V Varoufakis, Yanis, 32–4, 116–17, 209 Venezuela, 154–5, 208 violence, 6, 73–5 ancient Athens, 38 decline of, 13 and environmental disaster, 93 Greece, 31, 210 and inequality, 78–80 Japan, 210 online, 142–4 political, 16–17, 18 United States, 73–4, 211–12 voting AI and, 189–90 right to, 76, 183–4 systems, 182–3 see also elections W wars, 74–7 citizens’ experience of, 77 and conspiracy theory, 77 First World War, 76, 115 of national survival, 75 nuclear, 83–4, 84–5, 87, 93–7, 109, 213 and populism, 75 total, 76–7 United States and North Korea, 115 see also Cold War wealth: and death, 204; see also elites Weber, Max, 127, 131, 147, 164, 187–8 welfare states, 70, 76, 109–10 whistleblowers see Snowden, Edward Wilson, President Woodrow, 69, 71, 75–6 Y Yarvin, Curtis, 167 Z Zimbabwe, 48 Zuckerberg, Mark, 131, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 157–8, 215; see also Facebook ALSO FROM PROFILE BOOKS Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy Francis Fukuyama The most important book about the history and future of politics since The End of History.

Unhealthy societies: the afflictions of inequality
by Richard G. Wilkinson
Published 19 Nov 1996

The powerful effects of relative income and their inherently social nature present a formidable challenge to conventional economics which has based itself largely on maximising the asocial pleasures of material consumption. The extent to which social needs are primary and must be taken into account by the system through which society satisfies its material needs has not been adequately addressed by economic science. Although economics is far from exclusively asocial, the weight of the application of rational choice theory has grossly underestimated human social needs and the fact that their satisfaction should often take precedence, particularly in affluent societies, over the demands to maximise individual consumption. There is a missing social economy of well-being. Part III Social cohesion and social conflict Chapter 6 A small town in the USA, wartime Britain, Eastern Europe and Japan What seems to be one of the most important distinctions between the way relative and absolute income impact on health is that absolute income will affect health through the direct physiological effects of material circumstances, whereas relative income involves inherently social elements in the causal processes.

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The economic necessity of earning and spending, and the economic institutions through which we do that, contains a rationality which animates a large part of our lives. This logic of possessive individualism which grows out of the opposition of marketised ‘interests’ provides economists with their rational choice theory. But instead of that logic remaining simply an external fact of An anthropology of social cohesion 145 life, it becomes internalised. Instead of seeing the real situational sources of our behaviour, it has become clear that we infer an inner rationality as if it were inherent within us.

The Most Human Human: What Talking With Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive
by Brian Christian
Published 1 Mar 2011

Whereas for a billionaire like Donald Trump, a million bucks is chump change, and he’ll probably take his chances, knowing the odds favor him. The two choose differently—and both choose correctly. At any rate, and with examples like this one aside, the prevailing attitude seems clear: economists who subscribe to the rational-choice theory and those who critique it (in favor of what’s known as “bounded rationality”) both think that an emotionless, Spock-like approach to decision making is demonstrably superior. We should all aspire to throw off our ape ancestry to whatever extent we can—alas, we are fallible and will still make silly emotion-tinged “bloopers” here and there.

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If it was so bad, wouldn’t we have evolved differently? The rational-choice theorists, I imagine, would respond by saying something like “we’re on our way there, but just not fast enough.” In the late ’80s and through the ’90s, says Shiv, neuroscientists “started providing evidence for the diametric opposite viewpoint” to rational-choice theory: “that emotion is essential for and fundamental to making good decisions.” Shiv recalls a patient he worked with “who had an area of the emotional brain knocked off” by a stroke. After a day of doing some tests and diagnostics for which the patient had volunteered, Shiv offered him a free item as a way of saying “thank you”—in this case, a choice between a pen and a wallet.

Liars and Outliers: How Security Holds Society Together
by Bruce Schneier
Published 14 Feb 2012

Some of those needs advocate cooperation, and others advocate defection. Figuring out whether to cooperate or defect—and then what norm to follow—means taking all of this into account. I'm not trying to say that people use some conscious calculus to decide when to cooperate and when to defect. This sort of idea is the basis for the Rational Choice Theory of economics, which holds that people make trade-offs that are somehow optimal. Their decisions are “rational” not in the sense that they are based solely on reason or profit maximization, but in the much more narrow sense that they minimize costs and maximize benefits, taking risks into account.

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extreme situations David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo (2011), Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us, Crown Archetype. lethal altruists Adolf Tobeña (2009), “Lethal Altruists: Itineraries along the Dark Outskirts of Moralistic Prosociality,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167:5–15. Abraham Maslow Abraham H. Maslow (1943), “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review, 50:370–96. Rational Choice Theory Gary S. Becker (1976), The Economic Approach to Human Behavior, University of Chicago Press. Bounded Rationality Bryan D. Jones (1999), “Bounded Rationality,” Annual Review of Political Science, 2:297–321. Daniel Kahneman (2003), “Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics,” The American Economic Review, 93:1449–75.

Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order
by Jason Sharman
Published 5 Feb 2019

Rather like learning, what at first seems to be a commonsense presumption on closer inspection turns out to rely on quite demanding and restrictive conditions. In particular, it is difficult to specify the feedback loop through which the beneficial consequences of an organizational feature cause and maintain that feature.55 In general, Elster asserts that “Much of applied rational choice theory is a combination of just-so stories and functionalist explanation.”56 In order for selection mechanisms to create a population of homogenous effective organizations, several conditions have to apply. The “death rate” amongst organizations has to be very high, the differences in effectiveness have to be large and consistent, and the environment has to stay fairly constant.

Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code
by Jeff Atwood
Published 3 Jul 2012

All it took was 5 super-connected people at Kickstarter (especially Andy Baio) to take a concept we worked hard to refine, tweak it with Amazon Payments, and then take credit. You could say that that’s capitalism, but I still think you should acknowledge people that you take inspiration from. I do. I owe the concept of Fundable to many things, including living in cooperative student housing and studying Political Science at Michigan. Rational choice theory, tragedy of the commons, and collective action are a few political science concepts that are relevant to Fundable. Yes, Fundable had some technical and customer service problems. That’s because we had no money to revise it. I had plans to scrap the entire CMS and start from scratch with a new design.

The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations
by David Pilling
Published 30 Jan 2018

A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over…With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to.” This may be a caricature of Bentham’s thinking, but the notion that utility can be measured—usually in terms of price—has come to dominate modern economics. Rational-choice theory says that if everyone is left to their own devices they produce the best possible outcome for the maximum number of people. That is the origin of Homo economicus, “a somewhat miserable vision of a human being who is constantly calculating, putting prices on things, neurotically pursuing his own personal interests at every turn.”5 That makes Bentham “the inventor of what has since come to be known as ‘evidence-based policymaking,’ the idea that government interventions can be cleansed of any moral or ideological principles, and be guided purely by facts and figures.

The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century
by Robert D. Kaplan
Published 6 Mar 2018

Graduate students, he told me, “are more reluctant to challenge this or that professor” and have often been “captured by the jargon and orthodoxy of the discipline.” One of his former undergraduates observes, “Other academics want to ram down your throat what they know, and then go on to the next victim. Huntington never dominates classroom discussions, and he listens intensely.” Huntington disdains “rational-choice theory,” the reigning fad in political science, which assumes that human behavior is predictable but which fails to take account of fear, envy, hatred, self-sacrifice, and other human passions that are essential to an understanding of politics. In an age of academic operators he is an old-fashioned teacher who speculates historically and philosophically on the human condition.

Democratizing innovation
by Eric von Hippel
Published 1 Apr 2005

Journal of Product Innovation Management 18, no. 2: 388–395. Olson, M. 1967. The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard University Press. 192 Bibliography O’Mahony, S. 2003. “Guarding the Commons: How Open Source Contributors Protect Their Work.” Research Policy 32, no. 7: 1179–1198. Ostrom, E. 1998. “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action.” American Political Science Review 92, no. 1: 1–22. Pavitt, K. 1984. “Sectoral Patterns of Technical Change: Towards a Taxonomy and a Theory.” Research Policy 13 (6): 343–373. Penning, C. 1998. Bike History. Delius & Klasing. Perens, B. 1999. “The Open Source Definition.”

10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less
by Garett Jones
Published 4 Feb 2020

This brings us to the question of what it means to argue for institutional reform, what it means to try to change one part of the political system when we know that the political system we live in is already shaped by voters, culture, and private economic interests at home and abroad. Why bother telling a train conductor how to steer a one-track train? The broader question of how to give advice to people who are already hemmed in by reality is too big to ignore. In 1960, the late Harvard economist James Duesenberry made a related point, while critiquing the rational choice theory of then-future economics Nobel laureate Gary Becker: “Economics is all about how people make choices. Sociology is all about why they don’t have any choices to make.”¹⁸ I’m glad to admit that in this case, the sociologists are mostly right. But I’ll still argue for small, and even for moderate-sized, political reforms, because every democratic political system seems to contain what my George Mason colleague Bryan Caplan calls slack—some range of political motion where a smart person with a good idea can push for a policy reform that makes things a little better.¹⁹ While this isn’t the place to argue for the existence of free will, it is the place to argue for the existence of slack, of political wiggle room.

What's Wrong With Economics: A Primer for the Perplexed
by Robert Skidelsky
Published 3 Mar 2020

Mankiw, 2018: 6 2. There is no gender-neutral equivalent. Nevertheless, with its English translation ‘Economic Man’, it is too useful to discard. 3. Lazear, 2000 4. Haldar, 2018 5. Lucas, 1988 6. Stigler, 1982: 7,19 7. Sargent, 2015 8. Akerlof, 1970; Stiglitz and Rothschild, 1976 9. Wikipedia, Rational choice theory; Becker, 1968 10. For a classic nineteenth-century utilitarian approach to the problem of crime prevention, see Henry Sidgwick’s discussion in Elements of Politics (1891), quoted in Skidelsky, 1993: 7–8. 11. Rampell, 2013 12. Anderson, 2011 13. Angner, 2012 14. Priest, 2016 15. Thaler and Sunstein, 2008 16.

Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be
by Diane Coyle
Published 11 Oct 2021

., 120 Piketty, Thomas, 131 Pinker, Steven, 91 pluralism, 3, 76 political economy: loops of, 188–95; progress and, 146; public responsibilities and, 11, 49, 56, 70–80, 82; rationality and, 119; rediscovery of, 70–80, 111, 213–14; socialist calculation debate and, 190; twenty-first-century policy and, 167, 181, 188–95, 206–7 politics: conservatism, 30; Covid19 pandemic and, 163; democracy, 33, 67, 69, 79, 193; disruption of, 167 (see also digital economy); empirical work and, 3, 76, 78–79, 124, 213; free market and, 30, 36, 130, 206; globalisation and, 110, 132, 139, 154, 164, 193–94, 196, 213; inequality and, 132, 163, 165–66; lobbying and, 29, 64–65, 69, 149; neoliberalism, 3, 15, 193–94; outsider context and, 106, 110; progress and, 137, 146, 148–49, 152, 155, 157, 161; public responsibilities and, 29, 33, 36, 41, 53, 55–56, 61, 64–73, 76–79, 85; putting economists into economics and, 61–66; separation protocol and, 121, 124; taxes and, 132; technocratic dilemma and, 67–79; technology and, 173; twenty-first-century policy and, 193–94, 205–6, 210 Pollock, Rufus, 59–60 populism, 1, 42, 56, 67–68, 77, 82, 110, 131, 211 Portes, Jonathan, 53 positive economics: Friedman and, 104, 121; Gelman and, 108; normative economics and, 10, 104, 108, 114, 120–21, 125, 146; progress and, 146; welfare and, 114, 120 Post-Autistic Economics movement, 84 Post-Crash Economics Society, 84 poverty, 80 Price, George, 48 price gouging, 43 prices: cloud computing and, 150, 170, 172; communications and, 150, 171, 177; CPI, 146–47, 172; fixed costs and, 174, 177, 179, 185–86, 200; indexes for, 26, 144, 146–47, 171–72; network effects and, 127, 141, 174, 177, 185, 199–202, 205, 209; SSNIP test and, 204 principal-agent relations, 209 privatisation, 31–32, 44–45, 65, 194 probability theory, 99, 200 Pro Bono Economics lecture, 86 production: agglomeration and, 132; automation and, 139, 154, 165–66, 195; competition and, 12, 41; decision making and, 12, 123, 140, 196; digital technology and, 132, 140, 142, 176, 195–97, 202, 213; economies of scale and, 127, 142, 174, 177, 185, 199–201, 209; fakes and, 98; GDP and, 101 (see also Gross Domestic Product [GDP]); globalisation and, 110, 132, 139, 154, 164, 193–96, 213; innovation and, 41, 139, 169, 195; manufacturing and, 105, 149–50, 172, 178, 195–98; mass, 140, 142; outsourcing and, 139, 195–97; returns to scale and, 123, 128, 140, 174, 177, 180, 185–88, 199, 202–3, 209; technology and, 12, 132, 140, 169, 176, 195–96, 202, 213; twenty-first-century policy and, 183, 185, 194–97, 199, 202; wealth creation and, 20 productivity: OECD countries and, 164; progress and, 142–43, 153, 164; technology and, 127, 142, 153, 169, 172–73, 192, 194, 202; twenty-first-century policy and, 192, 194, 199, 202, 207 profit: competition and, 33, 41–42, 105, 204; counterfeits and, 98; excess, 29; importance of, 1, 18, 71; maximisation of, 92, 107; measure of value and, 46; prisons and, 33; public interest and, 41; returns to scale and, 123, 128, 140, 174, 177, 180, 185–86, 188, 199, 202–3, 209; sharing economy and, 142; social welfare and, 201 progress: algorithms and, 139, 157, 160–61; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 137–39, 154, 159–62; behavioural economics and, 136–37, 145, 154, 157–60; Boskin Commission and, 146–47; building back and, 163, 165; capitalism and, 143, 149; causality and, 137; central banks and, 149; communications and, 25–26, 53, 60, 127, 139, 150, 168, 171, 177, 196, 198; competition and, 135, 158, 165; computers and, 138, 144, 155; consumers and, 137, 141, 144, 146–47, 151; cost of living and, 143–47; criteria for, 137–42; digital economy and, 14, 137–43, 150, 153–54, 164–67; electricity and, 139, 142, 156, 165, 169, 191–92; Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and, 149, 153, 159; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and, 138, 142–44, 148, 151, 158–59, 165, 172; growth and, 138, 140, 143–45, 152, 159, 165; historical perspective on, 144–45; income and, 138, 143, 147, 149, 151; Industrial Revolution and, 150; innovation and, 137, 139, 142–46, 150–51, 156, 166; internet and, 138–39; interventions and, 160; living standards and, 143–47, 172, 194; macroeconomics and, 151; models and, 139, 151–52, 154, 159–61; moral issues and, 148, 150; normative economics and, 146; Phillips machine and, 135–37, 151, 192; politics and, 137, 142–55, 157, 161; positive economics and, 146; productivity and, 142–43, 153, 164; rationality and, 157; regulation and, 149, 156–58, 165; returns to scale and, 140; Sen-Stiglitz-Fitoussi Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and, 151; statistics and, 138, 142, 144–53, 158–59, 164; technology and, 134, 137–42, 160, 164–65; welfare and, 130, 143 Project CyberSyn, 184 PSL2, 72 psychology, 38, 63, 70, 92, 94 public choice theory, 64, 106, 119, 124 public goods, 30, 77, 123, 127–28, 140, 180, 212 public opinion, 9, 19, 70, 165–66 public responsibilities: artificial intelligence (AI) and, 28, 40; behavioural fix and, 45–51; causality and, 61, 74; central banks and, 16, 32, 62, 64, 66–67, 76, 81; competition and, 28, 33, 38, 41–42, 45–48, 57–69, 74, 77, 79, 85; consumers and, 22, 28, 42, 59–60, 65; empirical work and, 17, 35, 40, 52, 61, 70, 74–81, 90, 92, 94–102, 110–11; free market and, 19, 30–32, 35–36, 45, 54; Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and, 16–19, 21, 29–31, 37–38, 50–51, 56, 67–68, 73–74, 79, 84; growth and, 16–17, 23, 28, 37, 41, 46, 61, 66, 68–73, 76, 78; inflation and, 16–17, 30, 36, 66, 73; macroeconomics and, 17, 21, 31, 36–37, 71–76, 85–86; market as process and, 37–45; political economy and, 11, 49, 56, 70–80, 82; politics and, 29, 33, 36, 41, 53, 55–56, 61, 64–73, 76–79, 85; putting economists into economics and, 61–66; rationality and, 15–16, 20–22, 29, 31, 33, 35, 45–48, 54, 59, 62–63, 71; regulation and, 16, 19, 24–32, 39, 41, 43, 53, 57–71, 81; responsible economics and, 52–61; statistics and, 17, 42, 51–52, 58, 61, 72, 90, 94–102, 113; technocratic dilemma and, 67–79; technology and, 26–28, 35, 40, 71; welfare and, 55, 60 randomised control trials (RCTs), 60–61, 93–95, 105, 109–10 rational choice theory, 33, 35, 47–48, 59, 91, 114, 119 rationality: algorithms and, 116, 118; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 116–18; behavioural economics and, 22, 35, 46–47, 59, 109, 117–19; common sense and, 78, 127; competition and, 117; computers and, 116–17; consumers and, 116; decision making and, 116–19; empirical work and, 17; Enlightenment and, 20; game theory and, 48, 90–91, 129, 159–60, 179–80; happiness and, 70–71, 153; homo economicus and, 13, 47–48, 93, 114, 116–17; logical rigour and, 88; logic and, 33, 47, 89–91; models and, 21–22, 31, 35, 45–48, 62, 71, 88–103, 117–18; moral issues and, 117; New Public Management and, 33, 106–7, 119, 187; outsider context and, 90–93, 109, 111; political economy and, 119; progress and, 157; public responsibilities and, 15–16, 20–22, 29, 31, 33, 35, 45–48, 54, 59, 62–63, 71; self-interest and, 6, 13, 46–47, 109, 117–20, 123; separation protocol and, 123–24; twenty-first-century policy and, 194 Rawls, John, 106 Reagan, Ronald, 15–16, 30–31, 36, 56–57, 124, 192–94, 207 RealClear Opinion, 19 recession, 17, 51, 73, 111, 154, 158–59 reciprocity, 49 Red Plenty (Spufford), 182–83, 190 Rees-Mogg, Jacob, 155 reflexivity, 11, 81 reform, 4–5, 34, 44–45, 67–69, 88, 172 regulation: Big Bang and, 16; deregulation and, 16, 31, 60, 68, 71, 193–94; greed and, 11; Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) and, 27n5; outsider context and, 109; price gouging and, 43; progress and, 149, 156–58, 165; public responsibilities and, 16, 19, 24–32, 39, 41, 43, 53, 57–71, 81; separation protocol and, 125; technology and, 27, 71, 134, 181; twenty-first-century policy and, 193–94, 200, 206; utilities and, 65 Reinhart, Carmen, 101 Renaissance, 144 rent-seeking, 64 Republic of Beliefs, The (Basu), 159–60 Retail Price Index (RPI), 147 Rethinking Economics group, 35, 84 returns to scale: envelopment and, 203–4; increasing, 123, 128, 140, 174, 177, 180, 185–88, 199, 202–3, 209; knowledge-based economy and, 128; production and, 123, 128, 140, 174, 177, 180, 185–88, 199, 202–3, 209; progress and, 140; twenty-first-century policy and, 185–88, 199, 202–3, 209 Robbins, Lionel, 100, 120–21 Roberts, J., 197 Robinhood, 27 Robinson, Marilynne, 19–20 robotics, 137, 154 Rodrik, Dani, 97 Rogoff, Ken, 101 Romer, Paul, 90, 140, 209 Rosen, Sherwin, 173–74 Ross, Andy, 83–84 Roth, Al, 44, 142 Rothschild, E., 120 Royal Commissions, 65 Royal Economic Society, 9, 86 Rubinstein, Ariel, 90–91 rules of thumb, 47–48, 90, 117, 212 Ruskin, John, 20 Samuelson, P.

A Theory of the Drone
by Gregoire Chamayou
Published 23 Apr 2013

See also law enforcement political analysis, 15 political automata, fabrication of, 205–21 political economy, 181, 186, 189 political geography, 52–53, 54 political philosophy, history of, 177–84 political science, American, 186 political subjectivity, relinquishing of, 205–21 political vulnerabilization, 184 politics, 66 self-deception and, 240n14 of verticality, 53–54, 66–67 Porter, Gareth, 50–51 postcolonial violence, 94–95 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 103, 106–13 definition of, 110–11 Powell, Colin, 186 power, 229–30n5 aerial, 53–54 corporeality and, 218–19, 221, 268n1 projection of, 12–13, 230n6 pragmatic co-presence, 247–54n8 precision, 56–57, 140–49 of aerial weaponry, 62–63 collateral damage and, 140 precision-distinction thesis, 142–47 surveillance and, 143–45 Predator drones, 13, 14, 28–29, 99, 141–42, 214–15 electronic communications and, 41 genealogy of, 26–29 name of, 35 transformation into a weapon, 29 video feeds transmitted by, 75 Predator (Martin), 114 predictive calculation, 34 preemptive anticipation, 42–44 “preemptive manhunting,” 32 presence, definition of, 247–54n8 preservation of life, 127, 136, 138–39, 154–55, 180–81 military ethos and, 100–101, 131–33, 136–37 national, 194 sovereignty and, 182 by substitution, 187 press, 14, 107–8, 148 See also specific media outlets principle of unnecessary risk, 137 profiling, 42, 47, 51, 145 See also pattern-of-life analysis programming, 210–11, 212 projecting power, 12–13, 54, 77, 229–30n5, 230n6 prophylactic elimination, 34, 35 proportionality, 137–38, 162, 169, 198, 215, 216, 269–70n10, 273n26 protection obedience and, 178–79 political sovereignty and, 178–79 protection debt, 179 state–subject relations and, 178–79 protective sovereignty, 178–79, 183–84, 194, 268n5 protectorates, 178 protests, 142 See also antiwar movement proximity acuteness and, 262n10 killing and, 115–17, 116 optical, 255–56n22, 255n13 perceptual, 116–17 surveillance and, 116–17 tele-technologies and, 247–54n8 psychopathologies, 106–13 Pufendorf, Samuel von, 160–61, 163 pursuit, rights of, 53 radio-controlled planes, 85, 242–43n1 Radioplane Company, 25, 26 radio police automatons, 219, 220, 221 radios, 41 Rafael Armament Development Authority, 261n12 RAND Corporation, 55 rational choice, theory of, 186 RCA, 84–85 Reaper drones, 35, 41, 92, 92 reciprocity eradication of, 17 right to kill and, 163–64, 165 violence and, 196 warfare and, 161–62 reconnaissance, 28 Red Army Faction, 68 Red Brigades, 68 Reisner, Daniel, 167 remote control, 21, 23, 242–43n1 as philanthropic device, 23 remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs), 27–28, 85, 96 See also radio-controlled planes remote warfare, 192, 230n6 Republic (Plato), 96 republican regimes, 183, 185 repugnance generate by killing, theory of, 115–16, 197, 246n19 responsibility.

Bureaucracy
by David Graeber
Published 3 Feb 2015

Or, at least, he did so within those disciplines that considered themselves in any way oppositional. Ultimately, it might be better to speak here of the emergence of a kind of division of academic labor within the American higher education system, with the optimistic side of Weber reinvented (in even more simplified form) for the actual training of bureaucrats under the name of “rational choice theory,” while his pessimistic side was relegated to the Foucauldians. Foucault’s ascendancy in turn was precisely within those fields of academic endeavor that absorbed former campus radicals, or those who identified with them. These disciplines were almost completely divorced from any access to political power, or increasingly, any influence on social movements, as well—a distance that gave Foucault’s emphasis on the “power/knowledge” nexus (the assertion that forms of knowledge are always also forms of social power—indeed, the most important forms of social power) a particular appeal.

Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution
by Wendy Brown
Published 6 Feb 2015

The veridiction of the market has two dimensions in neoliberal reason: the market is itself true and also represents the true form of all activity. Rational actors accept these truths, thus accept “reality; conversely, those who act according to other principles are not simply irrational, but refuse “reality.” Insofar as rational-choice theory expresses C h a r t in g N eo l ib e r a l P o l i t i c a l R at i o n a l i t y 67 this equation and becomes the hegemonic model for social-science knowledge, it represents a further development of what Herbert Marcuse termed the “closing of the political universe” — the erasure of intelligible, legitimate alternatives to economic rationality.

The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back
by Jacob Ward
Published 25 Jan 2022

And while the rudimentary flowcharts and columns they used to apply theoretical systems like the Prisoner’s Dilemma look facile today, those were the same instincts—to find algorithms that could capture, predict, and even shape human behavior—that created AI, social media, and Big Tech. They just didn’t have the horsepower or the fuel supply we do today. “No rule, whether of logic or probability theory or rational choice theory, mechanically applied, is likely to be able to handle the gamut of political choices,” Erickson and coauthors wrote with some frustration, and on this we agree. But time and again, we humans fall in love with logical-looking systems the same way Cold War rationalists did. We can’t resist the temptation of offloading hard decision-making, and it’s happening now more than ever.

Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (And What We Can Do About It)
by William Poundstone
Published 5 Feb 2008

Could the uncertain workings of democracy and individual choice compete with scientifically planned economies) The RAND Corporation was a focus of America's collectivist panic. 53 GAMING THE VOTE Its creation was an attempt to beat the Soviet planners at their own game(s), to show that reasoned, scientific policy decisions could be compatible with American democracy. This meant, in other words, that RAND's elite would devise ways to make sound decisions on behalf of the American masses. Amadae has termed this doctrine "rational choice" and wrote that "it is no exaggeration to say that virtually all the roads to rational choice theory lead from RAND." Amadae inter· prets Arrow's theorem as "part of the campaign to reassert the tenets of governmental rule legitimized by popular consent, but not susceptible to fascist or authoritarian perversions." Mathematics is no respecter of ideology. What Arrow ended up proving did not exactly help the case for democracy.

The Cultural Logic of Computation
by David Golumbia
Published 31 Mar 2009

Amadae (2003) points to the concomitant emphasis on rationality and technology in the rational choice theorists, not least as expressed in the writings of the RAND corporation, historically a major proponent of both in contemporary U.S. thought. As Amadae puts it, “the mathematical formalism structuring rational choice theory is impelled by the same academy-wide momentum propelling an increased emphasis on formal models as an indication of scientific standing” (158), also pointing to the influence of one of the founders of modern computing, John von Neumann, on rational choice doctrine (via his writings on game theory, von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944).

The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite
by Duff McDonald
Published 24 Apr 2017

Continuing, Cohen recalls that “[i]t was a very peculiar example because, on one hand, you couldn’t avoid a flattering sense of your own importance, from being allowed to share with this man an experience the consequences of which are far more lasting and inalterable than anything most of us are ever likely to do. On the other hand, there was this feeling of bewilderment that the lives of so many men should add up to no more than two simple columns.”28 The late Robert Bellah, an influential sociologist and moral philosopher, points to flaws in rational choice theory, which originated at the RAND Corporation, found support from the Ford Foundation, and an enthusiastic practitioner in Robert McNamara, as the sources of McNamara’s failure. The theory, which assumes that social life can be explained as the outcome of rational choices by individual actors, found an early foothold in economics with Kenneth Arrow’s 1951 book, Social Choice and Individual Values, and it remains the dominant economic idea at the University of Chicago.

…

., 127, 335 Putnam, Robert, 56, 391 “Putting Integrity into Finance” (Jensen), 378 Qaddafi, Muammar al-, 405–7, 420, 567 Questrom School of Business, Boston University, 235 Raab, Sidney, 289 Radcliffe College, 238, 239: Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration, 151, 239, 240 Raiffa, Howard, 215–18, 336–37, 355 Rajaratnam, Raj, 211 RAND Corporation, 258, 272, 275 Random Walk Down Wall Street, A (Malkiel), 411 Rangan, V. Kasturi, 475 rational choice theory, 275 RCA, 335; HBS’s Executive Education and, 151 Reagan, Ronald, 160, 163, 371, 387, 419, 422, 430, 474 Redefining Corporate Soul (Cox), 492 Redefining Health Care (Porter), 421 “Re-engineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate” (Hammer), 301 Reich, Robert, 425, 426–27 Reinhardt, Forest, 560 Relevance Lost (Kaplan and Johnson), 297, 443 Relevance Regained (Johnson), 446 “Remuneration” (Jensen and Murphy), 375 Replogle, John, 561 Rethinking the MBA (Datar et al), 564 Riesman, David, 184, 185–86, 350 Rio Tinto, 209, 543–44 Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, The (Mintzberg), 262 Rivkin, Jan, 419, 425, 542 RJR Nabisco, 209, 371 Robinson, James D., III, 106, 128, 209, 255 Roby, Joe, 468 Rock, Arthur, 120, 319–21, 328, 329 Rockefeller, John D., 12, 28, 38, 44, 57, 77, 79, 373 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 71, 142, 145, 220 Rockefeller, Laurence, 322 Rockefeller, Nelson, 289 Rockefeller Foundation, 90, 112, 211; as HBS benefactors, 81, 82–83 Rockefeller General Education Board (GEB), 44, 97 Roeder, George, 289 Roethlisberger, Fritz, 85, 89, 118, 222, 238, 308, 355 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 397 Rometty, Ginni, 404 Romney, George, 507 Romney, Mitt, 332, 419, 501, 506–10 Romney, Tagg, 419, 506 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (FDR), 101–3, 123, 131–32, 136, 139, 200; New Deal, 122, 161, 192 Roosevelt, Theodore, 16, 22, 37, 244, 441 Roots, Rituals, and Rhetorics of Change, The (Augier and March), 220 Rose, Charlie, 17, 570 Rose, Clayton, 236 Rosenberg, Nathan, 535 Ross, Stephen M., 533 Rost, Joseph, 197 Rothenberg, Jim, 535 Rothkopf, David, 388 Rothrock, Ray, 322 Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 235, 283, 419 Rottenberg, Jennifer, 536 Ruane, Bill, 169 Rubin, Bob, 469 Rubio, Marco, 508 Rude Awakening (Keller), 247 Rudenstine, Neil, 423 Ruggles, Clyde, 131 Sabine, Wallace, 34 Sabrina (film), 183–84 Sachs, Samuel, 474 Sachs, Walter and Paul, 474 Saez, Emmanuel, 540, 544 Sahlman, William, 301, 328, 331, 332, 333, 480, 494 Salmon, Walt, 332, 333, 356 Salter, Malcolm, 521 Sandberg, Sheryl, 74, 241, 534 Sanders, Thomas, 116 Sargent, Ron, 333 Sarofim, Fayez, 328 Sass, Steven A., 286 Scale and Scope (Chandler), 14, 230, 246, 247, 248 Scalia, Antonin, 334 Schacht, Henry, 128 Schlaifer, Robert, 215, 216, 218, 355 Schlesinger, Leonard, 235 Schmoller, Gustav von, 21, 27, 48 School of Business Administration, University of Western Ontario, 228 Schumpeter, Joseph, 243, 244, 348 Schwarzman, Stephen, 76, 394, 466, 470, 531 Sculley, John, 320 Sears, F.

Licence to be Bad
by Jonathan Aldred
Published 5 Jun 2019

‘Gary Becker – The Man Who Put a Price on Everything’, Financial Times, 6 May 2014), while John Kay (2003) notes drily that ‘no parody is required’ (The Truth about Markets (London: Penguin), 186). 5 Becker, G. (1991, enlarged edn), A Treatise on the Family (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 124. 6 Ibid., 98. 7 Herfeld, Catherine (2012), ‘The Potentials and Limitations of Rational Choice Theory: An Interview with Gary Becker’, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 1, 73–86. 8 Becker, G. (1976), The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 5. 9 Ibid., 8. 10 Becker (1991), 339. 11 Interview with Gary Becker in Region, June 2002, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/interview-with-gary-becker. 12 Friedman, M. (1953), Essays in Positive Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 21. 13 Becker (1976), 5. 14 Robert Solow in R.

What's Next?: Unconventional Wisdom on the Future of the World Economy
by David Hale and Lyric Hughes Hale
Published 23 May 2011

See Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) productivity gains, xvi, 4 productivity lags, in Canada, 26 Project Kuwait, 184 protectionism, 24–25, 27 public debt, xxvii–xxviii, 81; global financial crisis and, 256–257; US, 5–6. See also fiscal deficits purchasing power parity, 245 Qajars, 206 quantitative easing, xvii, 7–8, 24, 96–97, 173 rand, 136, 137 rating agencies, 267, 268 rational choice theory, 286 reading skills, 293 real estate market: Australia, 143–145; Canadian, 16–17, 19–20 reality, perceptions of, 298–300 regional economic communities (RECs), 121–122 regulatory reform, 120 Rengo, 112 renminbi (RMB), 163–164 Republican Party, xvii, 6, 12–13, 63, 269–270 Reserve Bank of Australia, 144, 146–147 reserve currency, xxiv; alternative, 158; decline of British pound as, 153–154; euro as, 158–160; requirements for, 156–158; RMB as, 163–164; synthetic currency as, 161–163; US dollar as, 153–165 residential construction, 4 resource nationalism, 185 Ricardian equivalence, 71 Rich, Frank, 299 risk assessment, 276–277 RMB.

Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess
by Robert H. Frank
Published 15 Jan 1999

And yet such is the power of thirst that at some point even this person will drink sea water if no other water is available. Again, why didn’t natural selection favor greater flexibility in the regulation of fluid intake? The simple answer is that greater flexibility is not always advantageous. After all, the kinds of cost-benefit calculations envisioned by rational choice theory take time, and in many situations time is of the essence. Thus, as the evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby ask, “When a tiger bounds toward you, what should your response be? Do a cartwheel? Sing a song? Is this the moment to run an uncountable number of randomly generated response possibilities through the decision rule?”

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
by Peter L. Bernstein
Published 23 Aug 1996

Journal of Personality, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 200-209. Hayano, David M., 1982. Poker Face: The Life and Work of Professional Card Players. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Heilbroner, Robert L., 1995. Visions of the Future. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford University Press. Herrnstein, Richard J., 1990. "Rational Choice Theory: Necessary But Not Sufficient." American Psychologist, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 356-367. Herrnstein, Richard J., and Drazen Prelec, 1991. "Melioration: A Theory of Distributed Choice."Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Summer), pp. 137-156. Hodgson, Godfrey, 1984. Lloyd's of London: A Reputation at Risk.

Surveillance Valley: The Rise of the Military-Digital Complex
by Yasha Levine
Published 6 Feb 2018

Indeed, according to a former head of ARPA, William Godel was personally involved with “Air America” missions to supply the CIA’s covert war in Laos, an operation that, according to credible reports, involved smuggling heroin to finance anticommunist militias.74 As Saigon turned into a military camp full of booze, heroin, prostitution, and cheap thrills, ARPA’s research center became a bizarre nexus of stuffy anthropologists, spies, generals, South Vietnamese officials, and sociopathic commandos passing on their way to terror missions deep inside enemy-controlled territory. An old French colonial villa in the city that housed RAND scientists became a social hub for this weird scene, by day a working command center, by night a dinner-and-cocktail-party venue.75 A strange pseudoscience emerged. Blending free-market economics and rational choice theory, military planners and scientists viewed the Vietnamese as automatons, nothing more than rational individuals who were acting purely in their own self-interest. They had no bigger guiding values or ideals—no patriotism, no loyalty to their communities or traditions or to some bigger political idea.

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
by Richard H. Thaler
Published 10 May 2015

Two kinds of theories The organizing principle was the existence of two different kinds of theories: normative and descriptive. Normative theories tell you the right way to think about some problem. By “right” I do not mean right in some moral sense; instead, I mean logically consistent, as prescribed by the optimizing model at the heart of economic reasoning, sometimes called rational choice theory. That is the only way I will use the word “normative” in this book. For instance, the Pythagorean theorem is a normative theory of how to calculate the length of one side of a right triangle if you know the length of the other two sides. If you use any other formula you will be wrong. Here is a test to see if you are a good intuitive Pythagorean thinker.

Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist
by Richard Dawkins
Published 15 Mar 2017

But if it is a perversion, it’s the kind of perversion we need to encourage and spread. Human superniceness is a perversion of Darwinism, because, in a wild population, it would be removed by natural selection. It is also, although I haven’t the space to go into detail about this third ingredient of my recipe, an apparent perversion of the sort of rational choice theory by which economists explain human behaviour as calculated to maximize self-interest. Let’s put it even more bluntly. From a rational choice point of view, or from a Darwinian point of view, human superniceness is just plain dumb. But it is the kind of dumb that should be encouraged – which is the purpose of my article.

Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor
by John Kay
Published 24 May 2004

Krugman rapidly became not just a critic of the economic policies of the Bush administration, but of its wider record, and in 2002 Washington Magazine called him the most influential political columnist in America. 25 The Students Are Revolting ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Anyone who has taught economics in the last two decades will have recognized that many students are unhappy with what they are taught. They are drawn to social sciences by their interest in people and affairs; but a large number, perhaps most, do not find this interest satisfied by rational-choice theories and mathematical models. Particularly women: while other social sciences-anthropology, law, psychology, and sociology-now generally have a majority of female students, men predominate in economics. At the top twenty U.S. institutions, three men graduate with a Ph.D. in economics for each woman. 26 Few senior economists are female: no woman has yet received the Nobel Prize in economics, and I counted only a handful of female economists in the bibliography to this book.

Vanishing New York
by Jeremiah Moss
Published 19 May 2017

He blamed the problem on arson, fires set by what he called antisocial blacks. This idea came from the RAND Corporation. (When Eisenhower warned America about the military-industrial complex, he might have been talking about RAND, the Cold War think tank that guided U.S. policy in Vietnam and created “rational choice theory,” the belief that humans are essentially individualistic and selfish, a key underpinning of the new ideology to come.) In partnership with RAND, the city created the Fire Project. Its goal was to save money by cutting back on fire services, and those cutbacks were made in poor black and Latino neighborhoods.

Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order
by Parag Khanna
Published 4 Mar 2008

National Intelligence Council, 2005). 32. Arnold Toynbee, East to West: A Journey Round the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 199. Theory itself is psychological, and the anthropomorphizing of states is built into international relations theory. The very model of the state actor used in the dominant rational-choice theory assumes that nations act like a value-maximizing Homo economicus. As Robert Keohane writes, however, rationality is “a theoretically useful simplification of reality rather than a true reflection of it.” Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 108.

Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals
by David Aronson
Published 1 Nov 2006

By combining their findings, they would have discovered which was the better of the two restaurants. However, in an information cascade, imitative behavior prevents the accumulation and sharing of many independent appraisals. Thus, information cascades block the diffusion of information and rational choice. Theories of Nonrandom Price Motion 365 The information cascade model reveals the flaw in the common sense notion that financial market prices are determined by a process like voting, in which many individuals make their own assessment.77 In an information cascade, investors make the rational choice of copying the actions of others, rather than expending the considerable effort required to arrive at an independent choice.

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown
by Philip Mirowski
Published 24 Jun 2013

Partly it was due to some political appointees in the Obama administration such as Cass Sunstein who claimed (falsely, as it turned out) that behavioral economics could be used to “nudge” people into behaving more like neoclassical agents.52 Partly, it was the fault of a few bona fide behavioral finance economists (like Andrei Shleifer), who quickly whipped up a couple of toy models after the crisis, purportedly demonstrating that all agents are beset with a peculiar character flaw that causes them to ignore unlikely disastrous events, causing them to whipsaw around the true fundamental determinants of asset prices as defined by the orthodox rational-expectations model, in the face of securitization and tranching.53 But it also emanated from the vast scrum of journalists, primed to believe that once economists would just abjure “rational choice theories,” then all would become revealed. It got so bad that two bona fide behavioralists felt impelled to pen an op-ed for the New York Times absolving themselves of any responsibility to explain the crisis: It seems that every week a new book or major newspaper article appears showing that irrational decision-making helped cause the housing bubble . . .

Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism
by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart
Published 31 Dec 2018

II Theories of economic or cultural grievances Like the US 2016 elections, the key debate in the UK case concerns whether the Leave camp in Brexit in June 2016, and voting for UKIP in the 2015 and 2017 general elections, were motivated primarily by economic grievances among the least well off, because jobs and wages had been stagnant in the most economically depressed areas of Britain, or whether cultural values played a bigger role, including mistrust of Westminster, attitudes toward Europe, and immigration. The economic thesis dominated the early popular commentary, based on scrutinizing the geography of the Leave vote. The outcome of Brexit was widely regarded in media coverage as a consequence of the ‘left behind,’ or ‘economic-have-nots,’ delivering a protest against Westminster. Rational choice theories of political economy argue that voters calculated the instrumental benefits and costs arising from EU membership or withdrawal. On the one hand, the middle-class professionals, managers, and executives in the service sector, typically university educated, affluent, and mobile, seem to have benefitted from EU membership through the lower costs of imported goods, and the broader access to trade and investment opportunities, while taking advantage of opportunities for international travel and broader educational and professional possibilities within a borderless Europe.39 By contrast, however, those with low-­ paid, low-­skill jobs, without college degrees, found themselves competing with migrant workers from Poland, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic, while competing with companies employing cheaper labor in China and India.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years
by David Graeber
Published 1 Jan 2010

As a result, those tenets have come to be treated as received wisdom, as basically beyond question (one knows one is in the presence of received wisdom when, if one challenges it, the first reaction is to treat one as simply ignorant—“You obviously have never heard of the Laffer Curve”; “Clearly you need a course in Economics 101”—the theory is seen as so obviously true that no one who understands it could possibly disagree.) What’s more, those branches of social theory that make the greatest claims to “scientific status”—“rational choice theory,” for instance—start from the same assumptions about human psychology that economists do: that human beings are best viewed as self-interested actors calculating how to get the best terms possible out of any situation, the most profit or pleasure or happiness for the least sacrifice or investment—curious, considering experimental psychologists have demonstrated over and over again that these assumptions simply aren’t true.2 From early on, there were those who wished to create a theory of social interaction grounded in a more generous view of human nature—insisting that moral life comes down to something more than mutual advantage, that it is motivated above all by a sense of justice.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
by Francis Fukuyama
Published 11 Apr 2011

The political scientist Robert Bates has taken up this challenge. According to him, the sociological tradition, whether Durkheimian, Marxist, or Weberian, sees order arising from norms that are either moral, coercive, or authoritative. He goes on to review Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer through the lens of rational-choice theory, a model that grounds behavior in radical individualism. He argues that many of the choices made by Nuer families or segments in dealing with one another reflect rational calculations of self-interest, usually related to the maximization of cattle resources. He cites the ways dispute resolution among family groups can be modeled using individualistic premises; Nuer institutions can be seen as efficient ways of solving coordination problems and modeled through game theory.

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
by Christopher Hitchens
Published 14 Jun 2007

Well, if that’s a perversion, it’s the kind of perversion we need to encourage and spread. Human super niceness is a perversion of Darwinism because, in a wild population, it would be removed by natural selection. It is also, although I haven’t the space to go into detail about this third ingredient of my recipe, an apparent perversion of the sort of rational choice theory by which economists explain human behaviour as calculated to maximize self-interest. Let’s put it even more bluntly. From a rational choice point of view, or from a Darwinian point of view, human super niceness is just plain dumb. And yes, it is the kind of dumb that should be encouraged—which is the purpose of my article.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Published 18 Oct 2021

It seems highly unlikely – until, that is, we recall that even in much more recent times, qualifications to enter bureaucracies are typically based on some form of knowledge that has virtually nothing to do with actual administration. It’s only important because it’s obscure. Hence in tenth-century China or eighteenth-century Germany, aspiring civil servants had to pass exams on proficiency in literary classics, written in archaic or even dead languages, just as today they will have had to pass exams on rational choice theory or the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. The arts of administration are really only learned later on and through more traditional means: by practice, apprenticeship or informal mentoring. Similarly, those who designed the great construction projects of Poverty Point or Hopewell were clearly drawing on esoteric knowledge of some sort – astronomical, mythic, numerological – which was contiguous with the practical knowledge of maths, engineering and construction, not to mention techniques of organizing and monitoring human labour (even voluntary labour) which were required to realize those designs.