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Homo Economicus might be fictional, but Corpo Economicus and Beaureau Econonomicus are not. Whenever individuals must make decisions on behalf of organizations

by lukifer 12y ago

Homo Economicus might be fictional, but Corpo Economicus and Beaureau Econonomicus are not. Whenever individuals must make decisions on behalf of organizations (public or private), they must be able to justify their actions in the rational, sometimes psychopathic, terms of their institution (to make legible decisions, to use Venkatesh Rao's terminology). Though economics is value-neutral when it comes to what individuals define as their best interests, institutions have their best interests defined quite explicitly, and are often indifferent to any other outcome. Applying the rational actor model to such institutions provides a great deal of cover, if not active encouragement, for maximizing the acquisition of power and resources with little regard for the irrational human processes of morality, responsibility and decency.

hdhriek 12y ago
Exactly. And where you have a society dominated by entities acting entirely in their self interest you are likely to get instability. Society formed through the complex interplay between selfishness and altruism. An individual in the evolutionary sense is not merely contained within the physical body he inhabits, but is spread among a group of people who share, in part, the genes that describe him. As such the individuals within a genetically related grouping behave at times in a manner beneficial to the common good. This allows the machinations of society to grow in complexity over time. It allows more optimal configurations in the phase space of society to be sought out. Without this interdependence between actors, you fall foul of extreme short termism. We have pure rational self interest on a pedestal and ignored the altruism component for various historical reasons. We find ourselves in a dynamic which is destructive to the pursuit of globally optimal configurations of society.

by lukifer 12y ago

hdhriek 12y ago

Exactly. And where you have a society dominated by entities acting entirely in their self interest you are likely to get instability. Society formed through the complex interplay between selfishness and altruism. An individual in the evolutionary sense is not merely contained within the physical body he inhabits, but is spread among a group of people who share, in part, the genes that describe him. As such the individuals within a genetically related grouping behave at times in a manner beneficial to the common good. This allows the machinations of society to grow in complexity over time. It allows more optimal configurations in the phase space of society to be sought out. Without this interdependence between actors, you fall foul of extreme short termism. We have pure rational self interest on a pedestal and ignored the altruism component for various historical reasons. We find ourselves in a dynamic which is destructive to the pursuit of globally optimal configurations of society.