on the contrary, what use is a model where you assume perfectly rational actors? it will clearly bear no relation to reality! actually, i object to the term "i

on the contrary, what use is a model where you assume perfectly rational actors? it will clearly bear no relation to reality! actually, i object to the term "irrational", it's only irrational if you assign zero value to the "feel good" incentives driven by basic human psychology. one interesting thought experiment, for instance, is that most people would neither pay someone else to do their housework, or do someone else's equivalent housework for the same amount of money. from a "purely rational" economic standpoint, that makes no sense - either you think the money is worth less than the cost of doing the housework, in which case you would pay someone to do yours, or it is worth more, in which case you would do yours and then take the money to do someone else's as well. but add in the psychological difference between doing your own work and doing someone else's, and the whole thing is perfectly rational in the understood, if not the technical economic sense of the word.