View source for Homo economicus on the Grand Tour, or, When Is a Lizard a Good Enough Dragon for Government Work?/justice

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[[Category:Cosma Shalizi]]
[[Category:Homo economicus]]
[[Category:Economics Alternatives]]
[[Category:Economics 101]]
{{Quote
| text = If there were any methodological justice in the world, neo-classical economics should have been relegated to the scrap-yard of theories long ago. True, the Arrow-Debreu model is, as Stephen Maturin would say, the elegant mathematical theory of the world, but as a description of how economies work it is incredible in the worst sense. The most telling criticisms, all valid, fall into three clusters. The first, and to my mind the most compelling, has been urged with great force by Herbert Simon (among others): people simply are not perfectly rational, perfectly prescient utility maximizers, and they couldn't be even if they wanted to. Second, the kind of economy assumed by neo-classical theory is a very special and recent phenomenon, originating in particular countries in particular epochs, and while it has since spread from there and seems likely to conquer the globe, the neo-classical theory is restricted to the places where economic life is conducted in markets with unrestricted, alienable private property, so it is not a general theory of economic behavior, something deeply desirable. Third, even in the countries with the appropriate legal-institutional framework, perfect competition is exceedingly rare, very important parts of the economy are manifestly oligopolies, and certain kinds of competition are even legally prohibited by e.g. intellectual property laws.
| cite = [[Cosma Shalizi]], "{{Link |Homo economicus on the Grand Tour, or, When Is a Lizard a Good Enough Dragon for Government Work?}}"
}}