Homo Economicus - Perspectives

Perspectives

According to Sergio Caruso, when talking of Homo economicus, one should distinguish between the purely “methodological” versions, aimed at practical use in the economic sphere (e.g. economic calculus), and the” anthropological” versions, more ambitiously aimed at depicting a certain type of man (supposed to be actually existing), or even human nature in general. The former, traditionally founded on a merely speculative psychology, have proved unrealistic and frankly wrong as descriptive models of economic behaviour (therefore not applicable for normative purposes either); however, they are liable to be corrected resorting to the new empirically based economic psychology, which turns quite other than the philosophers’ psychology that economists have used until yesterday. Among the latter (i.e. the anthropological versions), one can make a further distinction between the weak versions, more plausible, and the strong ones, irreparably ideological. Depicting different types of “economic man” (each depending on the social context) is in fact possible with the help of cultural anthropology, and social psychology (a branch of psychology economists have strangely ignored), if only those types are contrived as socially and/or historically determined abstractions (such as Weber's, Korsch's, and Fromm's concepts of Idealtypus, “historical specification”, and “social character”). Even a Marxist theoretician such as Gramsci – reminds Caruso – admitted of the Homo economicus as a useful abstraction on the ground of economic theory, provided that we grant there be as many homines oeconomici as the modes of production. On the contrary, when one concept of Homo economicus claims to grasp the eternal essence of what is human, at the same time putting aside all other aspects of human nature (such as Homo faber, Homo loquens, Homo ludens, Homo reciprocans, and so on), then the concept leaves the field of good philosophy, not to speak of social science, and is ready to enter a political doctrine as the most dangerous of its ideological ingredients.