What if the relentless drive to maximize personal gain isn’t human nature, but just a flawed model we built? In this Back-to-Basics episode, behavioral economist Samuel Bowles helps us lay homo economicus—the myth of the perfectly rational, self-interested actor—six feet under. He shows how this caricature not only misrepresents human behavior, but underpins an economic system that ignores cooperation, community, and ethics. If we’re hoping to reclaim our society from greed-driven oligarchs and neoliberal policy, we need a better model—which starts with recognizing that humans are more than economic robots.
Homo economicus must die (with Samuel Bowles)
Homo economicus is the figurative human being used in economic modeling. But the term defines human nature as perfectly rational, perfectly logical, and always self-interested. Does that sound like any real humans you know? Nope, we didn’t think so either. So we invited Professor Samuel Bowles to join Nick and Goldy in throwing a funeral for homo economicus, and all the flawed economic thinking that he’s inspired over the years. nSamuel Bowles is a Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. His work on cultural evolution have challenged the conventional economic assumption that people are motivated entirely by self-interest. His most recent books are ‘The Moral Economy: Why good laws are no substitute for good citizens’ and ‘A Cooperative Species: Human reciprocity and its revolution’. n‘Spock goes shopping’ was based on a thought experiment in Eric Beinhocker’s book ‘The Origin of Wealth’: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781422121030nhttps://democracyjournal.org/arguments/homo-economicus-must-die/nhttps://www.core-econ.org/nhttps://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2016/10/11/the-moral-economy-homo-economicus-becomes-human/