I was in Barnes and Noble the other day. After considerable
searching, I found the economics section tucked away, like a footnote
in a long article, in the business section. I wondered: was this some
kind of rich symbolism, perhaps Barnes and Noble's comment on the true
state, content and ideological intentions--apologetics for bourgeois
privileges and mechanisms--of so-called "mainstream economics"?
I then went to the economics section and started browsing. Of all the
books on the shelf, one was wrapped tightly in celophane such that
one was not supposed to open and examine it prior to purchase; it was
to be a blind purchase. That book was Gary Becker's "Human Capital."
So I started to wonder again. First of all, what was anybody from the
Chicago School doing talking about anything human? Secondly, why was
the book wrapped denying me the "perfect information" necessary to
make my "perfectly rational calculation" of expected MU/P prior to
purchase? Was Becker acting according to his own self-professed
neoclassical assumptions about human behavior? Then it hit me. Of
course Becker was being consistent. Driven by what Becker takes to be
eternal and immutable "human nature"--what I call Freudian projection-
--Becker, this atomistic, egoistic, selfish, acquisitive,
materialistic, utility/profit maximizing or satisficing, competitive,
perfectly informed and perfectly mobile economic agent has made a
"perfectly rational or bounded rational" calculation that any utility
maximizing or even satisficing, atomistic, selfish, egoistic,
materialistic, competitive, acquisitive etc economic agent--with an
IQ over 40--if armed with "perfect information"--e.g. able to examine
the book prior to purchase--would probably not buy it unless it had
been assigned by some other prototypical Chicago School preppy clone.
So I was torn. My need for "perfect information" in order to be a
perfectly rational and calculating/discriminating, atomistic, utility
maximizing or satisficing consumer versus respect for one of the few
"institutions" that the neoclassicals deign to even recognize let
alone discuss--private property rights. Finally, I said to myself,
screw the private property rights, "perfect information" uber alles.
So I looked the book over. This led me not to buy the book and led me
to consider that there should be a name change from the "Nobel Prize
in Economic Science" to the Nobel Prize for Elegantly Quantified
Metaphysics, Mystifications, Contrived Syllogisms and Rationalizations
of Bourgois Arrogance/Privilege and Exploitation".
Jim Craven
*---------------------------*----------------------------------------*
* James Craven * "All things have inner meaning and *
* Dept of Economics * form and power." (Hopi) *
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