Mark Thoma: Striving for Balance in Economics: Towards a Theory of the Social Determination of Behavior, by Karla Hoff, Joseph E. Stiglitz

Mark Thoma posts the abstract of Striving for Balance in Economics: Towards a Theory of the Social Determination of Behavior, by Karla Hoff, Joseph E. Stiglitz, NBER Working Paper No. 21823,Issued in December 2015.

This paper is an attempt to broaden the standard economic discourse by importing insights into human behavior not just from psychology, but also from sociology and anthropology. Whereas the concept of the decision-maker is the rational actor in standard economics and, in early work in behavioral economics, the quasi-rational actor influenced by the context of the moment of decision-making, in some recent work in behavioral economics the decision-maker could be called the enculturated actor. This actor's preferences and cognition are subject to two deep social influences: (a) the social contexts to which he has become exposed and, especially accustomed; and (b) the cultural mental models—including categories, identities, narratives, and worldviews—that he uses to process information. We trace how these factors shape individual behavior through the endogenous determination of both preferences and the lenses through which individuals see the world—their perception, categorization, and interpretation of situations. We offer a tentative taxonomy of the social determinants of behavior and describe results of controlled and natural experiments that only a broader view of the social determinants of behavior can plausibly explain. The perspective suggests new tools to promote well-being and economic development

Emphasis Mine

In vulgar Marxist terms, the subjective view of the world determines what objective actions are available, and these objective actions reproduces the subjective view of the world.

In a Capitalist world, the objective actions are:

• Own the means of production
• Sell one's labour-power
• Control access to money
• Seek rents

These actions construct a world-view in which the Capitalist generates wealth through procuring money to either build a productive entity, or to get rents on a scarce resource (like land, patents, licences, money, etc.).

This means that those who are not Capitalists are left with only one (1) choice: selling their labour-power. They become the proletariat.

This combination of subjective world-view and objective actions are scantified through the reproduction of the dominant Capitalist ideology in movies, TV, news reports, opinion pieces, schools, universities, and academic papers.

Maybe Hoff and Stiglitz are stepping outside of the big Capitalist ideological tent and into the murky Marxist world beyond.

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