{"id":8664,"date":"2019-04-25T10:51:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T17:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myuctv.tv\/?p=8664"},"modified":"2019-04-25T10:51:39","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T17:51:39","slug":"is-it-time-to-rethink-the-idea-of-the-amoral-economic-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/public-affairs\/is-it-time-to-rethink-the-idea-of-the-amoral-economic-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it Time to Rethink the Idea of the Amoral Economic Man?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There is a widely held belief that when designing public policy or legal systems, it makes the most sense to assume that all citizens are entirely self-interested and amoral. It’s a theory known as “homo economicus” or “economic man.” But, economist Samuel Bowles argues against that belief in his book The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives are no Substitute for Good Citizens<\/em>. Bowles laid out the case for his argument during a recent talk at UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Bowles says there are two key reasons to move away from the economic man idea. First, he says polices that follow the paradigm can be self-fulling – making the assumption of universal amorality truer than it might otherwise be under different policies. Second, he argues that fines and rewards often do not work as intended.<\/p>\n

The problem Bowles argues, is that incentives can “crowd out” otherwise altruistic motives people might have for any given action. He cites the classic example of a daycare that imposed a small fee for parents who showed up late. The result? Many more late parents. The thinking goes that the fee turned being late into a commodity rather than an inconsiderate action. Thus, the incentive backfired, and ended up having the opposite of its intended effect. <\/p>\n

However, Bowles says incentives themselves are not to blame. He argues they can be designed in a such a way to encourage good civic behavior, while avoiding possible pitfalls. For example, when Ireland wanted to get rid of plastic bags, lawmakers imposed a small tax. But, they paired the tax with a huge media campaign about not trashing the Emerald Isle. Appealing to citizens better nature made the difference, and most shoppers stopped using plastic bags within weeks.<\/p>\n

Watch — The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives are No Substitute for Good Citizens<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a widely held belief that when designing public policy or legal systems, it makes the most sense to assume that all citizens are entirely self-interested and amoral. It’s a theory known as “homo economicus” or “economic man.” But, economist Samuel Bowles argues against that belief in his book The Moral Economy: Why Good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[733,1098,827,30,1101,27,794,58],"tags":[1099,1100,1102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}