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Rousseau's Crusoe myth : the unlikely provenance of the neoclassical homo economicus
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Watson, Matthew (2017) Rousseau's Crusoe myth : the unlikely provenance of the neoclassical homo economicus. Journal of Cultural Economy, 10 (1). pp. 81-96. doi:10.1080/17530350.2016.1233903 ISSN 1753-0350.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2016.1233903
Abstract
The neoclassical homo economicus has escaped the narrow confines of economic theory and is today embodied countless times over in the everyday behaviour that so much of the modern economy is set up precisely to serve. Not all of the authors of leading books on economic principles have named the neoclassical homo economicus, but when they have done so it is overwhelmingly in the same way. They have given him the human form of a Robinson Crusoe figure, despite the fact that his behavioural motivations and his practical conduct owe next-to-nothing to Daniel Defoe’s original characterisation. I suggest that the route to today’s cultural familiarity with the neoclassical homo economicus instead passes through the entirely unwitting hands of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He substituted Defoe’s account of the castaway’s continuing deference to prevailing social norms with his own idealised vision of how the individual might use solitude to escape the corrupting influences of modern society. It is altogether another desocialised individual also bearing the Crusoe name who has latterly shaped many of the economics textbooks’ renderings of the neoclassical homo economicus. However, we can get to him only by first understanding the essential features of Rousseau’s Crusoe myth.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory P Language and Literature > PR English literature |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Neoclassical school of economics, Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 -- Characters -- Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe, Robinson (Fictitious character) , Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778 | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Cultural Economy | ||||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1753-0350 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 2017 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 10 | ||||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 81-96 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1080/17530350.2016.1233903 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 7 September 2016 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 23 February 2017 | ||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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