The Complicity of Economics^*

* Prepared for the session ‘Democratic Crisis and the Responsibility of Economics, II’ sponsored by the Association for Social Economics at the Allied Social Science Association meetings, January 2018, Philadelphia, PA, USA. This talk draws on work I have developed at more length elsewhere, including (Julie A. Nelson, 2017a) and other works listed in the references.

Abstract

Economics has long promoted an image of agents who profit and consume for their own individual benefit without any kind of responsibility for each other, and who rationally evaluate means but not ends. This contribution explores the relationship between the expanding influence of the homo economicus image and the rise of Donald Trump.

Keywords:

• economics
• Trump
• economic man
• logos
• mythos

Notes

* Prepared for the session ‘Democratic Crisis and the Responsibility of Economics, II’ sponsored by the Association for Social Economics at the Allied Social Science Association meetings, January 2018, Philadelphia, PA, USA. This talk draws on work I have developed at more length elsewhere, including (Julie A. Nelson, 2017a) and other works listed in the references.

¹ Most heterodox schools are somewhat more reflective about their histories, though they sometimes also come dangerously close to mimicking the mainstream in adopting a narrow focus and pseudo-scientific methods.

² For an example of the failure of this, see Nelson (2014).