The basis of the economic doctrine of Adam Smith (the theory of the development of society), according to which the main motive of a person's economic activity is selfish interest, but at the same time he must provide services to other people, offering in exchange his work and its results. The wealth of a society depends on the share of the population engaged in productive labor, on labor productivity. And the main factor in the growth of productivity is the economic division of labor, a general form of economic cooperation between people in the interests of financial prosperity.
The main point of the theory is the provision that the principle of rational economic behavior is applicable in the study of political processes. Political activity itself is viewed as a kind of market, a political market. Private interest is considered as the main motive not only in business, everyday life of any person, but also in politics, public life. Any decision made by society depends on the economic assessments of the voting participants of their costs and benefits in connection with its implementation. The political system in which decisions are made can be organized in the form of direct or representative democracy. Direct Democracy means that every taxpayer has the right to vote on any specific issue. Representative democracy involves electing its representatives to the legislature, which makes decisions regarding the financing of public goods.
The theory asserts, and practice confirms, that in the conditions of democratic procedures, ineffective from the point of view of society, the results of choice are possible, since people in public life proceed exclusively from personal interests, which in some cases leads to results that do not meet the interests of society.
Practice plays a big role in decision making lobbying ... Lobbies are well-organized pressure groups that influence the government and legislature through various channels to make a certain decision. Lobbyists receive political rent when the government makes decisions in their interests (the introduction of import duties, from which national producers benefit, but numerous buyers lose; placing an order for the supply of goods to the state in certain firms, etc.)
The practice is widespread logrolling - trade in votes, when one entity promises support to another entity in voting on a certain issue in exchange for the support of the opposite party when voting on issues of interest to the first entity.
Within the framework of this theory, Arrow voting paradox , the essence of which is that the choice among all possible groups of options is impossible without violating the principles of compatibility and democracy, since a situation may arise in which no option will have preference.
This problem can be overcome through:
1) a mechanism for creating groups of special interests and using various methods of persuasion and influence (advertising, propaganda, lobbying, etc.)
2) the practice of mutual support, i.e. combining votes in order to ensure a favorable result when making decisions (logrolling).
But both methods can worsen the efficiency of the economy.
One of the problems of public choice theory is the question of voter behavior. From a rational choice point of view, actors will vote if the expected benefits exceed the expected costs. The size of the expected benefit is determined by the increase in the subject's welfare as a result of the victory of the party for which he gave his vote by virtue of the promises of this party, on the likelihood that it is the vote of this voter that will have a decisive influence on the election result. Due to this, the magnitude of the expected benefit turns out to be insignificant, which leads to absenteeism (refusal to participate in the elections).
J. Buchanan, one of the founders of the theory of public choice, proved that the state is untenable because:
· There are special interests of the government;
· The immediate benefits are taken into account without taking into account the long-term negative consequences;
· There is no choice due to the fact that a rather narrow circle of candidates and candidate programs do not fully reflect the interests of voters;
· The state system does not create incentives to improve efficiency.
Economic science is based on the metaphor of "economic man" (ECH), the models of which are widely used in economics to the present, reflecting the main features of mass economic behavior (V. Avtonomov, G. Becker, A. Marshall, D. Keynes, P. Heine and etc.). Recently, psychological science has been persistently addressing the problem of the psyche in the economic environment (A. Zhuravlev, O. Deineka, E. Klimov, V. Novikov, V. Poznyakov, D. Kahneman, etc.), which is the subject of economic psychology. On the basis of theoretical positions and empirical facts, psychology shows that real behavior differs significantly from ECH models.
The emergence of a society with a market economy in Russia inevitably assumes that every Russian, at least in the future, should be able to live in this society and obey the dictates of the market. This requires the "awakening" of economic consciousness - contracting relations come to the fore, the emergence of business ethics, the spread of a "commodified" view of social relations, there are tendencies and habits to reduce consumer value to exchange value. In modern scientific discussions between economists and psychologists, the question arises: is economic psychology a psychological or economic science?
As a methodological basis for integration, the category "subject" is defined, which in modern science has established itself as a new area of knowledge and as a research methodology (S. L. Rubinshtein, B. G. Ananiev, B. F. Lomov, A. V. Brushlinsky, K. A. Abulkhanova, L. I. Antsiferova, V. V. Signs and others). This is explained by the nature of the category itself, which makes it possible to integrate epistemological and ontological approaches in concrete scientific research (A.V. Brushlinsky, 2003). The category of the subject makes it possible to single out adequate units of analysis that accumulate the properties of both the agent and the activity, providing a connection between them, the unity of a person and his life. An active, active attitude of a person to the world comes from the subject as the initiator, the creative principle in his interaction with society, the world and himself (L.I. Antsiferova, 2000). The dynamics of activity corresponds to the dynamic structure of its subject, which, in turn, is associated with the structure of the personality. The subject of economic activity implements a given direction of activity through the choice of goals and resources, as well as the implementation of specific actions.
Briefly summarizing the known models of ECH, we note that its actions always take place in conditions of limited resources and are aimed exclusively at satisfying their needs. They involve a choice in which the ECH is guided by utilitarian interests and stable rational preferences. ECH has freedom of choice, has criteria for quantitative assessment of alternatives, and also operates in conditions of completeness of information. "The main characteristic of a modern economic person is to maximize the target function." It is this characteristic that causes the greatest objections from psychologists, but, nevertheless, economists defend their positions, because, otherwise, it would be necessary to make radical changes in the currently accepted provisions of economic theories.
The fact that in models of EH the need is the main determinant of behavior, in general, is consistent with psychological theory. However, the fact that in the future the needs are completely subject to calculation and lose any motivating force is an undoubted contradiction of such a model, and this contradiction is not resolved by economic science in any way. That a person is endowed with the ability to evaluate and compare alternatives, psychologists do not doubt either in the theoretical or in the applied sense. However, the fact that it is only thanks to this ability that a person makes a choice raises serious doubts, since quite often the choice in real behavior often hides traditions, habits, emotions and much more, and not a "bare" calculation. E. Subotsky convincingly showed the coexistence of the phenomenal and rational principles in consciousness, which are in permanent conflict. A phenomenal decision corresponds to a person's prior subjective experience and fully relies on it, while a rational decision corresponds to a current communication from the outside and claims to be a "more correct" result.
From the article by A.P. Vyatkin
INTEGRATIVE APPROACH IN RESEARCH ON ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY, Izvestia IGEA, 2013, No. 2.
Introduction
The problem of man in economics has long attracted the attention of many scientists. Indeed, since the time of mercantilism, the center of interests of economic theory has been the consideration of wealth, its nature, causes and origins, the behavior of a person who produces and multiplies wealth, could not stand aside.
What is a person in economics, what are his typical features? Is the type of person employed in the economy constant or changing? If it changes, then why, depending on what factors? Interest in these and similar issues not only does not cool down, but, on the contrary, is growing.
However, one cannot but say that the problem of man as a subject of the economy not only has not become the most important by now, but, in fact, has begun to disappear from textbooks. If earlier in economic theory, relations between people were considered the main subject of research, then with the transition to "economics", where relations are not studied, the subjects of the economy finally disappeared from the pages of textbooks and scientific works.
Meanwhile, the statement that it is the subjects, the people, who create the economy, and it is what these subjects are, has not lost, but acquired even greater significance. After all, the economy is a sphere of a person's life, a means of his existence, which means that the peculiarities and laws of life and development of a person himself cannot but affect the economy. Moreover, they are most likely the determining conditions in a particular development of the economy.
In other words, the economy is created by people, people, that is, by a certain ethnic community, which absorbs the conditions of its life and, improving them, develops itself. This means that the human model cannot be derived only from the economy itself. The human model is predetermined by history and a particular culture. It is not for nothing that different models of a person in the economy and different economies can exist at the same time.
Thus, emphasizing the relevance of the topic of this work, we cite the following words: "The history of the formation of the human model in economic science can be considered as a reflection of the history of the development of science itself ...". Moreover, in economic theory, the concept of economic man plays a role, among other things, the role of a working model for defining basic economic categories and explaining economic laws and phenomena.
Taking into account all of the above, the issue of the formation of the concept of an economic person is extremely relevant and will be considered in this work.
Brief description of the economic person
Economics in the broadest sense of the word is the science of economic management. The very origin of the term economics speaks about this ("oikonomia" in Greek - "home science"). The economy is run by a person (society) in order to satisfy their material and spiritual needs. Accordingly, the person himself appears in the economy (economy) in two forms. On the one hand, as an organizer and producer of goods necessary for society; on the other hand, as their direct consumer. In this regard, it can be argued that it is a person who is both the goal and the means of managing the economy.
In the economy, as in all spheres of human activity, there are people endowed with will, consciousness, emotions. Therefore, economic science cannot do without certain assumptions about the motives and methods of behavior of economic agents, which are usually combined under the name of the “human model”.
There is even a separate science - economic anthropology, which sets itself the task of studying man as an economic subject and developing a model of various types of homo oeconomicus - "economic man".
The following characteristics can be distinguished:
1. Man is independent. This is an atomized individual who makes independent decisions based on their personal preferences.
2. Man is selfish. He primarily cares about his own interests and seeks to maximize his own benefits.
3. Man is rational. He consistently strives for the set goal and calculates the comparative costs of one or another choice of means of achieving it.
4. The person is informed. He not only knows his own needs well, but also has sufficient information about the means to satisfy them.
Thus, based on the foregoing, the appearance of a “competent egoist” arises, who rationally and independently of others pursues his own benefit and serves as an example of a “normal average” person. For such subjects, all kinds of political, social and cultural factors are nothing more than external frames or fixed boundaries that keep them in some kind of rein, preventing some egoists from realizing their benefits at the expense of others in too frank and rude ways. It is this "normal average" person that forms the basis of the general model that is used in the works of the English classics, and is usually referred to as the concept of "economic man" (homo oeconomicus). On this model, with certain deviations, practically all the main economic theories are built. Although, of course, the model of the economic man did not remain unchanged and underwent a very complex evolution.
In general, the model of an economic person must contain three groups of factors that represent the goals of a person, the means for achieving them and information about the processes by which the means lead to the achievement of goals.
It is possible to highlight the general scheme of the model of an economic person, which is followed by most modern scientists at the present time:
1. An economic person is in a situation where the amount of resources available to him is limited. He cannot satisfy all his needs at the same time and therefore has to make a choice.
2. The factors determining this choice are divided into two strictly different groups: preferences and limitations. Preferences characterize the subjective needs and desires of the individual, limitations - his objective capabilities. The economic man's preferences are all-encompassing and consistent. The main limitations of an economic person are the amount of his income and the price of certain goods and services.
3. The economic person is endowed with the ability to assess the options available to him in terms of how their results correspond to his preferences. In other words, the alternatives should always be comparable with each other.
4. In making a choice, an economic person is guided by his own interests, which may include the welfare of others. It is important that the actions of an individual are determined by his own preferences, and not by the preferences of his counterparties in the transaction and norms, traditions, etc. that are not accepted in society. These properties allow a person to evaluate his future actions solely by their consequences, and not by the original design.
5. The information at the disposal of an economic person, as a rule, is limited - he does not know all the available options for action, as well as the results of known options, and does not change by itself. The acquisition of additional information is costly.
6. The choice of an economic person is rational in the sense that from the known options the one is chosen which, according to his opinion or expectations, will meet his preferences to the greatest extent, or, which is the same thing, to maximize his objective function. In modern economic theory, the premise of objective function maximization only means that people choose what they prefer. It must be emphasized that the opinions and expectations in question may be erroneous, and the subjectively rational choices that economic theory deals with may appear irrational to a more informed outside observer. The above-formulated model of an economic person has developed in the course of more than two centuries of evolution of economic science. During this time, some signs of an economic person, previously considered fundamental, have disappeared as optional. These signs include indispensable selfishness, completeness of information, instant reaction. True, it would be more accurate to say that these properties have been preserved in a modified, often difficult to recognize form.
According to Appendix A, Figure 1, you can briefly trace the formation of the concept of an economic person. This figure describes the process of formation, starting from the earliest times (before A. Smith), when it was possible to talk about a certain model of a person only conditionally. Although even then, one could find some ideas about the human model, for example, in Aristotle and medieval scholastics. The fact is that under slavery and feudalism, the economy was not yet an independent subsystem of society, but was a function of its social organization. Accordingly, the consciousness and behavior of people in the field of economics were subject to moral and, first of all, religious norms that existed in society (backed up by the power and authority of the state). According to A.V. Anikin, "the main question was what should be in economic life in accordance with the letter and spirit of Scripture."
In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the beginnings of economic theory and elements of the corresponding model of man developed either within the framework of recommendations for public policy (mercantilism), or within the framework of a general ethical theory.
Economic man concept in classical school
The significance of the economic man's model for the history of economic thought lies in the fact that with its help, political economy stood out from moral philosophy as a science that has its own subject - the activity of an economic man.
Classical political economy (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill) viewed the economic person as a rational and selfish being. This person lives according to his own interest, one might even say - his own self-interest, but the appeal to this self-interest does not harm the public interest and the general benefit, but on the contrary contributes to its implementation.
“A person constantly needs help from his neighbors, and it will be vain to expect it only from their location. He will sooner achieve his goal if he turns to their egoism and is able to show them that it is in their own interests to do for him what he requires of them. Anyone proposing a deal of any kind to another is proposing to do just that. Give me what I need and you will get what you need - that is the meaning of any such proposal. It is in this way that we get from each other a much larger part of the services that we need. It is not from the benevolence of a butcher, brewer, or baker that we expect to receive our meal, but from their self-interest. We do not appeal to their humanism, but to their selfishness and we never talk about our needs, but about our benefits. "
Economic man of K. Marx
Karl Marx does not have a special work devoted to the study of the model of the economic man. The problems of homo oekonomicus are viewed through the prism of other tasks and are present in many works of the founder of Marxism: in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Critique of the Gotha Program, Theses on Feuerbach and, naturally, in his main work, Capital.
The starting point for the study of economic man by K. Marx is the characterization of man as a "set of social relations." In "Theses on Feuerbach" he put forward the following thesis:
“The essence of a person is not an abstract inherent in a separate individual. In its reality, it is the totality of social relations. "
The interpretation of the essence of a person through social relations in which a given individual is "included", undoubtedly, was revolutionary for its time. It helped Marx to see what no one had really looked at before: behind the many personal relationships in the economic sphere - "functional" or "impersonal" relationships. For Marx, "economic man" is, first of all, the embodiment of a certain social or class function; the moral behavior of such a subject seems to the founder of Marxism in the overwhelming majority of cases to be of no serious importance.
K. Marx singled out Wagner's anthropocentric approach in his review. He emphasized that a person in Wagner's theory is abstract, he “is nothing more than a professor’s person, referring to nature, not practically, but theoretically. This "person in general" cannot have specific needs, since needs arise only in society. "
Conclusion
As a result of this work, the concept of "economic man" was given, its main characteristics. The process of the formation of the concept of an economic person in the works of economists in different historical periods was also traced. As a result of this process, it was found out:
Classical political economy viewed the economic man as a rational and selfish being, the master of his actions;
The main features of Bentham's utilitarian concept of economic man are: the claim to universality, supra-class character, hedonism, countable rationalism, passive consumer orientation;
The model of the economic man of the historical school is a passive being, subject to external influences and driven by alternately egoistic and altruistic motives;
The Marxist economic man is the embodiment of a particular social or class function; the moral behavior of such a subject is considered by Marx to be of no serious importance.
A marginal economic person is an optimizer with the following properties: striving for the greatest utility and the lowest costs; the invariability of the system of individual preferences over time; the ability to compare goals with the means to achieve them; possession of complete information; instant response to changes in external conditions;
The founder of the neoclassical school A. Marshall brought his model of economic man closer to the properties of real agents of production - managers. A. Marshall's concept of an economic person was used as the basis for the model of a modern economic person.
Thus, the modern economic model of the economic man was built on the previous concepts of the economic man. At the same time, some features of an economic person, which were previously considered fundamental, fell away as optional, or rather, these properties were preserved in a modified, difficult to recognize form.
List of sources used
1. Lutokhina E. Model of man in the new economy // Belarusian Journal of International Law and International Relations 2004 - № 2
2. Orekhov A. Methods of economic research. Textbook: -M .: INFRA-M, 2009 392 p.
3. Avtonomov V., Ananin O., Makasheva N. History of economic doctrines. Textbook. allowance. - M .: INFRA-M, 2001 .-- 784 p.
4. Joiners. A. M. Formation of the concept of an economic person: from classics to neoclassicism // Problems of the modern. economy. 2008. No. 2.
5. Mill, JS Fundamentals of Political Economy: trans. from English M.: Progress, 1980.Vol. 1.
6. Bentham I. Introduction to the foundations of morality and legislation. M., 1998.
7. Avtonomov V.S. Man in the mirror of economic theory. Essays on the history of economic thought. Moscow: Nauka, 1993.
8. Fromm E. Karl Marx's Concept of Man, 1961.
9. Marshall, A. Principles of Political Economy trans. from English M.: Progress, 1983.Vol. 1.
10. Popova A.A., Mardanova I.M. The methodological role of the concept of "Economic man" in the development of theory and practice. // Bulletin of the Chelyabinsk State University. 2009. No. 9.
Appendix A
Figure 1 - Stages of the formation of the concept of an economic person
Federal State Budgetary Educational
institution of higher professional education
“Mordovia State University named after N.P. Ogarev "
Ruzaevsky Institute of Mechanical Engineering (branch)
Department of Humanities
ESSAY
ON PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Topic: "Economic Man" by K. Marx
Completed: student gr. E-304
Buturlakina E.
Ruzayevka 2011
Introduction
Brief description of the economic person
Economic man concept in classical school
Economic man of K. Marx
Conclusion
List of sources used
Page 3 of 15
The concept of "economic man". Private interests and common good
Economic science in the understanding of many is the area of "cold numbers" and objective knowledge. One way or another, this is the only social discipline that claims to be an exact science that discovers laws that do not depend on the will and consciousness of people. However, this objectivity is very relative, and partly illusory.
No economic theory can do without a working model of man. ( Economic theory- a set of scientific views on economic systems, economic development and economic laws and patterns). The main components of such a model are: a hypothesis about the motivation, or target function, of a person's economic activity, a hypothesis about the information available to him and a certain idea about the physical and, most importantly, intellectual capabilities of a person, allowing him to achieve his goal in one way or another.
Having divided the subject of real economic activity and its theoretical model, we must consider the issue of the relationship between them. For economic theory as a generalized reflection of the diverse phenomena of economic life, a simplified (schematic) model of a person is simply needed. Therefore, turning into a prerequisite for economic theory, the initial idea of a person undergoes more or less significant changes. It also happens that the technique of analysis "runs ahead", and the working model of a person, as one of its elements, is significantly removed from real behavior.
This relative independence of the theoretical model of economic behavior from empirical data is a separate problem, over which methodologists are still breaking lances.
First, knowledge of the human model underlying the conclusions of economic theory reveals to us the range of acceptable values in which these conclusions are valid and teach caution in their application.
Secondly, the model of a person in any theoretical system is closely related to the general ideas of its author about the laws of the functioning of the economy and about the optimal state policy. Here we can distinguish two main types of economic world outlook (with an innumerable number of intermediate forms). The first type is characterized by models of a person in which his main motive is his own interest, as a rule, monetary, or reduced to money; his intelligence and awareness are highly rated and considered sufficient to achieve the set "selfish" goal.
In the second type of economic worldview, the target function of a person is assumed to be more complex (for example, it includes, in addition to income and wealth, free time, peace, adherence to traditions or altruistic considerations), significant restrictions are imposed on his abilities and capabilities: inaccessibility of information, limited memory, exposure to emotions, habit, as well as external influences (including moral and religious norms) that impede actions that correspond to rational calculation. This type of interconnection man - society - politics is characteristic of the historical school, institutionalism. ( Institutionalism Is a branch of economic thought that focuses on the roles that institutions play in making and guiding economic decisions). The difference between the two designated types of economic theories is manifested not only in the general approach to the philosophy of economic life, but also in specific recipes for economic policy.
At the same time, it cannot be argued that one type of theory (and policy) is always deliberately better than another. The theory of J. Keynes (1883-1946) and the active state economic policy based on it conquered the Western world after the Great Depression of 1929-1933. clearly showed the bankruptcy of the liberal-individualistic type of economic theory and politics under the conditions of the domination of "super-individual" monopoly corporations.
(J. Keynes- English economist, one of the founders of macroeconomic analysis. Keynes owns: the fundamental two-volume work "Treatise on Money" (1930), the book "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936)).
When government regulation and powerful social programs reached such proportions that they began to restrain private initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, a return to the liberal-individualistic type of economic worldview became natural.
Man is a complex system consisting of many levels. He can be viewed as an isolated individual, as a member of a social group, class, society, and finally, all mankind. The goal of human economic behavior, in principle, can be considered both money and the goods behind them, and utility, i.e. subjective benefit derived by an individual from the consumption of goods or services. You can take into account or ignore the impact on individual behavior of certain social institutions (morality, religion, etc.). But it will be expedient, justified, from a scientific point of view, to choose such a level of abstraction at which specific features of the object of research that are essential for this particular problem are revealed. The advantages of this or that level of abstraction in the study of an economic entity are always relative.
So, in order to show the interdependence of all free producers and consumers in a market economy, the best and perhaps the only means is to build a mathematical model of general equilibrium, which assumes an extremely abstract approach to society and the properties of an economic entity.
Finally, thirdly, the human model in economic science deserves attention also because it reflects the ideological and worldview context of its time, the influence of the dominant philosophical currents.
The task of a systematic description of the economy on the basis of the abstraction of an "economic man" driven by his own interest belongs primarily to the creator of "The Wealth of Nations" - A. Smith. ( Adam Smith- Scottish economist and philosopher, representative of classical political economy. For the first time he defined the task of political economy as a positive and normative science). Nevertheless, Smith's predecessors were primarily in England. We will briefly consider three of them: the mercantilists, the moral philosophers of the 17th-18th centuries, and B. Mandeville.
The most prominent representative of late mercantilism J. Stewart in his book "Study of the Foundations of Political Economy" (1767). wrote: "The principle of self-interest will be the guiding principle of my subject ... This is the only motive that a statesman should use to attract free people to the plans that he develops for his government." And further: "The public interest (spirit) is as superfluous for the governed as it is obliged to be omnipotent for the governor." Thus, mercantilist economists already used the working model of human motivation characteristic of Smith's Wealth of Nations, but gave on its basis the opposite recommendation to Smith in the field of public policy: a person is imperfect (selfish), therefore he must be managed.
The great English philosopher T. Hobbes, the founder of the second line of thought, which logically and historically preceded Smith, came to approximately the same conclusion. In his famous book "Leviathan" (1651). T. Hobbes called people's own interest "the most powerful and most destructive human passion." Hence - "war of all against all", the only way out of which may be for people to give part of their rights to an authoritarian state that protects them from themselves.
Since then, for a century, the British moral philosophers - R. Cumberland,
A. Shaftesbury, F. Hutcheson and others - tried to refute the antagonism of the interests of the individual and society, postulated by Hobbes, with the help of various logical constructions.
Their main arguments can be formulated as follows: a person is not bad enough to need vigilant control from the state. Selfish motives in his behavior are balanced by altruism and friendly feelings. Among these philosophers we meet the teacher Smith F. Hutcheson. But Smith himself in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759). developed the doctrine of "sympathy" (the ability to put oneself in the place of another), which enables us to evaluate other people's actions.
The third predecessor of Smith on British soil can be considered Bernard Mandeville, the author of the famous pamphlet "The Fable of the Bees" (1723), which very convincingly proves the connection between private vices that create a market for many goods and a source of livelihood for their producers, and the general good.
Strictly speaking, Mandeville, in an artistic and polemical form, openly formulated the thesis contained in The Wealth of Nations: people are selfish, but nevertheless the state should not interfere in their affairs.
It is unfair to ignore the continental, in this case, the French roots of his concept (recall that Smith spent about a year in France as a tutor to the Duke of Buckleut). Here it is necessary to name the philosophers-encyclopedists, and first of all Helvetius, who is in the treatise "On the Mind" (1758). compared the role played by the principle of one's own (egoistic) interest in the life of society with the role of the law of universal gravitation in inanimate nature.
Of the French economists - Smith's predecessors, mention should be made of F. Quesnay, who gave the most unambiguous formulation economic principle, - a description of the motivation of the subject studied by economic science: the greatest satisfaction ("joy") achieved with the least cost or burden of labor.
The idea of an "economic man" at the end of the 18th century. just fluttered in the European air. But still, nowhere and in no one was it formulated so clearly as in The Wealth of Nations. At the same time, Smith became the first economist to put a certain understanding of human nature at the basis of a holistic theoretical system.
At the very beginning of The Wealth of Nations, he writes about the properties of man, which leave an imprint on all types of his economic activity. Firstly, it is "the tendency to exchange one object for another", secondly, self-interest, egoism, "the same constant and never-ending desire for all people to improve their situation."
These properties are interrelated: in the conditions of widespread development of exchange, it is impossible to establish personal relations with each of the "partners" based on mutual sympathy. At the same time, exchange arises precisely because it is impossible to receive the necessary items from a naturally selfish fellow tribesman for free.
Thus, by choosing an industry where his "product will have a greater value than in other industries," a person driven by selfish interest directly helps society.
But at the same time, Smith by no means idealizes the selfishness of the owners of capital: he understands well that the capitalists' own interests may consist not only in the production of profitable products, but also in limiting the similar activities of competitors. He even notes that the rate of profit, as a rule, is inversely related to social welfare, and therefore the interests of merchants and industrialists are less connected with the interests of society than the interests of workers and landowners. Moreover, this class "is usually interested in misleading and even oppressing society" "in an attempt to restrict competition.
Smith also distinguishes the interests of representatives of the main classes of modern society: landowners, hired workers and capitalists.
Smith's approach to other components of the human model is just as realistic: his intellectual abilities and informational capabilities. From this point of view, the person referred to in The Wealth of Nations can perhaps be characterized as follows: he is competent in what affects his personal interests. He acts on the principle: "his shirt is closer to the body" and is better than anyone else able to identify his own interest. For him, a competitor in this area is the state, which claims that it understands better than all its citizens what they need. The fight against this interference of the state in private economic life is precisely the main polemical charge of The Wealth of Nations, to which this book owes, first of all, its popularity among contemporaries. In addition to the control over freedom of competition already mentioned, Smith assigned to the state only the functions of defense, law enforcement, and those important areas that are not attractive enough for private investment.
"Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" by D. Ricardo represent a new type of economic research in comparison with "The Wealth of Nations" by A. Smith. By the method of a thought experiment, an isolating abstraction, Ricardo strove to discover the objective economic laws according to which the distribution of goods in society takes place. In order to accomplish this task, he no longer used any special assumptions about human nature, believing that the pursuit of self-interest is self-evident and does not need not only proofs, but also a simple mention. Moreover, striving for the ideal of scientificity, Ricardo considered the subject of scientific economic analysis only such behavior of people, which was dictated by their personal interests, and believed that the theory constructed in this way could not be refuted by facts. The main figure for him is "a capitalist looking for a profitable use for his funds." Like Smith, self-interest is not limited to a purely monetary: the capitalist "can sacrifice part of his monetary profit for the sake of fidelity of premises, neatness, ease, or some other real or imagined benefit that distinguishes one occupation from another," which leads to different profit margins in different industries.
Like Smith, Ricardo noted the specifics of the economic behavior of individual classes, among which only the capitalists behave in accordance with the logic of their own interest, but this aspiration is modified by various habits and prejudices. As for the workers, their behavior, as noted by Ricardo, is subject to habits and "instincts", and landowners are idle recipients of rent, having no control over their economic position.
The individual model, which is often called the "economic person", is characterized by:
1) the determining role of self-interest in motivating economic behavior;
2) the competence (awareness + ingenuity) of the economic entity in its own affairs;
3) the specificity of the analysis: class differences in behavior and non-monetary factors of well-being are taken into account.
These properties of the economic subject (especially developed among the capitalists) Smith and Ricardo considered inherent in every human being. Critics of capitalism, considering it a transitory stage in the history of mankind, noted that such a concept of man was a product of a bourgeois society that was taking shape in that era, in which "there was no other connection between people, except for naked interest, no other motive that regulates life together. except for selfish calculation. "
The methodology of the classical school, and primarily the concept of "economic man", has undergone fundamental theoretical comprehension only in the works
J. Mill. ( J. Mill - English economist, philosopher and public figure of political economy during the period of its decomposition. The most famous work is "The Foundations of Political Economy and Some of Their Applications to Social Science" (1848)). Political Economy - one of the names of economic theory, introduced into everyday life by a French economist
A. Montchretien and widely used in the XVIII - XIX centuries.
He emphasized that political economy does not cover all human behavior in society: “It views him only as a being who wants to have wealth and is able to compare the effectiveness of different means to achieve this goal. It completely abstracts from any other human passions and motives, except those who can be considered the eternal antagonists of the desire for wealth, namely the aversion to work and the desire to immediately enjoy expensive pleasures. " Thus, according to Mill's interpretation, economic analysis moves, as it were, in a two-dimensional space, on one axis of which is wealth, and on the other is the troubles that await a person on the way to this goal.
Political economy, according to Mill, is closer to geometry, its starting point - not facts, but a priori prerequisites, can be likened, according to Mill, to an abstraction of a straight line that has length but does not have width. However, of all the sciences, the most related political economy, he considered mechanics, operating in separate bodies that do not dissolve in each other. The results of their interaction can be calculated theoretically, and then these deductive conclusions can be tested in practice, taking into account the action of other equals, from which we abstracted at the beginning.
With the power of his refined logic, Mill tried to put the unspoken methodology of Smith and Ricardo, their common sense views of human nature, on a rigorous scientific basis. However, in such an impeccable, from the point of view of logic, form, the concept of "economic man" has lost something.
There is another point in Mill's article that mentions various factors that counteract the desire for wealth. The welfare vector included, in addition to the main component - monetary wealth, social prestige, the "pleasantness" of the occupation, the reliability of capital investment, and so on. However, both Smith and Ricardo assumed that these non-monetary benefits, which distinguish one investment from another, are constant over time and "compensate for small amounts of monetary compensation in some industries and counterbalance too high remuneration in others." Thus, here we are dealing with the concretization of the objective function of the capitalist - the maximization of wealth (welfare).
Mill tried to embody these methodological views in his main work - "Foundations of Political Economy". The small chapter "On Competition and Custom" is especially revealing here. As the author writes, English political economy legitimately assumes that the distribution of the product occurs under the decisive influence of competition. However, in reality, there are often cases when customs and habits are stronger. Mill notes that "only recently has competition become a principle that to some extent governs agreements of an economic nature." But even in the economy of its day, "custom successfully maintains its position in the fight against competition, even where, due to the multitude of competitors and the general energy shown in the pursuit of profit," the latter has been strongly developed.
The founder of English utilitarianism, J. Bentham, was not, strictly speaking, an economist. ( Utilitarianism -(lat. Utilitas - benefit) - a principle of behavior that denies the importance of spiritual interests and is expressed in the subordination of all human actions to obtaining material benefits, selfish calculation). However, he had a great influence on the economists who were part of the circle of "philosophical radicals" he led: D. Ricardo, J. Mill and others, and his economic works occupy three voluminous volumes. In his own words,
"philosophy has no more worthy pursuit than supporting the economy of everyday life." Bentham's ambitions in the social sciences were enormous: he wanted, like Newton in physics, to discover the universal forces governing all human behavior, to provide ways to measure them, and ultimately to implement a program of reforms that would make a person better.
The goal of every human action and "the subject of every thought of any feeling and thinking being" Bentham proclaimed "well-being in one form or another" and, therefore, the only universal social science, in his opinion, should be "eudemonics" - science or the art of achieving wealth.
He interpreted welfare in a consistently hedonistic spirit: “Nature has given humanity to the power of two sovereign rulers: suffering and pleasure.
(Hedonism - the desire of the individual to increase his well-being in the name of maximizing the pleasure received from life). They alone show us what we should do and determine what we will do. ”Suffering and pleasure, of course, are not limited to the sphere of purely economic interests: for example, love is quite capable of surpassing monetary interest. Bentham also recognized altruistic motives, but did not believe in them. sincerity, and assumed that behind them lay the same personal pleasures.
Pleasure and suffering, according to Bentham, are a kind of vector quantities. He considers the main components of these vectors: 1) intensity; 2) duration;
3) probability (if we are talking about the future); 4) accessibility (spatial); 5) fruitfulness (the connection of a given pleasure with others); 6) purity (the absence of elements of the opposite sign, for example, pleasure associated with suffering, is not pure); 7) coverage (the number of people affected by this feeling). The first two are considered the most important components. Accordingly, well-being, as the author suggests, can be measured as follows: the sum of the intensity of all pleasures for a given period of time, multiplied by their duration, is taken, and the total amount of suffering (calculated using a similar formula) experienced during the same period is subtracted from it.
Bentham proceeds from the premise that the interests of society are nothing more than the sum of the interests of citizens. Therefore, if a conflict of interests of different social groups arises, it is necessary to decide the case in favor of those whose potential amount of wealth, if their interests are satisfied, will be greater, and if these quantities are equal, a more numerous group should be preferred.
Unlike Smith, Bentham does not trust market and competition to reconcile individual "welfare pursuits". He considers this to be the prerogative of legislation, which should reward those who contribute to the public good and punish those who interfere with it.
The main features of Bentham's concept of human nature in comparison with the concept of "economic man" are:
First, there is a great depth of abstraction. Thanks to this, Bentham's model is universal: it is suitable not only for the economic sphere, but also for all other areas of human activity. This model is so abstract that it does not distinguish between representatives of different classes.
Secondly, in the field of motivation, it is a consistent reduction of all motives of a person to achieve pleasure and avoid grief.
Third, in the field of intelligence - countable rationalism. Bentham, in principle, proceeds from the fact that each person is able to perform all those arithmetic operations that are necessary to obtain the maximum happiness, although he admits that this kind of calculation is "inaccessible to direct observation."
So much attention that we had to pay to the difference between the concepts of man among the classics and Bentham, in our opinion, is deserved. He is usually given much less space in the history of political economy than the spectacular methodological disputes between the classics and the historical school; marginalists - with a new historical school, as well as institutionalism; neoclassicists - with a "behaviorist" direction. Moreover, many authors consider these concepts to converge to a single model of the economic entity. So, W.C. Mitchell, in his deep and meaningful course of lectures on types of economic theory, notes that "Bentham expressed most clearly the concept of human nature prevailing among his contemporaries (and there were 2-3 generations). He helped economists understand what they were talking about." The modern Swiss economist P. Ulrich resorts to the following comparison: "the life path of" an economic man "began a generation after Smith. It originated from the marriage of classical political economy with utilitarianism. The obstetric aid was D. Ricardo." "Therefore, we consider it necessary to highlight the fundamental differences between the models man among the classics and Bentham, who most clearly manifested themselves later, in the course of the marginalist revolution.
The concept of "economic man" lies in the fact that a person in a market economy realizes his preferences in the product. He seeks to make decisions that maximize the value of the utility function. His behavior is rational. It should be pointed out that the rationality of the individual has universal significance in this theory. This means that everyone, from voters to the president, is guided in their activities primarily by the economic principle, i.e. compare marginal benefits and marginal costs (and above all benefits and costs associated with decision making).
As you know, each economic era is based on a certain model of a person, which reflects the dominant form of life in society. The development of an industrial and post-industrial society is based on the model of an economic person, the most important features of which were personal gain as an initial economic interest, taking into account the interests of a partner in cooperation, taking into account public interests, striving for the greatest benefit, aggressive behavior and the use of hard means to achieve the goal, the main goal - an increase in personal well-being, the motivation for action is economic efficiency, the ideal is money, intelligence is specialized, the degree of freedom is limited.
The development of the information society and the new economy is based on the “creative person” model, the main features of which are interest in high results for society, in which personal interests are fully satisfied; full coordination of interests with the interests of partners; preference for the interests of society as the best way of life; desire for equal cooperation; benevolent behavior; orientation - to the person; the main goal is serving good and getting satisfaction from it; action motivation - general well-being; the ideal is universal happiness; intellect - harmoniously developed; the degree of freedom is full.
Let us compare the models of the “creative” and the economic person according to the following criteria: historical conditions, natural scientific foundations, psychological foundations and institutional foundations.
The model of an economic person is created during the period of development of an industrial society, when simple labor dominated in the economy and commodity exchange was the main form of interaction between people in society. As for the model of a "creative" person, it was created during the formation of the information society, in which the main form of interpersonal interactions is information exchange.
The economic man model is mechanistic. The model of a “creative” person proceeds from the individualization of a person, the need to recognize the fact that he occupies a certain place in society and performs specific functions, therefore, his concept itself is organic in nature.
Scientists distinguish two main orientations of a person: market and fruitful. The market orientation corresponds to the economic person, it is oriented towards possession, the individual's efforts are aimed at changing the external economic conditions of life, and not at changing the personality itself. Only those objects that can be converted into property have value. A fruitful orientation or orientation toward being corresponds to a “creative” person, for whom the value for which is not the final results of activity in material form, but the process of creativity itself.
In every society, certain ideas about the proper behavior of a person are formed. In an industrial society, the dominant form of interaction was commodity exchange; in society, the philosophy of individualism dominated, which is characterized by the following features.
Firstly, a person strives for complete independence from others;
Secondly, only the person himself is able to determine what is good for him and what is not; a person is rational;
Thirdly since people's preferences are different, there is no way to form a single goal. A "creative" person is characterized by institutional behavior. In the information society, the dominant form of interpersonal interaction is information exchange.
