Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, 2011, Homo Oeconomicus Adaptivus
Journal Title: Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology - Year 2011, Vol 2, Issue 2
Abstract
“Homo Oeconomicus Adaptivus” is the title under which between 17th and 20th October 2011 the prestigious professor Carl Christian von Weizsäcker2 held a series of four lectures in the Graz Schumpeter Lectures3. Since 1995, every year the Graz Schumpeter Society organize a prestigious conference and the written version of the lectures is published by Routledge (London). The Graz Schumpeter Lectures aim to bring in front of the public a series of leading representatives of Economic and Social sciences to debate their own research papers. In the past years the lectures have covered a wide variety of topics including Evolutionary Economics and Creative Destruction (Metcalfe Stanley, 1995), Consumption takes time: implications for economic theory (Steedman Ian, 1999), Democracy, Education and Equality (Roemer John, 2003), Culture and Economic History (Mokyr Joel, 2010) etc. Without getting into the deep economic and mathematical demonstrations that came along with Professor von Weizsäcker’s presentation, I consider useful a short sociological insight into some of the theoretical guidelines. The transferring of the concept of “adaptive preferences” in different fields of analysis has proved to be a useful digression for a better understanding of the contemporary democratic societies and of the processes in which the government decisions are taken, but also the typical mechanisms of free markets of products and services4. Taking into consideration the extent of the theoretical framework and the diversity of the concepts which have been used in the analysis of “preferences”, the approach of Professor von Weizsäcker can be easily placed on the list of those which show the need of an interdisciplinary approach into the economic behavior analysis. In the context in which the contemporary society was labeled as a “consumer society” (Baudrillard, 1970) and the “new means of consumption – cathedrals of consumption” (Ritzer, 1999) have changed the features of this process, it is important to analyze the nature of preferences and the way in which these are formed and change themselves. Carl Christian von Weizsäcker aims from the beginning to bring into discussion a different perspective on consumer behavior than that of fully rational individual. Thus, the “homo oeconomicus myth” is analyzed and brought to a closer form to the daily realities of the contemporary societies. The conceptual approach of alternative and complementary angles was developed on four main themes: (I) “Freedom, Rationality, Welfare and Adaptive Preferences” (II) “The Hypothesis of Adaptive Preferences: Foundation in Psychology and Human Evolution” (III) “Schumpeterian Innovation: Justification of Decentralized Decision Making under Adaptive Preferences” and (IV) “The State, the Market, Social Philosophy, and Adaptive Preferences”.
Authors and Affiliations
Alin Croitoru
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP40953
- DOI -
- Views 222
- Downloads 0
Success IS a choice! Explaining success in Academic Preparation Programs in Israel
Operating within universities and colleges, Academic Preparation Programs in Israel (APPs) allow students in their twenties a second chance to pass their matriculation examinations, a requirement for acceptance by acad...
Bruce Schneier (2015) Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, London & New York, W. W. Norton & Company.
Scepticism was the attitude governing my state of mind when I stared reading this book but it vanished as soon as I realized it challenged one of my deepest beliefs, namely: My life is so ordinary that no one, in their...
A case of auteur cinema in a changed cultural context: “Funny Games” (1997) and “Funny Games, US” (2007) by Michael Haneke
The article is a case study of a cross-cultural auteur film-remake by Michael Haneke of his earlier film: Funny Games, US (2007) and Funny Games (Austria 1997), that is a part of a PhD project devoted to the cross-cult...
Do children need religious education? Discursive construction of children in talk shows by means of rhetorical questions
My objective in this article is to analyze the discursive work done by rhetorical questions in attributing to the child-pupil, as the central character of the debate regarding religious education in schools, several ch...
No crumb shall be left behind. Perceptions of food waste across generations
This paper aims to explore whether there are age-specific differences in perceptions about food waste in two groups of women living in Bucharest (born in/after 1989 vs mature in 1989), as well as the extent to which su...