I like this graphic from Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa NZ which concisely sets out the difference between the Economic Man of economic theory (who economists spend a lot of time try to figure out how to make us all into) & the more subtle, socially engaged people most of us actually are (who economics has considerable difficulty understanding & modelling)....
Its a simple lesson in why economics is less a science & more a set of (albeit) complex opinions!
![Cartoon with two illustrations:
on the left: Rational Economic Man [who is]
self-interested
isolated
rational
fixed preferences
dominant
on the right: Social Adaptabale Humans [who are]
pro-social
interdependent
heuristic
fluid values
dependent](https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/115/976/914/987/621/270/original/f54a232122719459.jpeg)
I like this. @ChrisMayLA6. Thanks for sharing it.
But it also saddens me.
All of my adult life has been spent with various parts of the wellbeing campaigners.
Yet this period since ~1980 has been dominated by #economicMan's greed and callousness.
Now economic man is being displaced, but not by a #wellbeingEconomy. The new big force is the politics and economics of cruelty. EconomicMan is being replaced by — or maybe fronted by — #SadisticMan.