(1999) Feminist Economics: Interrogating the Masculinity of
Rational Economic Man, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Donald Hay and Gordon Menzies echo Henley with their critique of rational choice theory (RCT) and its anthropology, identified as
rational economic man (REM).
Turn now to abstracting in terms of mainstream economic theory, Is it rational to rely so completely on
rational economic man? There is a literature that would deny this.
Two gender papers review feminist criticisms of the mainstream concept of the
rational economic man and the history of feminist engagement with social reproduction.
[or] our old friend
Rational Economic Man resurrected in modern garb' (p7).
If
rational economic man is extinct, as Scientific American argued four years ago, where does that leave economic theory?
Economists still don't understand variation; instead they write maddeningly about "representative agents" and "
rational economic man." They still teach the "marginal product theory of wages," which excuses every gross inequality faced by the laboring poor.
The
rational economic man is one who displays a particular personal disposition.
Peter Groenewegen argues that Alfred Marshall did not accept the
rational economic man paradigm, but was evolutionary in his outlook and influenced by Darwin.
