Robinson Crusoe's Economic Man


Book Description

In this book, economists and literary scholars examine the uses to which the Robinson Crusoe figure has been put by the economics discipline since the publication of Defoe’s novel in 1719. The authors’ critical readings of two centuries of texts that have made use of Robinson Crusoe undermine the pervasive belief of mainstream economics that Robinson Crusoe is a benign representative of economic agency, and that he, like other economic agents, can be understood independently of historical and cultural specificity. The book provides a detailed account of the appearance of Robinson Crusoe in the economics literature and in a plethora of modern economics texts, in which, for example, we find Crusoe is portrayed as a schizophrenic consumer/producer trying to maximize his personal well-being. Using poststructuralist, feminist, postcolonial, Marxist and literary criticism approaches, the authors of the fourteen chapters in this volume examine and critique some of the deepest, fundamental assumptions neoclassical economics hold about human nature; the political economy of colonization; international trade; and the pervasive gendered organization of social relations. The contributors to this volume can be seen as engaging in the emerging conversation between economists and literary scholars known as the New Economic Criticism. They offer unique perspectives on how the economy and economic thought can be read through different disciplinary lenses. Economists pay attention to rhetoric and metaphor deployed in economics, and literary scholars have found new areas to explore and understand by focusing on economic concepts and vocabulary encountered in literary texts.




Robinson Crusoe


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Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?


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How do you get your dinner? That is the basic question of economics. When economist and philosopher Adam Smith proclaimed that all our actions were motivated by self-interest, he used the example of the baker and the butcher as he laid the foundations for 'economic man,' arguing that the baker and butcher didn't give bread and meat out of the goodness of their hearts. It's an ironic point of view coming from a bachelor who lived with his mother for most of his life—a woman who cooked his dinner every night.The economic man has dominated our understanding of modern-day capitalism, with a focus on self-interest and the exclusion of all other motivations. Such a view point disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking. It insists that if women are paid less, then that's because their labor is worth less.A kind of femininst Freakonomics, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? charts the myth of economic man—from its origins at Adam Smith's dinner table, its adaptation by the Chicago School, and its disastrous role in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis—in a witty and courageous dismantling of one of the biggest myths of our time.




Robinson Crusoe Readalong


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Galileo Unbound


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Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.




Robinson Crusoe's Money (Annotated)


Book Description

"Robinson Cruso's Money" is actually a monetary experiment which investigates the dynamics and feature of cash. It is based on Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Cruso," wherein the primary character is actually stranded on a deserted isle. A thought experiment involves envisioning that Robinson Crusoe discovers a chest filled with gold coins while stranded on the island. Crucial Points: Isolation: Crusoe could be the single person on the island, and there's no nearby community to trade or maybe commerce with. Absence of Market: The gold coins have no intrinsic worth for Crusoe since there's economic system or no market on island. Utility: Crusoe can not use the gold for practical uses. He cannot consume it, use it for shelter or even swap it for goods or services. Exchange as well as trade: Money gains the worth of its from turning into a medium of exchange in an economic system. Crusoe sees the cash as ineffective since the island is missing an economy or maybe possibility for trade. Economic Lessons: Medium of Exchange: Only cash might be replaced for merchandise and / or perhaps services. As a medium of exchange it loses the electric of its in isolation. The actual distinction between intrinsic and also Instrumental worth. In this thought experiment, the intrinsic worth of a point is actually distinguished from its instrumental worth (the worth of its as an instrument to achieve various other end). Community Construct: Money is a cultural idea mostly. The worth of the moderate is dependent upon the collective agreement kept by a town to swap it. Barter System: If Crusoe encounter someone else on the island, a barter system is going to prove much more helpful without any cash. Barter methods entail immediate exchange of items without the usage of money or maybe another moderate. Source Allocation: Money is not always handy in cases in which resources are actually restricted and must be successfully allotted (such as a deserted island). Abilities, labor, and natural resources turn into the key assets. The Philosophical Implications: The thought experiment carries philosophical ramifications related to the dynamics of worth, man needs as well as the cap of material wealth. When eliminated from societal buildings & norms it challenges us to think about what really matters in life. "Robinson Cruso's Money" is actually a theoretical foundation for grasping the basic principles of cash and economics. It lets us realize the contextual and social elements which confer worth on cash. Surely! The "Robinson Crusoe's Money" thought experiment serves as a foundational tool for understanding a number of important concepts in economics, sociology, and also philosophy. Let us delve deeper into each area. Expanded Economic Lessons: Very subjective Theory of Value: In classical economics, the valuation of an item is usually regarded as intrinsic. Nevertheless, the modern, much more nuanced view argues that value is actually very subjective and depending on the energy it offers to the person. Robinson Crusoe's scenario illustrates this perfectly: gold, typically regarded as invaluable, becomes worthless in the context of his since it provides no utility. Portability and liquidity: One of the causes cash is beneficial in contemporary economies is the liquidity of its and portability. You are able to quickly carry it and swap it for a broad range of services and goods. But once again, in Crusoe's remote economy of one, these qualities are actually irrelevant. Marginal Utility: The idea of marginal energy details the extra pleasure or maybe advantage one profits from eating yet another device of a very good or perhaps service. Crusoe's scenario shows that the marginal energy of cash could become 0 in case it can't be replaced for whatever helpful.




Feminist Economics


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Hewitson (business, La Trobe U., Australia) uses a feminist poststructuralist approach to expose the masculinity of the allegedly unsexed figure of the neoclassical "rational economic man". Employing a wide range of poststructuralist writings, she argues that neoclassical economics does construct sexual differences and that the notion of the exchanging agent, commonly perceived as a universal and sexless individual, cannot accommodate sexual differences, thus concluding that neoclassical economics cannot accommodate women's differences.




Robinson Crusoe's Money


Book Description

An excellent example of his work in this field is his "ROBINSON CRUSOE'S MONEY", issued first in 1876 when resumption was in doubt, and again in 1896 when the 'free silver' advocacy was in full swing. Wells was among the earliest to appreciate the importance of what has since been known as 'technological unemployment,' the displacing of men by machines ..His writing and speaking was marked by simplicity, candor, and extraordinary facility in the popular adaptation of statistics. His aptness in illustration was as charming as it was effective ..."Importance of Money in De Foe's Robinson CrusoeBecasuse of Money plays an important role in De Foe's Robinson Crusoe even though the islander repeatedly celebrates his triumph over the whole attribution of value to money, a medium of no value to him, who is deprived of all human commerce. Crusoe keeps a continuous account of his wealth and he is finally overwhelmed when he has to realise how rich he became in the time of his isolation. His computations mention:§ English pounds sterling,§ Portuguese Moidors and Cruisadoes, i.e. gold moedas and silver cruzados,§ Spanish Doubloons and Pieces of Eight, i.e. gold doblóns and pesos, silver coins of eight reales,§ unspecified (gold) ducats§ unminted goldAll coins mentioned matched specific amounts of gold and silver and one knew how to calculate between these coins. Our marginal notes offer the equivalents in English money at the rates valid in 1719.The computations for 1719 are not a weak compromise. A gold Moidore minted in 1670 would not contain one gram less gold in 1719 its value as a gold coin would hence remain stable. The value of gold in silver money was, however, unstable.None of the European currencies could fix a price at which gold could be converted; and all currencies gave sums on national silver standards. The problem increased where a country failed to stabilise its silver money (by failing to issue new silver coins of the expected quality). The 1680s and 1690s thus saw the English public unwilling to continue changing their gold guineas into silver shillings at the established rate of 20 shillings the guinea. The guinea rose from 20 to 30 shillings in 1694, it was successfully fixed at 21s, 6d in 1698; the rate was modified to 21 shillings in a new attempt to stabilise the monetary system in 1717, and it was to remain at this ratio till 1816.




Economics in Two Lessons


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Since 1946, Henry Hazlitt's bestselling Economics in One Lesson has popularized the belief that economics can be boiled down to one simple lesson: market prices represent the true cost of everything. But one-lesson economics tells only half the story. It can explain why markets often work so well, but it can't explain why they often fail so badly--or what we should do when they stumble. Quiggin teaches both lessons, offering an introduction to the key ideas behind the successes--and failures--of free markets. He explains why market prices often fail to reflect the full cost of our choices to society as a whole. Two-lesson economics means giving up the dogmatism of laissez-faire as well as the reflexive assumption that any economic problem can be solved by government action, since the right answer often involves a mixture of market forces and government policy. But the payoff is huge: understanding how markets actually work--and what to do when they don't. This book unlocks the essential issues at the heart of any economic question. --From publisher description.




General Equilibrium Theory


Book Description

General Equilibrium Theory: An Introduction treats the classic Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium model in a form accessible to graduate students and advanced undergraduates in economics and mathematics. Topics covered include mathematical preliminaries, households and firms, existence of general equilibrium, Pareto efficiency of general equilibrium, the First and Second Fundamental Theorems of Welfare Economics, the core and core convergences, future markets over time and contingent commodity markets under uncertainty. Demand, supply, and excess demand appear first as (point-valued) functions, then optionally as (set-valued) correspondences. The mathematics presented (with elementary proofs of the theorems) includes a real analysis, the Brouwer fixed point theorem, and separating and supporting hyperplane theorems. Optional chapters introduce the existence of equilibrium with set-valued supply and demand, the mathematics of upper and lower hemicontinuous correspondences, and the Kakutani fixed point theorem. The treatment emphasizes clarity and accessibility to the student through use of examples and intuition.