Looking beyond the Individualism and Homo Economicus of Neoclassical Economics: A Collection of Original Essays Dedicated to the Memory of Peter L. Danner, Our Friend & Colleague

Citation

George, D. (2012), "Looking beyond the Individualism and Homo Economicus of Neoclassical Economics: A Collection of Original Essays Dedicated to the Memory of Peter L. Danner, Our Friend & Colleague", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 296-299. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068291211205712

This collection of ten original essays succeeds in bringing to the reader a better understanding of the writings of Peter Danner, a pioneer of the social economics movement in the USA who passed away in 2008. Unlike so many collections of readings that are uneven in quality and inconsistent in the audience for which they are written, these essays comprise a nicely integrated whole and seem well‐suited to students (upper‐level undergraduate as well as graduate) as well as those already familiar with the main threads of social economics.

If there is any single idea that most describes the work of Danner it would probably be “personalism.” In “personalism vs individualism: a critical historical perspective” the Italian economists GianDemetrio Manangoni and Stafano Solari provide an excellent historical summary of this Catholic concept that was offered as a way superior to “individualism” for both understanding economic behavior and for grounding normative analysis of the economy. Mannagoni and Solari describe an important transition in “North‐American personalist economics” from an analytical emphasis on society and institutions to “the acting person or what Peter Danner calls the economic person” (p. 50).

The remaining nine essays cover six main areas of contemporary importance that are considered in the context of Danner's writings. These areas include:

1. 1.

   the failure of growth to advance the well‐being of the already affluent;

2. 2.

   the spread of globalization;

3. 3.

   the status of workers;

4. 4.

   the ecological crisis;

5. 5.

   the implications that the cyber age holds for the values espoused by Danner; and

6. 6.

   the financial crisis of 2008.

I will briefly consider each of these areas.

In “Beyond the ‘anguish of affluence’,” James Ronald Stanfield and Michael C. Carroll review Danner's thinking and that of his predecessors on the theme of economic growth being a psychologically futile enterprise for the already affluent. Their careful summarization of Danner's (1974) article, on which the title of their article builds, makes it apparent what foresight Danner had. In the same year, Easterlin (1974) also published his empirical work casting doubt on the benefits of growth and two years after this Scitovsky (1976) wrote The Joyless Economy which sought to uncover problems with the market that helped to explain the “joylessness” of supposed economic progress. And over the last two decades the burgeoning behavioral economics movement has managed to “mainstream” psychological approaches to economic questions. Three points that are mentioned by Stanfield and Carroll in summarizing Danner are almost eerily prescient. Danner noted that in the modern economy “no one and no firm is guaranteed a permanent position in the economic order […] there is no ultimate security” (p. 26. quote is from Danner, 1974, p. 21). Stanfield and Danner in addition describe Danner's claim that a narcissistic sort of self‐gratification was on the rise and his claim that love of money was becoming more common as well. The more typical view at the time that Danner wrote was that countercultural trends had shifted the younger generation away from all this but it turns out that Danner was insightful indeed, especially when we consider descriptions of the contemporary scene. Job insecurity, in particular, has become a source of deep concern in the USA.

Unlike the Stanfield and Carroll article, the two that are about labor, while reflecting the spirit of Peter Danner's writings, draw on them only minimally. In “Personalism, Solidarity, and Workers in Rerum Novarum,” Joan O'Connell does, however, build her brief history of the economic ideas found in Rerum Novarum around the theme of personalism, which, of course, Danner did so much to bring to the fore. She in addition links the advocates of “personalism” and “subsidiarity” with the Christian Democratic movement that has had such an important role in European politics. Jon Wisman's contribution – “on human behavior, human fulfillment, and the nature of the workplace” – focuses on something long acknowledged in Catholic social thought, namely, that work is not merely a means to material success, but a direct contributor to human satisfaction. Wisman draws on thinkers beginning with Adam Smith and extending to the present whose insights about the sources of human well‐being all suggest the current hierarchical nature of the workplace found in capitalist economies and socialist economies alike deprives the worker of sufficient control. He concludes that democracy in the workplace is the path for making work more fulfilling.

Turning next to the theme of “globalization,” in “Reining in multinational enterprises in the 21st century,” Anthony Scaperlanda argues that the multinational enterprise that has been looming ever larger in power and influence stands as a serious barrier to the attainment (or preservation) of a humane workplace. Scaperlanda presents positions both stated and implied in Catholic social teachings that are designed to counter the weakening of worker bargaining power that has accompanied increasing concentration of corporate power. Kishor Thanawala approaches the implications of increasing globalization from a different perspective. In “The economic person in a global society”, he argues that “personalism” as a concept has become complicated by this widening internationalization. As he asks:

How can one talk about personhood as being both body and self‐reflecting spirit, materialized spirit, without abandoning the notion of common good of a restricted (national, racial or religious) subset of the entire human family? (p. 87).

In “Sustainable development, consumerism and catholic social thought” Charles K. Wilber succeeds in bringing themes that interested Danner into ever more urgent issue of long‐term economic sustainability. Discussing the consumerism that seems to continue unabated in advanced countries, Wilber expresses particular concern about “treating consumerism as the primary goal of development, that is, focusing on having instead of being – [fails] to respect human dignity” (p. 130). I could not help but note the connection with much of contemporary education that tends to focus on acquiring skills that will permit one to earn more money and have more than on humanities focused education that seeks to effect what one will be in the future.

Ed O'Boyle's contribution, “from individual to person: an evolutionary process grounded in human communication,” takes a futuristic slant by seeking to predict the long‐term consequences of the cybernetic revolution. O'Boyle argues that “by virtue of the ongoing developments in electronic communication, human beings themselves are evolving from individuals to persons” (p. 104). While bold in the project laid out, I found the argument offered ultimately unconvincing. For it is not only the technological change that is credited with the fuller blossoming of the worker but the social shifts within the workplace usually attributed to the neoliberal revolution that seem to be portrayed as forces of good. According to O'Boyle, “the entrepreneur has played a key role in […] the development of personalism and the evolution of the economic agent from a human individual to a human person” (p. 107). This overlooks that the “extreme capitalist” movement of recent years has borrowed many of the concepts of neoclassical economics and ignores that entrepreneurs and managers today are taught to view employees more as more expendable than was true in the days of the mixed economy and hence as what Danner would call narrow “individuals” rather than broader “persons.”

Finally, in “Price and value” Barry Keating draws connections between Danner's long time interest in the connection between price and value and the periods of “market euphoria” that characterized the last 20 years of casino style capitalism. He concludes that purely speculative purchasing serves as something of a wedge that results in every buyer no longer necessarily valuing personally each item purchased at an amount equal to or greater than its price.

There were two shortcomings of the book worth brief mention. First, missing from the collection is any attempt to describe and understand changes in Peter Danner's thinking over the years. His 1974 article “Personal values and the anguish of affluence” reveals him to have been a strong critic of market forces. But in his later works (1994, 2002) he seemed to have become more accepting. In “Personalist economics: Danner's framework for the good life” (the only contribution not yet mentioned), Maryann O. Keating states that:

Danner points out that economic exchange, if un‐coerced, is always socially beneficial because although a particular buyer may gain more than a particular seller or vice versa, both gain more than they surrender (p. 40. quote is from Danner, 2002, p. 112).

It is difficult to square such a position with Danner's earlier criticisms of the market. These criticisms saw negative externalities as rampant as competitive consumption led to an over‐emphasis on the material life.

Second, as the editors state in the introduction:

[…] personalist economics emerged on its own as the offspring of solidarist economics principally at the hands of William Waters who was greatly influenced by the teachings of Aristotle and Schumpeter, and Danner whose work draws heavily on John Paul II and Mounier (p. 18).

Since “individualism” denotes a particular perspective, it is understandable that “personalism” was introduced as something of a counterpoint. But as a look at any dictionary will show, “individual” and “person” are virtually synonomous. A better name for Danner's more full‐bodied human being would have thus been desirable (“thin individual” vs “thick individual”?).

Should the test of the value of Danner's work be primarily positive? If so, recent years have not been kind, as the neoclassical version of what people are about continues to spread. But if the test is normative, a more generous conclusion can be reached. While the world has become more market‐oriented than ever, we are left to simply ask what the world would have been like, or might still be like, if policy prescriptions that follow this work are actually implemented. I share with the contributors to this book that the world would have been (and may still be) a better place.