The Coevolution of Corporations and Economic Man
From Huben's Wiki
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Likewise, governments strive to create a more capitalist environment in which competition can take place. Humans vary in their ability to compete in the capitalist system: if corporations can be engineered to compete better or if the system can advantage corporations, they will dominate. | Likewise, governments strive to create a more capitalist environment in which competition can take place. Humans vary in their ability to compete in the capitalist system: if corporations can be engineered to compete better or if the system can advantage corporations, they will dominate. | ||
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| + | The question is not whether these ideas are true of all people or corporations: the important thing is that whichever is likely to be closer to Homo economicus will likely dominate in economic competition. | ||
== Economic Man vs. Humans vs. Corporations == | == Economic Man vs. Humans vs. Corporations == | ||
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| rapid development, no personal limits, immortal | | rapid development, no personal limits, immortal | ||
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| + | Utility functions are critical to the idea of economic rationality that is central to the idea of economic man. Economic man would rationally optimize the output of a utility function. This can be a non-trivial task for many sorts of utility functions. Human utility functions generally have multiple, conflicting goals such as personal survival, pleasure, wealth and reciprocality. That makes for very difficult optimization. By contrast, corporate utility functions consist primarily of maximizing financial return to investors. That makes for much simpler optimization, and also explains the anti-social character of corporate behavior. As David Hume said, "it is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger": hence corporate indifference to the externalities they create. | ||
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| + | The rationality of humans is grossly limited by knowledge, the computing power of brains and the heuristics we use. | ||
The ideas of "economic freedom" espoused by libertarian-leaning propagandists tend to be focussed on freedoms important to corporations, and not so important to humans. | The ideas of "economic freedom" espoused by libertarian-leaning propagandists tend to be focussed on freedoms important to corporations, and not so important to humans. | ||
