[ianlippert]

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The empirical work that Gowdy and other heterodox economists tend to cite most is that of behavioral economists, those who study how humans actually reason about economic decisions, calculate risk and respond to incentives. What they routinely find is that the rational utility maximizer of the neoclassical model is a convenient fiction.

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I really dont understand where people get this charazterization that classical economists believe that humans are fully rational. The idea is that people act rationally but may have irrational beliefs, which leads to a perception of irrational action. So someone may have the irrational belief that they hate walmart but shopping at a local shop where prices are twice as high isnt irrational if you understand their belief.

I think these Heterodox economists (whatever that means, might as well say socialist it seems) simply dont understand what utility means. Utility is not neccessarily a monetary measurement. To say that people dont maximize their utility is to basically claim that people are inherantly schizophrenic. I hate icecream but im going to spend all my money on it. Outside of extremely rare cases, I dont think this ever happens. The vast majority of human action is people maximizing their utility.

I also lold at the idea of right and leftist economists all in the same room trying to justify their particular government programs. Must have been very entertaining.