Regrouping on individualism

 

 

  1. Nature of suggested micro-foundations for macroeconomics (is REP the only option?)

 

  1. Is the term ‘individualist’ value-laden (Lukes on international comparisons)

 

  1. Economists divided on whether priority should go to individual behaviour or

global aggregates: Hayek, Popper, Arrow, Ferguson, Becker versus Vining, Marx, Keynes.

 

  1. Individualism/holism; the various insistent lines of argument – observability, ontology, translatability – of the individualists; but Dray and Lukes on confusions in the debate.

 

  1. Carr, Marx on social interrelationship: individual/society contrast a ‘red herring’?

 

  1. From translatability to deducibility?

 

    • classification of answers to the question ‘What if everyone did that?’ (Harrod, Lyons, Schelling – rule utilitarians and ‘white’ lies; threshold effects; critical mass).
    • An example of taking a threshold effect into account

(‘I refrain from walking on the grass of a well-kept lawn, not because I think that my walking on the grass is going to damage the lawn to such an extent as to detract from anyone’s pleasure in contemplating it, but because I realise that, if everyone else who walked in the park were to do likewise, the grass in the park would be spoilt’ (Lyons)). (Consequences of action deducible – or not? – from individual action).

    • other examples:

                                                               i.      over-fishing

                                                             ii.      commuting

                                                            iii.      hi-jack cases

                                                           iv.      ‘save it’ (water shortage)

                                                             v.      tax evasion

                                                           vi.      ‘beggar-my-neighbour’ policies in international trade

                                                          vii.      wage-push inflation

                                                        viii.      public goods

                                                           ix.      economies of scale

                                                             x.      paradox of thrift (Joan Robinson: ‘everyone makes what he likes, but what he likes is determined for him’)

                                                           xi.      more generally, Prisoner’s Dilemma analysis (Parfit, Sen)

    • Critical mass (Schelling) or threshold (Lyons) may not be clear ex ante?

 

Upshot: misleading to look on either parts or whole as having privileged status; micro-foundations, linked with causation, may need to be taken into account by the policy-maker. But important role for macro-, as well as micro-, economics if the information about relations between such actions. (Alternatively, ‘individual’ actions more generously interpreted might be recognised as already embodying the social fabric; but then ‘micro’ mis-describes them.)

 

(Dr. J.G.T. Meeks)