Subjectivity in Political Economy - Essays on Wanting and Choosing (Hardcover, New)

Political economy celebrates the idea of self-interest and depends on it. Yet questions about self-interest remain unanswered and unexplored. What is the self whose interests political economy celebrates? How do those interests relate to the self? And, in what does the self take interest? This book explores the way political economy understands human motivation. The author argues that the assumptions typically made by economists regarding want and choice cannot adequately lay a foundation for answering questions about the design of economic institutions and the appropriate use of markets. Rather than assuming that individuals know what they want and gain satisfaction from consuming what they imagine they want, we should think of economic institutions as involved in a process of self-seeking and self-discovery, in which knowing what we want is a result and not a premise. The volume examines the implications of this idea for political economy, especially for political economy's normative goal: to offer guidance in shaping economic institutions and the appropriate use of markets. Topics covered include: the concept of subsistence; the idea of self-interest in classical political econo