The Innate Nature of Economics - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 45

systemic failure, because we, in Western industrial society, are today impris-
oned in the hubris of Baconian tradition. Francis Bacon (January 22, 1561
to April 9, 1626), considered to be the father of modern scientific inquiry, 16
viewed nature as a “common harlot” and thus urged future generations to
“tame, squeeze, mold,” and “shape” nature in order to be “the undisputed
sovereign of the physical world.” This view gave rise to the reductionist
lens through which we modern humans intellectually dissect the world
into isolated, competing fragments rather than risk our deeply human emo-
tional-spiritual engagement with the dynamic, life-support systems that
sustain us.
If, therefore, this new body of analytical methods was to be considered
a science, it must somehow be able to ascribe absolute predictability with
respect to the material, acquisitive actions of human beings. Thus began
the reductionist lens of economics—the defining moment when yester-
year's material success foreshadowed today's systemic failure. After all,
an apple always falls from a tree in the same manner. The resulting bun-
dle of assumptions, known as Rational Economic Man, has the following
major characteristics:
• Is self-interested (self-centered)
• Has complete and perfect knowledge of all consumption and pro-
duction alternatives
• Is acquisitive
• Is materialistic
• Always prefers more to less of any economic good or service
• Prefers immediacy—something now is always preferable to the
same thing later
• Always makes the same choices (“rational”)
• Is competitive in behavior, both in consumption and production
(employment)
Refinement and exemplification of these features will occur in the next two
chapters, as we separately discuss consumption and production. Further,
those features identified above will be particularly useful in exploring the
full implications of the preoccupation of our society with the phenomenon
of economic growth as part of its philosophical underpinnings. Suffice it to
say, Rational Economic Man stands as the definitive image of human nature
emanating from the classical beginnings of the discipline of economics.
Squeezing out love, variability, and altruism or charity results in the image
of Man as Machine , pure and simple. As we will see, this has had profound
effects on the evolution of economic thought throughout the years and, con-
sequently, on the society that it seeks to serve.