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Benedetto Gui and Robert Sugden (eds.),
Economics and Social Interaction: Accounting for Interpersonal
Relations,
Cambridge University Press, 2005, 299 pgs.
Yuliya Shcherbinina
“One of the greatest reasons why so few people
understand themselves is that most writers are always teaching men
what they should be, and hardly ever trouble their heads with telling
them what they really are” wrote Bernard Mandeville in his infamous
“Fable of the Bees”. The author of this 17th century piece
of literature, glorifying egoistic self-interested behaviour – a
prototype of the homo oeconomicus dominant today – would
probably be happy with the state of affairs in modern economics.
Instead, the contributors to Economics and Social Interaction:
Accounting for Interpersonal Relations, edited by B. Gui and R.
Sugden take another view, for as the concluding essay by L. Putterman
warns, “We may do ourselves much harm by adopting, out of ignorance of
our natures, recommendations that suit Homo oeconomicus better
than they do ourselves” (p. 268).
One of the criticisms made of this postulate of economic theory is its
ignorance of human sociality and interpersonal relationships. This is
precisely the gap that this volume, comprising 13 essays very
different in style and character, seeks to fill. Framing face-to-face
human interactions in terms of “encounter”, rather than exchange, B.
Gui (chapter 2) offers a theoretical conceptualization of relational
goods/bads. It is during a productive process of an encounter that
consumption (or better pro-sumption) of relational goods/bads
(communicative/affective entities) happens, alongside “traditional”
outcomes, such as the performance of a task, the provision of a
service or transfers of property rights or changes in actors’ human
capital. In their interpersonal relations, actors behave as
co-producers of something that did not exist before. R. Sugden
(chapter 3) moves the discussion forward by asking in his essay what
the technology of this production could look like. He finds the
response in the fellow-feeling concept of Adam Smith, as expressed in
his Theory of Moral Sentiments. The key to the fellow-feeling
mechanism lies in the human capacity to take a perspective, that is,
of feeling imaginatively the experience of others and sharing their
pleasure and pain. Such an interdependence of feeling explains, then,
why we enjoy activities in common that may be equally pursued
individually (such as eating or going to concerts) and find unpleasant
activities (as, for example, routine work tasks or household chores)
less repulsive if carried out together.
Adam Smith was not the only economist who acknowledged the importance
of the interpersonal dimension in economic life. L. Bruni’s essay
(chapter 10) takes us along a fascinating historical journey of the
neglect or expulsion of human relationality from the economic domain,
reaching its apogee in Pareto’s theory where the “individual
disappears leaving us photograph of his tastes”.
Another step towards introducing interpersonal relationships in the
economic domain is made by S. Hargreaves Heap (chapter 9). In his
contribution to the volume, he states that interpersonal relationships
are not only important –they are indeed constitutive of being human.
This is because of the need for the mutual interpersonal validation of
such concepts as “honour”, “justice” and “good”, all of which are
essential for individual identity. The modern extension of the market
may be efficient for the satisfaction of personal preferences but it
undermines interpersonal norms on which people depend for judgments of
self-esteem. Here the job of welfare economics is to check up on the
“institutional ecology” within which people can maintain a sense of
self-worth.
In fact, according to V. Pelligra (chapter 5), the concept of
self-esteem is key to understanding the relational motivational
structure of trust. The desire to be worthy of love and self-esteem (internalised
judgments of others) balances self-centeredness (a pure interest in
material or psychological pay offs) and other-regardingness (a desire
for the good opinion of others). It thus motivates us to be really
trustworthy and not just eager for trust.
While the opening chapters of the volume deal with the micro-level of
analysis, or as Gui defines them, dyadic interactions, several
contributions face the problem at meso- or macro-levels, changing a
little the kind of terminology used. Thus, chapter 7 (A. Antoci, P. L.
Sacco and P. Vanin) investigates the possible interplay between
economic growth and social development, offering a simple growth model
with private and social capital accumulation. In chapter 4 (N.
Bardsley), human relationality bursts open the door of economic theory
in the domain of public good provision, questioning the traditional
explanations of pro-social behaviour stemming from instrumental
rationality and individual utility (such as enlightened self-interest,
rational choice altruism, “warm glow” mechanisms or the repulsiveness
of inequality). This chapter offers two major alternatives to such
methodological individualism, both of which provide a better
understanding of pro-social behaviour. One of these alternatives is a
collective rationality that explains a voluntary contribution to the
public good in virtue of “team-thinking”. The other one is an
expressive rationality underpinned by shared rules, norms or
standards, which are determined socially and which imply the existence
of social constraints on individual actions. In this case, a rational
agent is more interested in the meaning of his acts, and the way in
which it reveals his identity, than the consequences of the acts
themselves.
A study of C. Borgaza and S. Depedri (chapter 6) is of special
interest for all those who doubt the practical applicability of
interpersonal reasoning in business. It reveals an interesting
correlation between relational (relationships with peers and
superiors) and material (salary, working hours, job design etc.)
aspects of job satisfaction and loyalty: above certain critical
thresholds, the two are interchangeable. At the same time, when
satisfaction with one type of good falls below its threshold, the
other type will not suffice to recompense this loss. The opportunity
to “pro-sume” relational goods on the job is also revealed as an
important factor in the retention of employees. Research results show
that satisfaction with relational aspects influences the willingness
of workers to stay with the company significantly (and almost as much
as those that are material). Job
relationships prove to be an important factor in job satisfaction and
a strong motivation towards taking or keeping a job.
A realistic modelling of economic interpersonal relationships inside
complex hierarchical organizations such as modern corporations needs
to introduce a vertical dimension, integrating into the scheme such
concepts as power, authority and domination. This is precisely the aim
of B. Gazier and I. This Saint-Jean (chapter 11) in their contribution
to the volume.
To be faithful to the spirit of the book’s title, the authors confront
their ideas with the critical view of the feminist economist Julie A.
Nelson (chapter 12). In her provocative but inspiring comment, she
puts an enlivening question: does the book’s attempt to take
interpersonal relationships seriously go far enough? According to
Nelson, the logic of encounter, underlying much of the book, is too
timid; it suffers from reductionism and old rhetoric; it does not
question the pre-existing state of agents. “Encounters might be seen
as something that agents simply do, coming out on the other
side of the encounter with greater utility or capital, but
fundamentally unchanged” (p. 251). In such a framework there is the
danger of going back to the “mushroom man” of Hobbes with no past, no
origins, no engagement with others. Thus, the fact that we are
constantly “shaped and created by encounters” (p.251) is missed
again. What the feminist economist offers is an idea of an
individual-in-relation, strongly reminiscent, in our opinion, of
Maritain’s concept of person.
At the end of his contribution to the volume, Luigino Bruni compares
the economists’ old story of neglecting interpersonal relations to the
ancient geographers’ ignorance of African inner regions, naming them
on their maps with the phrase “Hic sunt
leones”. Developing
the same metaphor, we might say that Economics and Social
Interaction is a courageous and praiseworthy effort to explore the
unknown territory “where lions live”.
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