Political Science 2230E Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: John Stuart Mill, Anthony Downs, Real Humans
8 Mar 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Studies man whose desire is to have wealth and is capable of judging of comparative efficacy of means of obtaining the end. Economic man is an abstraction : set of assumptions meant to capture important aspects of human nature. Rational choice analysis consists of teasing out logical implications of these assumptions -> explanations of how humans behave in certain situations. Humans under "variety of desires and aversions" in addition to economic desires. Mill: way to deal with variety is to determine what would happen is motivation operated by itself. Rational choice lacks a reliable way of discriminating between situations where it is useful and where it is not. Widely inaccurate predictions on real world behaviour. Anthony down: rational voter would rather not vote because personal cost of time and effort outweigh conceivable individual benefit -> people still vote. Mancur olsen: said social movements would be impossible to organize -> rise of social movement in 1960s.
