>
><http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/politics/29RUMS.html>
>January 29, 2001 Single-Page Format
>Rumsfeld to Pay Big Price to Avoid Conflicts
>By STEVEN LEE MYERS
>
>WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — As he returns to the Pentagon for a second tour as
>secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld is being required to divest himself of
>an array of stocks, partnerships and other holdings at what one of his financial
>advisers called "a significant loss."
>
>[snip]
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Well, Rumsfeld's behavior isn't consistent with at least a simple-minded economistic version of rational choice theory--i.e., one that says people are always motivated by the desire to maximize their economic gains.
The most general statement of the rationality assumption, as discussed by Herbert Simon (1985), is simply the notion that there exists some correspondence between the goals of individuals and the actions they take to achieve their goals. We can attribute all kinds of goals to individuals. Economists of the neoclassical school claim individuals attempt as a goal to maximize their utility measured in terms of consumption of material goods and services. Political scientists of the so-called "realist" school in international relations claim that states (statesmen in some formulations) seek to maximize their interests conceived of in terms of power in the international system). Simon believes it is these specifications of individuals' goals, rather than the rationality assumption as such, that provides "rational choice theories" with their predictive power.
Returning to the example of Mr. Rumsfeld, a rational choice theorist could simply argue that Mr. Rumsfeld's behavior indicated that his utility for holding the office of Defense Secretary was greater than his utility for making profits from his financial and business assets. Note, however, the circularity of the argument as I've stated it. Mr. Rumsfeld behaved as he did because of his utility function and we know what his utility function is because of his behavior. Such circularity is a potential pitfall in many rational choice arguments, including those from the Austrian economics camp that hold that the only way we know what people's preferences are is to observe their behavior in a market setting. Generally, I and other social scientists would argue that it is fallacious to infer preferences from observed behavior.
Problems like these should cause us to raise the question of whether many rational choice arguments can be properly falsified at all, even in principle. If not, they clearly cannot be considered "scientific theories" in the good old reliable positivist sense.
REFERENCES
Simon, Herbert A. "Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science." The American Political Science Review 79, No. 2. (June 1985): 293-304.
--
Jeffrey L. Beatty
Doctoral Student
Department of Political Science
The Ohio State University
2140 Derby Hall
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If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement-- President Jimmy Carter
