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"Economics used to be called political economy, and the loss of the "political" tracks the ascendance of the idea of rational choice within the discipline. Where does this idea of economic rationality - choosing to maximize benefits and minimize costs - come from? What are the consequences of its rise? In this new book, Stephen Engelmann assesses these questions through a consideration of the often-hidden links between choice and government, ranging from the Benthamic utilitarianism that inspired modern economics to the contemporary economic psychologists trying to nudge everyone to choose more rationally. Multiple global crises are exposing how deficient economic rationality is as a political theory, since a focus on choice turns actors away from relations in the common. Political economy once targeted aristocratic rule - heralding a politics and ethics of egalitarian self-command and spurring democratic reform - but economics allows domination and forecloses alternatives to it. This accessible volume will be of interest to students and scholars of politics and economics, and to general readers concerned about the various ways that psychology and management have infiltrated our politics"--Amazon.com.

Rationality is an enduring topic of interest across the disciplines and has become even more so, given the current crises that are unfolding in our society. The four books reviewed here, which are written by academics working in economics, political science, political theory and philosophy, provide an interdisciplinary engagement with the idea of rationality and the way it has shaped the institutional frameworks and global political economy of our time. Rational choice theory has certainly proved to be a useful analytic tool in certain contexts, and instrumental reason has been a key tenet of human progress in several periods of history, including the industrial revolution and the modernity that emerged in the nineteenth century. Given the complexity of our current challenges, however, is it time to ask whether this paradigm might be better complemented by more holistic and heterodox approaches? Hindmoor A and Taylor TY (2015) Rational Choice (Political Analysis), 2nd edn. London; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Massumi (2015) The Power at the End of the Economy. Durham: Duke University Press. Brown (2015) Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books. Ludovisi SG (ed.) (2015) Critical Theory and the Challenge of Praxis: Beyond Reification. Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

▪ Abstract  Findings from behavioral organization theory, behavioral decision theory, survey research, and experimental economics leave no doubt about the failure of rational choice as a descriptive model of human behavior. But this does not mean that people and their politics are irrational. Bounded rationality asserts that decision makers are intendedly rational; that is, they are goal-oriented and adaptive, but because of human cognitive and emotional architecture, they sometimes fail, occasionally in important decisions. Limits on rational adaptation are of two types: procedural limits, which limit how we go about making decisions, and substantive limits, which affect particular choices directly. Rational analysis in institutional contexts can serve as a standard for adaptive, goal-oriented human behavior. In relatively fixed task environments, such as asset markets or elections, we should be able to divide behavior into adaptive, goal-oriented behavior (that is, rational action) and behavior that is a consequence of processing limits, and we should then be able to measure the deviation. The extent of deviation is an empirical issue. These classes are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and they may be examined empirically in situations in which actors make repeated similar choices.

The relationship between the rational & the comic is examined, with attention to the works of Shakespeare, Moliere, Beaumarchais, Lessing, & Bernard Shaw. All of these render characters & situations comic partly through their definitions of the characters' relations to rationality. Four basic subject matters are present: love, fixed ideas, money, & convention. In dealing with all of these, comedy derives its greatest strength from willingness to concern itself with the nature of rationality & irrationality. Bibliography. W. H. Stoddard.

AN ECONOMIZING VIEW OF RATIONALITY VALUES INSTITUTIONS ON THE BASIS OF THEIR ABILITY TO ACHIEVE GIVEN ENDS MOST EFFECTIVELY. OBJECTIONS TO THIS VIEW HAVE BEEN INCONCLUSIVE, AND ECONOMIZERS CONTINUE TO FLOURISH. THE AUTHOR ARGUES THAT A COMPELLING CRITIQUE MUST ALSO OFFER AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF RATIONALITY IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS. THE ELUCIDATION OF SUCH AN ALTERNATIVE-POLITICAL RATIONALITY-IS THE AUTHORS UNDERTAKING HERE.