本期节目探讨了经济人与道德经济的关系，并以行为经济学为视角，分析了激励机制和价格如何传达信息，以及如何塑造人们对价值的认知。节目嘉宾Samuel Bowles教授认为，传统的经济学假设，即经济人完全受自身利益驱动，是站不住脚的。他认为，人类的利他行为和合作精神，在经济活动中扮演着重要角色。

🤔 **从亚里士多德到现代经济学：经济人的演变** 节目从亚里士多德的思想出发，探讨了经济人的演变历程。亚里士多德认为，一个良好的社会需要良好的公民，而良好的公民需要良好的制度。然而，随着罗马帝国的衰落和欧洲的黑暗时代，人们开始将人类视为自私、贪婪的动物。霍布斯和马基雅维利的作品，试图迎合人们的这种负面观念，而曼德维尔和亚当·斯密等政治经济学家则试图将这种自私转化为公共利益。 这种将人类分为“道德人”和“经济人”的思维方式，最终导致了“无形之手”理论的出现。这一理论认为，市场机制可以将个人的自私行为转化为社会效益。 然而，近年来，行为经济学、道德哲学和进化心理学等领域的研究表明，经济人理论存在着许多缺陷。人们的行为并不总是理性、自私的，而是受到多种因素的影响，包括情感、社会规范、道德观念等等。

🤝 **行为经济学：挑战经济人理论的局限性** 行为经济学的研究表明，人们的行为并不总是符合理性经济人的假设。例如，人们会受到“损失厌恶”的影响，即对损失的感受比对收益的感受更加强烈。人们还会受到“框架效应”的影响，即对同一事物的表述方式不同，会影响人们的决策。这些研究表明，经济人理论过于简化了人类的行为，无法解释人们的复杂行为模式。

💡 **设计更符合人类本性的制度：构建道德经济** 节目最后探讨了如何设计更符合人类本性的制度，以促进道德经济的发展。嘉宾认为，需要将道德因素纳入经济决策中，并鼓励人们进行合作和互助。例如，可以通过制定更加公平的税收制度、加强社会福利体系、倡导企业社会责任等措施，来促进社会公平正义，并引导人们追求更美好的未来。

🧠 **重新思考经济人：走向更美好的未来** 节目强调了重新思考经济人理论的必要性。经济人理论过于强调个体利益，而忽略了人类的社会性、合作性和道德性。我们需要构建一种新的经济学理论，能够更好地解释人类的行为，并引导人们走向更美好的未来。

📊 **经济人与道德经济：一个需要持续探索的话题** 本期节目只是对经济人与道德经济关系的初步探讨。未来，还需要进行更加深入的研究，以更好地理解人类的行为，并设计出更加有效的经济制度。

In Episode 18 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Samuel Bowles, about economic man and the moral economy, exploring some of the latest insights from the field of behavioral economics with insights about how incentives and prices convey information and shape perceptions of value in the economy. Dr. Bowles is a Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. His studies on cultural and genetic evolution have challenged the conventional economic assumptions of an economic man motivated entirely by self-interest. The author of nearly twenty books, Samuel Bowles has most recently written The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizensand A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. 

In today’s conversation, we follow the archeological record of economic man. We pursue the path towards rational expectations and utility maximization. We take the road from Aristotle, paying heed to his ethics, and to his conviction that the test of a good constitution, is a good citizenry. But, with the collapse of Rome and Europe’s descent into darkness emerge ideas of life as brutish and man, as wicked. Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and Niccolò Machiavelli's Prince, were written to appeal to the lowest, most unimpressive motives of man's animal nature. Later, political economists like Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith would take this notion further. They sought to harness the industries of avarice, converting man's self-interest towards the public good. The invisible hand emerged, and with it, notions of separability. Homo Sapiens existed in one realm, and economic man in another. The beneficent, moral being on the one hand, and the selfish, utility maximizing agent on the other. Laws were built upon this framework. Ideas of the marketplace were developed. Incentives and regulations were crafted, in what economists call Mechanism Design. What have we learned in the years since that have challenged the foundations of these neoclassical assumptions? What has come of rational expectations and utility maximization? What are some of the insights of behavioral economists, moral philosophers, and evolutionary psychologists that task the fitness of economic man? What types of systems can we design that are better suited towards the citizens of Aristotle’s legislator than to the aberrations of modern economic man?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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