Comment by DrNosferatu
18 days ago
There are several books with the word “Zombie” on the title that can specifically teach you exactly about that!
Some of them actually authored by Economics Nobel Prize winners ;)
Here:
"Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future" by Paul Krugman (2020)
"Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us" by John Quiggin (2010)
Bonus:
"Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely - 2008
"The Myth of the Rational Market" by Justin Fox - 2009
"The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - 2007
This is a motte and bailey.
Your original claim is "[individual] economic agents do not act rationally" (either at all, or on average, take your pick, both are pretty out there).
When challenged, you retreat to "No no I don't mean like you and me economic agents. Obviously when I buy eggs from the supermarket it's probably because I wanted eggs more than the $x I paid for them, and not because I picked some random thing to buy for no reason. I'm really talking about" + insert some more complicated idea X from one of the books you mentioned.
There are many such X you could choose from. That's why folks like you like to recommend entire books instead of giving a plain argument - so long as even one askance X seems to resonate with your audience, you can latch onto it and use it to emotionally persuade them. That is if anyone even bothers to read the book in the first place.
2. In other words, your answer misses the mark. When economists talk about economic agents not acting rationally, they’re not claiming people make completely random decisions devoid of reason. They’re pointing out that real human behavior consistently deviates from the idealized "rational actor" model in predictable ways.
People exhibit cognitive biases, use mental shortcuts, are influenced by emotions, have inconsistent time preferences, and often lack complete information. These aren't rare exceptions - they're fundamental patterns documented in decades of behavioral economics research. Hence the books.
This isn't a retreat to a more complicated position - it's simply acknowledging that the simplified models have practical limitations, AND, benefit some people far more than others. The evidence for these failures is robust enough that even mainstream economics has incorporated behavioral insights.
Rather than hiding behind book recommendations, I'm happy to discuss specific examples of these systematic deviations from rationality if you're genuinely interested in the substance of the argument.
You've qualified your original claim enough in these follow up comments that I'm happy leaving it here, thank you for your time.
1. What “no no, I don’t mean anything like [that]”? - I never wrote any such thing.
Economic irrationality isn't binary but exists on a spectrum. Humans *simultaneously* make mundane rational choices (like buying eggs) while being systematically influenced by cognitive biases, social pressures, and emotional factors that traditional economic models don't capture.
I recommend books not to obfuscate but because complex economic behavior *can't be reduced to simplistic arguments*. The evidence for bounded rationality, hyperbolic discounting, and other psychological patterns affecting economic decisions is robust and empirically demonstrated across numerous studies - those books explain this.
Your accusation uses a straw man fallacy and assumes rationality is simple and self-evident, when - guess what - real economic behavior is nuanced. This isn't retreating to a "safer" position—it's acknowledging that economic reality is more complex than idealized models suggest.
…idealized, provenly wrong models - whose severe (and many times outright dangerous) limitations omission allows those who peddle them to keep earning their salary.