Embodiment, Political Economy and Human Flourishing : An Embodied Cognition Approach to Economic Life

This book presents embodied economics as a foundational alternative to behavioral economics and other projects integrating economics and psychology inspired by the computational paradigm. The 20th century witnessed the disembodiment of economic models through the intensification of mathematization and formal abstraction in economics. Even proponents of an embodied approach to cognition, such as Hayek, paradoxically championed the abstract market order as a disembodied superhuman intelligence. In the wake of groundbreaking perspectives in cognitive and social sciences, which have helped to rethink the fundamental building blocks of economics, agency and institutions, this title takes a radical turn towards embodiment. Reinstating economics as political economy, embodied economics motivates a critique of capitalism based on the analysis of disembodiment through abstraction and reactivates key critical insights into the anthropology put forward by the young Marx about contemporary economics and its conceptualizations of money, property, and labor. Based on this analysis, the authors envision a concrete utopia for an economic order centered on human dignity and care for life on Earth. This book contributes to recent discussions about behavioral, experimental and neuroeconomics and addresses a transdisciplinary audience in the social and behavioral sciences, philosophy, and the humanities. Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction to an Embodied Approach to Economic Life 2 The Ills of Disembodiment and Abstraction in Economics 2.1 Introduction: The Road to Abstraction from Human and Social Realities in Economics 2.2 The “Lost Century” of Economics 2.3 The Rationale of Disembodiment in Economics 2.4 Prices as Disembodied Information 2.5 Forms of Disembodiment: Illustrations with Behavioral and Neuroeconomics 2.6 Curing Disembodiment in Economics: Insights from the Neuroscientific Method 2.7 Signs of Embodiment in Behavioral, Experimental, and Neuroeconomics 2.8 Conclusion Notes References 3 The Hayek Paradox of Abstraction and Embodiment 3.1 Introduction: Hayek and the Abstract Society, from the Embodied Mind to the Disembodied Market 3.2 From Theoretical Psychology to Economic Theory 3.3 From Economic Principles to Knowledge Division in the Abstract Society 3.4 From the Abstract Society to the Unbearable Abstractness of the Market Order 3.5 From the Abstractness of the Market Order to Disembodied Economic Rationality 3.6 Conclusion Notes References 4 Principles of Embodiment in the Making of Economic Life 4.1 Introduction: Abstraction Is Not “Not Embodied” 4.2 From Disembodied Rationality to Embodied Reason in Economic Life 4.2.1 Connecting Perception, Cognition, and Action 4.2.2 Coupling the Organism and the Environment 4.2.3 Overcoming the Opposition Between Rationality and Emotion 4.2.3.1 The Neglect of Emotions in Decision-Making 4.2.3.2 Affect and Rationalization 4.2.3.3 Animal Spirits and Somatic Markers 4.2.3.4 Moral Sentiments and Mirror Neurons 4.3 Embodied Reason and the Enactment of Meaning in Economic Life 4.3.1 Bodily Experiences, Conceptual Metaphors, and Embodied Reason: Understanding Abstraction in Terms of Experience 4.3.1.1 Organism-Environment Coupling, Image Schemas, and Anthropomorphism 4.3.1.2 Space, Metaphors, and Abstract Concepts 4.3.2 Neural Reuse, Conceptual Blending, and Materiality in Economic Life 4.3.2.1 Neural Reuse, Conceptual Blending Theory, and Material Anchors 4.3.2.2 Conceptual Blending as a Type of Action Engaging with Materiality 4.4 Artifact-Mediated Cognition and Language in Embodied Economics 4.4.1 Artifact Mediation and Embodied Economics 4.4.2 Linguistic Mediation and Embodied Economics 4.4.2.1 Language Use as a Scaffold for Cognition 4.4.2.2 Language Use and Self-Regulation 4.5 Overcoming the Inside-Outside Dichotomy, and Moving the Embodiment Argument Beyond Cognition 4.5.1 Habitus, Inward and Outward Embodiment in Economic Life 4.5.2 The Dialectics of Outward and Inward Embodiment in Modern Social Thought 4.6 Conclusion Notes References 5 Embodied Agency in the Economy 5.1 Introduction: Agents and Actors 5.2 Dimensions of Agency 5.2.1 Starring: The Man in the Pit 5.2.2 Autonomy and Feelings as Elementary Constituents of Agency 5.2.3 Autonomy and Freedom of Human Actors 5.2.4 Agency Beyond the Individual 5.3 Embodied Agency in Markets 5.3.1 The Notion of Agential Power 5.3.2 Trust as “Market Feeling” 5.3.3 Capabilities and Agential Powers in Specialization 5.3.4 Capabilities and Consumer Agency 5.4 Identity and the Self 5.4.1 Embodied Memory and Agency 5.4.2 Narrating Agency: Identity and Performativity 5.4.3 The Reasonable Person in the Economy 5.5 Conclusion Notes References 6 The Embodied Approach to Institutions 6.1 Introduction: Institutions Are Institutional Actions 6.2 From Hegel to Bourdieu Via Searle: Power and Institutions 6.3 Transcending the Game-Theoretic Approach to Institutions 6.3.1 Signs of Embodiment in Applied Game Theory 6.3.2 The Aoki-Bourdieu Logic of Institutional Action 6.4 Embodied Institutional Actions of Exchange and Their Cognitive Foundations 6.4.1 The Metaphorical Constitution of the Economy 6.4.2 Institutional Action and the Four Elementary Types of Social Relationships 6.4.3 Embodiment in Institutional Action 6.5 Conclusion Notes References 7 Abstraction and Embodiment in the Core Institutions of Capitalism: Money, Property, and Labor 7.1 Introduction: Money as a Medium of Abstracting Property and Labor 7.2 Money 7.2.1 Money and Rationality 7.2.2 Pricing as a Fundamental Type of Institutionalized Action Mediated by Money and Its Complementary Institutional Actions 7.2.3 Money as an Institution 7.2.4 Pulling the Threads Together: Money in the Aoki-Bourdieu Model of Institution 7.3 Property and the Institutional Modes of Appropriation 7.3.1 Property in the Dismal Science 7.3.2 The Uneasy Relationship Between Embodied Property and Disembodied Market 7.3.3 Ownership and the Self 7.3.4 Possession as Enacting Appropriation 7.3.5 Property: Disembodying Appropriation 7.3.6 Theft and Violence in Appropriation 7.3.7 Conclusion 7.4 Labor 7.4.1 The Paradox of Labor in Disembodied Economics 7.4.2 Constructing Disembodied Labor in Economic Theory 7.4.3 Alienation and the Capitalist Organization 7.4.4 Labor in Embodied Economics: From Hegel to Arendt 7.5 Conclusion Notes References 8 Embodied Market Utopia: Human Flourishing in Economic Life 8.1 Introduction: Utopia as an Essential Dimension in Economic Thought 8.2 Embodied Market Utopia as Transformative Political Economy 8.3 Externalities and Embodiment 8.3.1 The Problem of GDP 8.3.2 Externalities as “Market Feelings” 8.3.3 Social Preferences and Identity 8.3.4 Externalizing the Costs of Sustaining Markets: The Paradox of Capitalism 8.4 Limits to Embodiment in Recent Economic Thinking About Externalities and Well-Being 8.4.1 Externalities and Behavioral Interventions 8.4.2 Externalities and the Commons 8.4.3 Externalities and Well-Being 8.5 Human Flourishing in Embodied Economics 8.5.1 Well-Being Means Flourishing 8.5.2 Flourishing Beyond Well-Being: The WISER Framework 8.6 Dignified Work and Communities in Embodied Market Utopia 8.6.1 Reclaiming Dignity in Work: Universal Basic Income in Market Utopia 8.6.2 Purpose and the Corporation 8.6.3 Re-embodying and Re-embedding Market Communities 8.7 Fundamental Institutions of Embodied Market Utopia 8.8 Conclusion Notes References Index