Homo Oeconomicus is not of good repute.
He is considered selfish, only concerned with his own gain.
Generosity and mercy are alien to him, it is said.
He has a cold heart.
Rainer Hank
Freelance writer in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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The economic historian Werner Plumpe has given his history of capitalism the title “The Cold Heart”.
Wilhelm Hauff's fairy tale of the same name from 1827 was not first read by GDR German studies as a parable of emerging capitalism, even if it still takes place entirely in a pre-industrial world of charcoal burners, woodcutters and raftsmen.
The stone heart has always been a symbol of a sinful mind hardened against God.
As with Goethe in the second part of “Faust”, Wilhelm Hauff's money also comes from a pact with the devil.
It blinds and seduces, ultimately leads to ruin.
Coldness of the heart also connotes frigidity and sterility.
"Mother, oh dear!
Your hard heart ”, complain the unborn in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's“ The Woman Without a Shadow ”.
Ignorance doesn't help
In this sense, the study of economics would be an agency for socialization with a cold heart.
Altruists are forcibly converted into egoists who subject everything and anything to a cost-benefit calculation.
Game theory teaches them that cooperation doesn't pay off.
The “invisible hand” will take care of the common good.
“What a mistake”, scorn the critics of capitalism and refer to inequality, poverty and injustice in the world.
Liberal economists have resisted such caricature images.
In his famous rectorate address on February 1, 1867 in St. Andrews, Scotland, the philosopher John Stuart Mill mentions those people who warn students against studying political economy: heartless, callous, the subject confronts you with unpleasant facts.
Mill counters with reference to physics: By far the most insensitive thing he knows is the law of gravity.
"It breaks the neck of the best of us if they think they can ignore it, even for a moment." Wind and strong waves can also be pretty unpleasant, Mill continues.
But should we therefore instruct the seafarers to ignore the existence of wind and waves?
Wouldn't it be better to study the laws of nature to guard against the dangers?
The conclusion by analogy is: “Study the writings of the economic classics and keep what you think is true.
The study of economics will in no way turn you into egoists, unless you were already hardened or selfish beforehand. "
Capitalists kill mice
Whether capitalism, market economy and the study of economics harden the heart of the people, the thinker still does not let go today.
However, speculation is no longer enough.
The zeitgeist requires empirical evidence.
The experiments by behavioral economist Armin Falk from Bonn have become famous.
“Capitalists kill mice” is how one can sum up his thesis in a somewhat boisterous way.
The design: laboratory mice that were supposed to die were given the chance to survive if the participants in an experiment were willing to forego monetary gifts.