Guardian UK: Evolving beyond homo economicus

[marmar]

Evolving beyond homo economicus
Isn't it time for deeper conversations about whether growth and consumption necessarily lead to the things we really want?

Tim Malnick
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 February 2009 12.45 GMT


The satirical puppet show Spitting Image used to have a rather cruel, but quite funny sketch where a pinstripe-suited, cigar-chewing Margaret Thatcher would stand shoulder to shoulder with to her male cabinet members in the House of Commons urinals. Awkward pleasantries exchanged, she would zip up, leaving them able, once she had departed, to get on with the job in hand.

The suggestion was clear. As a powerful woman, she was portrayed as more of an alpha male than any of the men in her cabinet. Cruel, not the whole truth of course, but a striking image that caught something of her qualities at the time. And a strong image of the paradoxes, pitfalls and projections faced by women finding success in the male dominated worlds of business and politics. Psychologists have called this the queen bee syndrome – the way that many successful women feel compelled and conflicted, often at great personal cost, to act in traditionally masculine ways in order to get on in a largely male world. "Play our game or get out," is often the strong but totally implicit message in the typical boardroom.

In last week's Observer, the business editor Ruth Sunderland explored the current economic crisis from a gendered perspective. The mess, she suggests, was created by men and yet, she points out, it is these very same men who were gathered in Davos trying to clear it up. Ms Sunderland argues that women must be more widely included in the economic debate and recognised for their roles in stimulating economic growth. This is welcome stuff, but like the current economic debate itself, does not go far enough.

The issue is not just about women, or any under-represented group, entering into the economic discussions on their current terms, but about pointing out how bonkers some of the current terms are in the first place. Don't we need a new type of conversation that names the many absurdities inherent in our global economic rules and questions them from the off? ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/07/economicgrowth-recession

[NJCher]

1. Catherine Austin Fitts

http://solari.com/about-us/catherine/

I heard her say on a radio program that the stimulus money that is going to maintain monolithic banks is going to be a waste because these institutions are too large to sustain themselves.

A lot of what this woman says makes sense.

Anyway, thanks for posting. I am collecting articles on what a new economy what look like. My students will be doing research and panel discussions on this topic.



Cher