Ellen Willis: Free-Market Economics

Posted by admin on Saturday, December 14, 2019

Ellen Willis Money Quote saying allowing the free market to run it’s course assumes rational, expected behavior. Ellen Willis said:
 

 

“The crackpot rationalism of free-market economics merely relies on an abstract model of how people ‘must’ behave” — Ellen Willis

 

 

In this quote, Ellen Willis is criticizing the assumptions and theoretical models underlying mainstream “free-market economics”. When she refers to the “crackpot rationalism” of its perspectives, Willis suggests the field relies on unrealistic and oversimplified ideas about human behavior.

Specifically, she argues that free-market economics builds models based on how people “must” act according to its abstract theories, rather than how individuals and societies actually operate in the real world.

The quote conveys Willis’ view that mainstream economics focuses too much on theoretical constructs divorced from reality, and presents an overly rigid view of human psychology and decision-making that does not reflect the complexity and variability of human nature.

She appears to believe the field’s frameworks are flawed due to being grounded in conjectural behavior rather than empirical evidence.