Moral Economy

Why Good Incentives are No Substitute for Good Citizens

Bowles Samuel

Should the idea of economic man-the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus-determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding "no". Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may "crowd out" ethical and generous motives and thus backfire. But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends.

About the Author

Samuel Bowles directs the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute. He has taught economics at Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Siena and is the author of "Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution" and (with Herbert Gintis) "A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution".

Reviews

"'The Moral Economy' is a brilliant book. Rarely have such big ideas been communicated in such a compact package. This book should change the way political leaders, policy makers, and social scientists of all stripes do their work and understand the work that they do" – Barry Schwartz, author of "Practical Wisdom" and "Why We Work"

"'The Moral Economy' convincingly shows that economic incentives and legal constraints alone will not produce a flourishing society because good – morally motivated – people are indispensable. A thought-provoking work!" – Ernst Fehr, Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich

"'The Moral Economy' plows new ground in exploring how the actions we take are motivated by their meaning. Samuel Bowles is proposing a paradigm shift in how we think about our lives and about economics" – George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics

"In this wonderful book, Sam Bowles explores – with intellectual breadth and analytical acuity – the importance of altruism and a sense of fairness in creating and sustaining decent societies. His prose is lucid, arguments compelling, and conclusions important. This is social science at its very best" – Joshua Cohen, Apple University

"Sam Bowles is a visionary thinker who has done more than anyone else I know to unite the social sciences. In this superb book his combination of wisdom and rigor shines through, offering important lessons for anyone who hopes to motivate, govern, or even inspire actual humans" – Joshua Greene, author of "Moral Tribes" and director of the Moral Cognition Lab, Harvard University

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