Competing Models of Socially Constructed Economic Man: Differentiating Defoe's Crusoe from the Robinson of Neoclassical Economics

TL;DR: The authors compare Defoe's conception of economic man with that of the neoclassical Robinson Crusoe economy, arguing that the latter is a reflection of historically produced assumptions about the need for social conformity, not the embodiment of any genuinely essential economic characteristics.

Abstract: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe has seldom been read as an explicitly political text When it has, it appears that the central character was designed to warn the early eighteenth-century reader against political challenges to the existing economic order Insofar as Defoe's Crusoe stands for ‘economic man’, he is a reflection of historically produced assumptions about the need for social conformity, not the embodiment of any genuinely essential economic characteristics This insight is used to compare Defoe's conception of economic man with that of the neoclassical Robinson Crusoe economy On the most important of the ostensibly generic principles espoused by neoclassical theorists, their ‘Robinson’ has no parallels with Defoe's Crusoe Despite the shared name, two quite distinct social constructions serve two equally distinct pedagogical purposes Defoe's Crusoe extols the virtues of passive middle-class sobriety for effective social organisation; the neoclassical Robinson champions the establishment of ma

Summary

Allocations

• The neoclassical Robinson’s innate behavioural essence mandates him to organise his inter-temporal labour allocations so as to change in beneficial ways his long-run subsistence needs.
• Crusoe’s inter-temporal labour allocations are designed to culturally condition him to become a social type that he had previously refused to be: to accommodate himself to ‘the station of life I was born in’ (p. 29) so that he might emulate the way middle-class gentlemen ‘went silently and smoothly thro’ the world’ (p. 28).
• In reflecting on the fate that he has brought upon himself, he declares at that time that ‘the authors never see the true state of their condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what they enjoy, but by the want of it’ (p. 149).
• After all, Defoe made his eventual restoration to society conditional upon him developing himself and not his economic environment.

Conclusion

• The preceding analysis has demonstrated that the neoclassical Robinson’s appropriation of Defoe’s name is an almost complete red herring.
• They represent competing rather than complementary visions of economic man, and what is true of Crusoe in this respect must also consequently be true of Robinson.
• Even though Crusoe has a narrator’s voice to give ostensible life to his actions on the island, in truth he is nothing more than an abstract construction of ideal-typical economic behaviour which is specific to his own century and reflects the predominant assumptions of that time about social organisation.
• For now, it is perhaps sufficient to speculate briefly on the basis for using the neoclassical Robinson to extol the late nineteenth-century commitment to the market allocation of scarce economic resources.
• I am indebted to the referee who saw more in this aspect of my argument than I had initially done and who encouraged me to pursue this line of reasoning.

Full text

University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap
This paper is made available online in accordance with
publisher policies. Please scroll down to view the document
itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item and our
policy information available from the repository home page for
further information.
To see the final version of this paper please visit the publisher’s website.
Access to the published version may require a subscription.
Author(s): Matthew Watson
Article Title: Competing Models of Socially Constructed Economic
Man: Differentiating Defoe's Crusoe from the Robinson of Neoclassical
Economics
Year of publication: 2011
Link to published article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2011.536209
Publisher statement: This is an electronic version of an article
published in Competing Models of Socially Constructed Economic
Man: Differentiating Defoe's Crusoe from the Robinson of Neoclassical
Economics. Matthew Watson. New Political Economy,
Vol. 16, Iss. 5, 2011. New Political Economy is available online at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2011.536209

Competing Models of Socially-Constructed Economic Man:
Differentiating Defoe’s Crusoe from the Robinson of
Neoclassical Economics
Accepted for publication and forthcoming, New Political Economy, 2012.
Matthew Watson
Department of Politics and International Studies
University of Warwick
matthew.g.watson@warwick.ac.uk

1
Competing Models of Socially-Constructed Economic Man: Differentiating
Defoe’s Crusoe from the Robinson of Neoclassical Economics
Abstract
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe has seldom been read as an explicitly political text.
When it has, it appears that the central character was designed to warn the early
eighteenth-century reader against political challenges to the existing economic order.
Insofar as Defoe’s Crusoe stands for “economic man”, he is a reflection of
historically-produced assumptions about the need for social conformity, not the
embodiment of any genuinely essential economic characteristics. This insight is used
to compare Defoe’s conception of economic man with that of the neoclassical
Robinson Crusoe economy. On the most important of the ostensibly generic
principles espoused by neoclassical theorists, their “Robinson” has no parallels with
Defoe’s Crusoe. Despite the shared name, two quite distinct social constructions
serve two equally distinct pedagogical purposes. Defoe’s Crusoe extols the virtues of
passive middle-class sobriety for effective social organisation; the neoclassical
Robinson champions the establishment of markets for the sake of productive
efficiency.
Key Words
economic man; Defoe’s Crusoe; neoclassical Robinson; inter-temporality; scarcity;
money

2
Introduction
Many more people purport to know the general content of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson
Crusoe (1985 [1719]) than have ever actually read the book. Much of this presumed
familiarity results from the way in which one man’s subsistence struggles against
nature can be used to illustrate the standard analytical exercises of neoclassical
economics. The fact that the book has its own entry in The New Palgrave Dictionary
of Economics is testament to the assumption of its relevance to the way in which the
world is first visualised and then taught through an economist’s eyes (White 1998:
217). However, the requirement to read Defoe’s novel in its original form is by no
means necessary for the student of economics to internalise the analytical worldview
that is imparted when learning how to manipulate the relationships of the neoclassical
Robinson Crusoe economy. Indeed, it might even be an impediment to that end, such
is the difference between the modes of reasoning which underpin the very different
actions of the neoclassical Robinson and Defoe’s Crusoe. In-depth knowledge of the
narrative structure of the original novel forces the neoclassically-trained economist to
confront the fact that two entirely independent constructions of ideal-typical economic
behaviour struggle for ownership of a single name. This realisation might well be
sufficient on its own to raise doubts about the supposed universality of the
behavioural characteristics associated with neoclassical economics and to highlight
their hortatory function instead.
Neoclassical economics is utterly reliant for the coherence of its pedagogical structure
on the self-serving appropriation of the original story of Defoe’s shipwrecked sailor.
The purpose of turning him from one example of economic man to another is to allow
for the creation of readily solvable questions of allocative efficiency. Within
neoclassical theory, the desert island castaway takes on the appearance ‘of a single,
immortal “representative agent”’ and is only allowed to act within the confines of an
‘infinite-life discounted utility maximising program’ (Hahn and Solow 1995: 2). The
neoclassical Robinson is faced with the decision of how best to allocate labour time
optimally between present and future consumption, whereupon imposing market
relations onto both the labour he wishes to demand (of himself) and the labour he is
willing to supply (to himself) simultaneously maximises his utility in consumption
and eliminates all productive inefficiencies from the allocation (e.g., Laidler and
Estrin 1989: 401; Mas-Colell et al 1995: 527; Barro 1997: 23). There are no
behavioural instincts to discuss other than parametric behaviour initiated in response
to signals emerging from shadow prices (Vaggi 2004: 31). The neoclassical Robinson
therefore serves his primary function as a device for learning increasingly
unquestioningly how to treat all allocation decisions as those on which market logic
rather than social theory might be brought to bear (e.g., Jehle and Reny 2001: 215-6;
Varian 2006: 592; Mankiw and Taylor 2008: 585). In short, he is a socially-
constructed simulation of a particular type of economic man.
The same is also undoubtedly true of Defoe’s Crusoe, yet it is a very different social
construction of economic man present in this instance. According to Michael

3
Shinagel (1968: 122), Defoe’s intention in writing his story was to project back onto
the English middle classes the lessons they had drawn from early eighteenth-century
history about the need to be politically submissive in the face of established social
hierarchies. Crusoe’s somewhat obsessive attention to mastering his own subjectivity
while on the island can only be attributed to trying to learn particular habits of
bourgeois politeness and respect for the status quo (Schonhorn 1991: 17). Defoe’s
message was that the English middle classes could continue to enjoy the economic
benefits which flowed from established social hierarchies only by choosing to do
nothing to destabilise them politically (Earle 1989: 9-10). The story is thus a morality
play about how to think and how to act economically within established traditions.
Crusoe is a heroic figure not in displays of honour or love but in becoming through
iterative processes of self-realisation the prescribed economic agent of his day. All of
his early life acts as a prelude to the formative experience which teaches him what he
grows to believe he should have known all along about the sanctity of the prevailing
economic order. As Virginia Woolf writes of the unfolding text (1988 [1919]: 8),
‘We are drawn on soberly to consider all the blessings of orderly, industrious middle-
class life’.
Both versions of economic man carry encoded messages designed to affirm particular
behavioural attributes in the minds of readers. The neoclassical Robinson lacks the
narrator’s voice of Defoe’s Crusoe, and he is consequently in no position to address
readers directly about the essential subjectivity he is attempting to manifest. Yet this
makes appeal to the specific structure of rationality associated with his conduct no
less hortatory than appeal to that of his counterpart. The overall objective of the
following pages is to highlight the similarity in underlying style between Defoe’s
Crusoe and the neoclassical Robinson (both are mechanisms for teaching “correct”
economic behaviour), but to do so by emphasising their marked divergence in content
(they are designed to elicit different economic intuitions). Drawing attention to the
contrast between the two serves to illustrate the pedagogical purposes for which each
has been constructed. If successful, I will be able to demonstrate that there is nothing
natural or ahistorical about either account of economic man that lays claim to the
Crusoe name.
1
The analysis now proceeds in four stages in advance of such an aim. In section one, I
examine the divergent senses in which the neoclassical Robinson and Defoe’s Crusoe
might be said to be alone on their respective desert islands. This provides an
important means of reflecting on the very different economic lives they are expected
to embody. The remaining sections explore in greater depth the contrast between the
two. They show that the fundamental attributes which neoclassical theorists ascribe
to the Robinson Crusoe economy also appear in embryonic form in Defoe’s story.
Section two focuses on Crusoe’s interaction with inter-temporal labour allocations,
section three on the livelihood dilemmas posed by his scarcity constraints and section
four on his relationship to money. Each section shows that Defoe’s hero manifests
altogether different forms of behaviour to those which are imposed upon the

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Competing models of socially-constructed economic man: differentiating defoe’s crusoe from the robinson of neoclassical economics" ?

This paper compare Defoe 's conception of economic man with that of the neoclassical Robinson Crusoe economy, and argue that the latter is a reflection of historically-produced assumptions about the need for social conformity, not the embodiment of any genuinely essential economic characteristics. 

Q2. What have the authors stated for future works in "Competing models of socially-constructed economic man: differentiating defoe’s crusoe from the robinson of neoclassical economics" ?

Even though the scope of the current piece necessarily limits it to historicising Crusoe as a particular, temporally-bound vision of economic man, a similar historicisation of Robinson will be no less informative in the future. The ability to locate Robinson concretely as an equally particular, temporally-bound vision of economic man will enhance awareness of the practical implications of the pedagogical purposes to which he has been put. It will also draw attention to the hortatory potential contained in conceptualising economic man in such a way. In all of these relationships Crusoe proves that he is a product of his society, and they could therefore be used to illustrate further my main claims. 

Q3. What is the lesson to be imparted here in the hortatory content of the theory?

The lesson to be imparted here in the hortatory content of the theory is that the market rewards with enhanced long-run productivity any inter-temporal labour allocations which prioritise the future. 

Q4. What is the purpose of turning Robinson from one example of economic man to another?

The purpose of turning him from one example of economic man to another is to allow for the creation of readily solvable questions of allocative efficiency. 

Q5. Why does Robinson behave in this way?

The neoclassical Robinson behaves in this way because the theory defines work necessarily as disutility, so if he is to be a utility maximiser he must seek to reduce the impact of routine work on his life. 

Q6. How does Defoe’s passages draw attention to the significance of a narrative?

They also draw attention to the significance of a narrative break which occurs in the text at a point at which Crusoe has been cast away for six years. 

Q7. Why does Crusoe divide his labour between different types of work?

Driven by the perceived need to continually improve his land, Crusoe divides his labour between different types of work according to clock time (pp. 126, 127; see also Hammond 2001: 74-5). 

Q8. Why is he helped in his attempts to carry around the home life from which he has?

He is helped in his attempts to carry around the home life from which he has been estranged because after it had sunk ‘the good providence of God wonderfully ordered the ship [on which he had been sailing] to be cast up nearer to the shore’ (p. 141). 

Q9. What is the neoclassical Robinson’s role in the economy?

Reduced to economic life lived solely in relation to quantities of goods and labour, Robinson the producer and Robinson the consumer independently arrive at the outcome that is preferred by the other (Carter 2001: 363). 

Q10. What is the main character’s motivation for being cast away?

In searching for a suitable explanation for why he was cast away, he talks of his youthful tendency ‘only to pursue a rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing admitted’ (p. 58), latterly attributing such a tendency to the fact that ‘I … was born to be my own destroyer’ (p. 60). 

Q11. What is the main focus of section two?

Section two focuses on Crusoe’s interaction with inter-temporal labour allocations, section three on the livelihood dilemmas posed by his scarcity constraints and section four on his relationship to money. 

Q12. What is the cost of social conformity?

The cost of social conformity in this regard is his inability to develop the island specifically to lessen the physical drain of routine labour, but this is a cost that Crusoe willingly bears. 

Q13. What is the neoclassical Robinson’s role in the novel?

Just as Defoe’s Crusoe is a character in one morality play about respect for a particular economic order, so too the neoclassical Robinson takes on a pedagogical role in another. 

Q14. What is the first reaction of the neoclassical Robinson to the hoarding?

At that point, his immediate reaction is to acknowledge that the gold has no use value on the island and hoarding it therefore represents entirely unrewarded labour time (Hymer 1971: 20-1). 

Q15. What is the learning process he experiences before securing safe passage home?

The learning process he experiences before securing safe passage home is not about stepping back from his general fixation with money, so much as about how best to give expression to monetary ambitions in a sociallyacceptable manner. 

Q16. Why is he forced into solitary existence?

He is forced into solitary existence because this eliminates the possibility that his preferences are formed interdependently with those of other people.