Chapter 4: Core Consumer Behavior Theory: Ideal and Realist

Contemporary economic theory remains wedded to Enlightenment idealism, while gradually evolving in a realist direction that stops well short of an inclusive economic theory. The realist element relaxes presumptions about people's ability to optimally choose, and free enterprise's power to generate worthy outcomes, with or without state regulation. This has been accomplished by supplementing neoclassical Enlightenment idealist proofs with more realistic variants generating similar, but normatively ambiguous results across the spectrum of consumer, production, distribution, transfer, finance, and public service theory…