Rethinking Homo Economicus: Albert Hirschman, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith

This essay will explore the pathways that Albert O. Hirschman took on the way to writing his landmark The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph.  It will note Hirschman’s excavation into the origins of classical political economy, and find him discovering a very different concept of “economic man,” one he felt was being smothered by a soul-less utility-maximizer touted by new turns in neo-classical economics.  The book was thus a tour de force in the history of capitalism.  But it was also born of a historic moment, of which Hirschman was most aware.  In the wake of the Chilean coup of 1973 and as the world slumped into a deep recession, Hirschman was eager to keep alive a hopeful, reform-minded social science.  These political and moral considerations also weighed on him as he “retreated to history” to find new keys to alternative futures.