Beyond ’Fictional Economic Man’

Most of economists complain that Pakistani media does not give much space to economic issues and the reading public remains uninvolved. Empirically, it is true that our press gives disproportionate coverage to international and other
irrelevant but non-controversial problems. However, in recent times economic issues have been put in new focus, and in a reversal every issue is viewed from narrow economic angle. As a matter of fact many columnists having scant knowledge of economics, using popular measures like GNP etc, fill the newspapers with simplistic economic analysis. Nevertheless neither trained economists nor scholars from other fields writing on economics come close to explaining the development of society. Most importantly, economics as a subject has developed inherent limitations which do not permit an essential development of society.

Historically, economics emerged as an independent subject with the advent of commercialisation and industrialisation: the thinkers of that time, specifically classical economists, formulated the basis of economics as an independent subject. They disagreed if it was a positive (like physics or chemistry) or normative science. However, most of these economists were trained in philosophy, history and enriched with literature and various areas of humanities.

John Stuart Mill defined economics as a "mental science" that basically is concerned with human motives and modes of conduct in economic life. Mill recognised that the "economic man" is not the whole man and should be considered merely a "fictional man" to predict economic behaviour only. Therefore, overall behaviour or development of society cannot be predicted or prescribed through the behaviour of this "fictional economic man..." Therefore, they complimented the study of economic behaviour with other subjects like philosophy, ethics and other social sciences.

As capitalism (and industrialisation) matured, job specification and departmentalisation transformed economics into a specialised subject. The economists of new era (neo-classical) espoused that economic behaviour could be analysed independent of other aspects of human society: the "fictional economic
man" started replacing the whole man. In matured industrial societies it might have worked well but in case of developing societies it has not gone far in explaining the direction and pace of economic growth.

Some contemporary economists realise the shortcomings of the modern day main-stream economics. For example, renowned economist Arthur Lewis examined as to why Europe embarked upon industrial revolution while India and China did not.
From an economic angle, the Indian and Chinese, at that time, had the same level of technical know-how; the same saving patterns; well developed commercial classes; and similar migration patterns. Therefore, key economic variables do not explain historical discrepancy between these three regions.

To explain this phenomenon, Arthur Lewis hypothesised that European's consumption pattern was different from the Indians and Chinese: while the Europeans by increasing their consumption ploughed back their increased savings into the economies, the Indian and Chinese were habitual hoarders and their increasing level of incomes (and savings) did not expand the economies. Now the difference between the consumption patterns between Europeans on the one hand and the Indians and Chinese on the other, could not be explained through economic variables: it could be understood in the cultural and historical context.

Similarly, differences between the economic growth of East Asia and South Asia
cannot be explained by few quantitatively measurable economic or quasi-economic
variables. But the economist working at the international agencies trained to take the "economic man" as a "whole man" cannot go beyond economic variables. Most of them have no familiarity with the history or culture of the countries
they are working with. Many specialists, with varying specialities (history, anthropology etc.) are hired by these agencies to assist the economists but ultimately they succumb to Mills' "fictional economic man" and cannot change the prevalent ethos: ultimately, simplistic project oriented economics is practised.

Most ironically, our own so-called indigenous economists, with rare exceptions, have no knowledge of history of Pakistani people, their culture, philosophy or
literature. They cannot differentiate if the economic backwardness is a cause of degenerating social behaviour or deteriorating societal conditions. Furthermore, they cannot understand the conflicting trends in the society. For example, they cannot tell if religious fundamentalism, ethnic hostilities or breakdown of law and order situation in Pakistan is caused by the economic deprivation or these social problems have led to economic breakdown, resulting in economic deprivation. Or, how these socio-economic variables are interacting with each other.

To understand such complex social phenomenon one has to draw on the history of
people and their behaviour patterns, as manifested in the customs, rituals and ideas that are expressed in socio-economic writings and literature of that
area. Like classical economists, the development phenomenon has to be viewed as a multi-dimensional multi-faceted issue. One cannot imagine any economist
of that era not having full knowledge of ideas created by his predecessors in the fields of science, art, philosophy or literature etc -- one would hardly find anyone who would not read Chaucer or Shakespeare. On the contrary, you would hardly find any Pakistani economist who would have read Mirza Ghalib, Waris Shah or Shah Latif Bhatai.

This might be due to our educational system or class structure. But the fact remains that we have produced one-dimensional technicians (those too only few and far between) who cannot see beyond the "fictional economic man" mode. Whether one is trained as an economist or a philosopher or a poet, one should be able to understand and analyse economic issues as multidimensional phenomenon and explain it in a proper social context.