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Seven contemporary theoretical traditions have contributed to the demise of homo economicus: postindustrial sociology; the antiutilitarian ethics of modern social contract theorists, eg, John Rawls; the democratic theory of C. B. MacPherson; Jurgen Habermas's historical philosophy of culture; Cambridge-style political economics; economic anthropology; & the comparative cultural anthropology of Louis Dumont. Each of these traditions' explicit rejection of the image of economic man is discussed, & it is contended that the death of homo economicus has three ideological consequences for the social sciences: the negation of the idea of progress, the weakening of individualism, & skepticism of objective knowledge. Because of these adverse effects, it is suggested that homo economicus deserves resuscitation as both a paradigm of human choice making & as a highly useful ideal type. W. Howard

Much has been written about the fictitious nature of the atomistic model of homo economicus. Nevertheless, this economic model of self-interest and egoism has become conventional wisdom in market societies. This article offers a phenomenological explanation for the model's commonsensical grip. Building on the work of Alfred Schutz, I argue that a reliance on homo economicus as an interpretive scheme for making sense of the behavior of economic Others has the effect of reversing the meaning of signs and doubts that challenge the model's assumptions. Moreover, it orients social action in ways that prevent the model's interpretive incongruences from rising to the reflective fore. Consequently, an interpretive reliance on homo economicus creates a "phenomenological gridlock." Alternative sources of information and alternative interpretive schemes can bypass this entrapment of the economic interaction, but this article further explains why the norms and cultural horizons of market society limit the accessibility of these alternatives, thus, in effect, sedimenting gridlocked experiences.

The aim of this paper is to identify the ontological origins of homo economicus in modern atomism to give a bigger picture of its origins. Homo economicus, the autonomous and independent economic agent, has been the central cornerstone of analysis in orthodox economic theories, and one of the most criticized hypothesis. The majority of studies try to understand its origins and consolidation in Economics analyzing the role of hipothetico-deductive model of reasoning and utilitarian philosophy influences in economists. However, we argue that the ontological roots of homo economicus are a necessary condition to understand it, since is primary force to build any science. The representative agent in Economics can trace to the resurgence of atomism as the ontological foundation of modern science, which lead to the establishment of modern individualism and reductionism.

The article provides a review of the ways in which interdisciplinary research in modern economic thought gives a more realistic understanding of human behavior and economic decision making. On the one hand, economic imperialism drove wider application of economics methods across social sciences and brought about new interdisciplinary fields, such as law and economics, economic sociology, public choice theory, etc. On the other hand, the origin of behavioral economics, experimental economics, and neuroeconomics bridging psychology, neurobiology, and economics influences the change in the methodology used by the economics itself and fuels transformation of the model of rational economic behavior 'homo economicus', one of the central assumptions of the neoclassical economics. George Akerlof and Robert Shiller's animal spirits, prospect theory of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, research by Amartya Sen, Daniel McFadden, Vernon Smith, and other economists focusing on decision making either significantly limit, or supplement the homo economicus concept providing a deeper insight into the nature of human rationality. Behavioral economics has already become so strong as a separate discipline that it can be classified into two streams - Classical and Modern, and its main principles should be incorporated into a basic course of traditional economics. The achievements of behavioral economics yield higher quality of economic research and forecasting. Interdisciplinary approach to the human behavior studies and transformation of homo economicus offer new tools for the development policy making.

In "Freedom, Slavery, and Homo Economicus," Amy Dru Stanley explores two provocative claims advanced by Melvin Patrick Ely in Israel on the Appomattox—first, that the very existence of slavery allowed for the freedoms asserted by black persons who were not chattel and, second, that the worldview of Israel Hill's free blacks had much in common with that of other propertied persons in antebellum America. Focusing on the latter point, Stanley argues that Ely's work disrupts assumptions about the stark dualities of the Old South and the Yankee North. Accordingly, she suggests that questions raised regarding Northern white freeholders might fruitfully apply to Southern black freeholders: were the Israelites acquisitive, individualistic economic actors? At stake, Stanley writes, is ultimately the nature of sovereignty—the lived relations of personal dominion in Israel Hill. Invoking a recent debate between Douglas Egerton and Walter Johnson about the libratory power of money in the slave South, Stanley sketches the clashing worldviews that might have existed on Israel Hill—a possessive subjectivity animated by acquisitive individualism or a collective subjectivity rooted in racial kinship. Stanley claims that regardless of whether Israelites conceived of themselves as the "we" of the racial subject, the "I" of the bourgeois subject, or some fusion of the two, their market pursuits disrupted the Southern system of racial sovereignty and confused the relationship between bondage and freedom, rendering still more provocative Ely's argument that slavery itself enabled the freedom of black people not owned as chattel property.