Money Wisdom #226

"All they [maximizing models] really add to analysis is a set of assumptions about human nature. The assumption, most of all, that no one ever does anything primarily out of concern for others; that whatever one does, one is only trying to get something out of it for oneself. In common English, there is a word for this attitude. It's called 'cynicism'. Most of us try to avoid people who take it too much to heart. In economics, apparently, they call it 'science'."

David Graeber Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value - The False Coin of Our Own Dreams (2001) p.8