Dual motive theory as the biological mecca of the economist. Fulfilling the undeveloped insight of Alfred Marshall. Famed synthesizer of neoclassical economics

Abstract

Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), acclaimed neoclassical synthesizer famously made the prophetic statement that the Mecca of the economist lies in economic biology. Since the supporting biological science did not exist in his day, Marshall went on with the plagiarized model from physics and did the best that he could. Behavioral economics is, by implication or definition, organic or biological. Economics is social behavior, not physics. Physics works the same everywhere. Social behavior/exchange varies individually, situationally, and with the scale of inclusiveness. Economics deals with the social exchange behavior of human beings. It is, therefore, clearly biological or organic. Therefore, we must look to biology for a proper theoretical foundation. John Tomer was a pioneering figure in the move toward a behavioral, therefore biological, economics. Tomer was a thinker who did not get trapped into a narrow focus on the so-called cognitive, hedonic, self-interested side of the behavioral movement that clung to the narrow self-interest motive adopted simplistically through the effort to ape the scientific prestige of physics. Tomer sensed that the cognitive, hedonistic, as a carryover from the modeling of physics, was inadequate as an organic paradigm and recognized the significance of DMT which included the empathetic other-interested side of economics and all forms of social exchange. In the last few years he adopted the approach of DMT and made contributions to its development. In his final book review of the author’s Delusions of Economics and the Way Forward he made a clear call for economics to follow the DMT path. It is fitting that he be acknowledged as participating in the fulfillment of the yet undeveloped insight of the noted neoclassical synthesizer, Alfred Marshall of Cambridge University, as well as contributing to the correction and fulfillment of neoclassical theory.