Gary Mongiovi said:  
> It seems to me that as a scientific category,  
> <rationality> leaves much to be desired; it is  
> little more than a normative label that economists  
> assign to behaviour that validates their  
> propositions and withhold from behavior that does  
> not. It's really not very useful for explaining what  
> people actually do.  
  
  
Actually I think it's highly useful and quite  
realistic, provided that you avoid some of the  
pitfalls of Neoclassical economics. People have ends  
and seek the best means to satisfy those ends. It's  
quite simple as far as I'm concerned- If I'm hungry I  
buy food not an umbrella (and at the lowest price). If  
I need a bridge built I hire engineers not  
musicians(and at the best wage)- who would deny that  
people seek effective means to satisfy ends? Of course  
people do not equate costs and benefits at  
infinitesimal margins given convex twice  
differentiable utility functions, but does that mean  
that we are irrational? and if we are irrational then  
isn't economics just a waste of time? After all, if the  
members of society are all just irrational what sense  
is there in trying to make sense out of society?  
Without some notion of imperfect, bounded, or partial  
rationality there isnt much for us to say, apart from  
noting that nothing really makes sense. As far as I am  
concerned this is as wrong and uninteresting as fully  
deterministic neoclassical economics.  
  
Doug Mackenzie