Altruistic Economics is a branch of economics set out by Robin Upton in 2004 in a presentation to the autonomous European Social Forum at the London School of Economics.

Concept

By allowing mathematical expression of altruism, Altuistic Economics generalises the standard neoclassical model, which is founded on the selfish homo economicus. Like the neoclassical model, Altruistic Economics assumes people are maximisers, but it breaks the assumption that their welfare is independent of others. It also abandons the assumption that everyone is identical. Individual human relationships are modelled, so that everyone can specify how they feel about anyone else. Sympathy for someone is defined as a willingness to forego benefit so that they may benefit instead. The altruistic model allows people to explicitly declare sympathy for their friends so that other users can be aware of their feelings. Another key feature of altruistic economics is that transactions can be independently evaluated by the parties involved.

Altruistic economics is under active development, but no working system has yet been produced, due to the complexity of implementing a Friend-to-friend computer infrastructure of personal servers to do the calculations. It therefore remains to be seen whether the aggregate effect of everyone maximising for themselves and their friends will produce an increase in group well being, similar to the aims of the Bhutanese notion of Gross National Happiness. If it does, then Altruistic Economics may form a good basis for an Internet gift economy.

Zero-sum evaluation

Upton argues that in "traditional" economics, every transaction increases one person's wealth and decreases another's, resulting in friction at the price negotiation stage, thus treating market interactions as a zero sum game.[2126].

This is in contrast with classical and neo-classical economics which argues that market transactions are not zero sum. This is based upon the assumptions that wealth is not limited and that the transactions are voluntary and imply no coercion. Market proponents such as Milton Friedman argues that in trade there is never coercion by stating “if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both parties benefit from it” <ref>Milton Friedman, (1990). Free to Choose, pp. 13. Harcourt.</ref>

The issue is also divided upon rate of wealth creation. Market proponents see it satisfactory if one party gains more than the other party in a transaction, but altruistic economics seeks to provide a more ideal result.

See also

Altruism

Post-autistic economics

Behavioral economics

Heterodox economics

References

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External links

Altruistic Economics homepage

Adding simple and effective trust measurements to F2F P2P networks is a paper about using a Time-based currency for trust in F2F.