Neoclassical consumer theory is not only self-contained relative to other social sciences, it is also akin to a sealed unit within economics itself. It is partly for this reason that there has been negligible advance in the economics of consumer behavior over the past century. The neoclassical theory of consumer behavior is subtle and sophisticated in mathematical technique, but rigid and impoverished in social content. These chapters relate the theory’s rigidity to its exact parallel with the much better developed theory of production, and discuss the failure of economics to learn from other disciplines.
