IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/tugdwp/179089.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Profit-Seeking Rule Out Love? Evidence (or Not) from Economics and Law

Author

Listed:
  • Nelson, Julie A.

Abstract

Many believe that firms are driven to maximize profits, and therefore are not allowed to take actions that would benefit their workers, communities, or the environment if these actions would reduce profits even slightly. This essay shows that this belief is supported neither by sound economic evidence and arguments, nor by United States statutory and case law. The roots of this belief are, instead, to be found in a centuries-old desire of economists to make our discipline look like Newtonian physics. Among scholars of law, both misinformation and the use of University of Chicago-style economics have contributed to the belief's popularity. Among scholars and the public alike, the dualistic "love or money" view is appealing because of its simplicity and congruence with cultural gender norms. Reexamining the evidence, rather than adhering to common ideologies, this essay offers an unconventional analysis of corporate behavior and commodification.

Suggested Citation

  • Nelson, Julie A., 2010. "Does Profit-Seeking Rule Out Love? Evidence (or Not) from Economics and Law," Working Papers 179089, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:tugdwp:179089
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.179089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/179089/files/10-06ProfitSeekingAndLove.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.179089?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julie A. Nelson, 2012. "Poisoning the Well, or How Economic Theory Damages Moral Imagination," GDAE Working Papers 12-07, GDAE, Tufts University.
    2. Julie A. Nelson, 2012. "Are Women Really More Risk-Averse than Men?," GDAE Working Papers 12-05, GDAE, Tufts University.
    3. Frank Ackerman & Elizabeth A. Stanton, 2013. "Climate Impacts on Agriculture: A Challenge to Complacency?," GDAE Working Papers 13-01, GDAE, Tufts University.
    4. Julie A. Nelson, 2011. "Would Women Leaders Have Prevented the Global Financial Crisis? Implications for Teaching about Gender, Behavior, and Economics," GDAE Working Papers 11-03, GDAE, Tufts University.
    5. Nelson, Julie A., 2012. "Poisoning the Well, or How Economic Theory Damages Moral Imagination," Working Papers 179107, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute.
    6. Julie A. Nelson, 2013. "Gender and caring," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 5, pages 62-76, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Inwon Kang & Hae Seok Jee & Matthew Minsuk Shin, 2018. "Affective Policy Performance Evaluation Model: A Case of an International Trade Policy Implementation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, January.
    8. Julie A. Nelson, "undated". "The Relational Economy: A Buddhist and Feminist Analysis," GDAE Working Papers 10-03, GDAE, Tufts University.
    9. Fernández, Antonio Turrent & Wise, Timothy A. & Garvey, Elise, 2012. "Achieving Mexico’s Maize Potential," Working Papers 179101, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute.
    10. Nelson, J.A., 2013. "Ethics and the economist: What climate change demands of us," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 145-154.
    11. Julie A. Nelson, 2012. "Is Dismissing the Precautionary Principle the Manly Thing to Do? Gender and the Economics of Climate Change," GDAE Working Papers 12-04, GDAE, Tufts University.
    12. Antonio Turrent Fernández & Timothy A. Wise & Elise Garvey, 2012. "Achieving Mexico’s Maize Potential," GDAE Working Papers 12-03, GDAE, Tufts University.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:tugdwp:179089. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gdtufus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.