ABSTRACT
The empirical, theoretical and methodological basis of neoclassical economics is the individual and, within this framework, entities such as the family, the firm and the economy are no more than aggregations of such individuals. The individual is constructed within neoclassical economics as a universal, and hence unsexed, agent known as rational economic man. This allegedly unsexed individual is commonly represented by the figure of Robinson Crusoe, who is a very important teaching device in undergraduate courses in neoclassical economics (see, for example, Cairncross 1960; Stilwell 1975; Hirshleifer 1980; Pierce 1984; Varian 1984, 1990; and Binger and Hoffman 1988; Crusoe is also used as the representative agent in Plosser 1989). Crusoe as exemplar of rational economic man was used in the founding texts of neoclassical economics, including those written by Jennings, Bastiat, Gossen, Jevons, Menger, Wicksell, Wicksteed, Edgeworth, Clark and Marshall, as well as being found in the writings of Marx ([1867] 1969; see White 1982, this volume, 1987; Watt [1951] 1959: 171–2). The Crusoe figure was also important in the “battle of methods” between the emerging neoclassical school and the historical economists, being used to defend the assumption of the universal applicability of the orthodox economic laws (White 1982, this volume, 1987: 218). However, although Crusoe as the universal calculating economic individual was well established by 1900, and although he is still invoked as the exemplar of the neoclassical economic individual, neoclassical economists would argue that the figure of Robinson Crusoe is unnecessary for economic analysis, an innocent teaching device or metaphor which could easily be excluded from texts (indeed, Robinson Crusoe is not universally employed within economic textbooks). Above all, they would argue that the masculinity of the Crusoe figure is irrelevant, and Crusoe, insofar as he is useful to neoclassical economics, is devoid of sexually specific content.
