Caroline Gerschlager

Exchange and Deception: A Feminist Perspective Caroline Gerschlager 2002 edition

Marc Notes: Bibl. ref. & indexes; Conf. papers, 2000. Table of Contents: Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction by the Editors. Part 1: A Feminist Reading of Economic Thinking. 1.1: Adam Smith, Exchange, Deception and Women. 1.1.1. Adam Smith and Feminist Perspective on Exchange; C. Gerschlager. 1.1.2. On Adam Smith and Gender Construction; M. Mokre. 1.1.3. Feminism and the Economics of Deception: An Examination of Adam Smith's 'Spirit of the System'; J. Nelson. 1.1.4. Some Ear-picking Comments on Adam Smith, Feminism and Deception; S. H. Heap. 1.2: The World of Economists/Economic Exchange: From the Old Testament to Gary Becker. 1.2.1. The Political Economy of the Divine; S. Feiner. 1.2.2. Dependency and Denial in Conceptualizations of Economic Exchange; E. Kuiper. 1.2.3. The Need of an Intergender Contract in Overlapping Generations (OLG) Models; D. A. Behrens, et al. 1.2.4. On Dependency, Caring and Criticism; R. Sturn. Part 2: (Self-) Deception and Female Careers. Two Case Studies. 2.2. Between 'Gifts' and 'Commodities': An Anthropological Approach to the Austrian Academic Field; H. Nobauer. 2.3. Exchange, Deception and Disillusionment - Some Considerations on Women in the Arts and Media in Austria; E. Mayerhofer. Part 3: Methodological Considerations. 3.1. Symmetry in Feminist Economics; E.-M. Sent. Authors Index. Subject Index."Publisher Marketing: economic modelling and thought. Part three presents two case studies as examples of deceptive autonomy and shows the impact of this deception on the situation of women from the viewpoint of cultural studies and social anthropology. Part four relates methodological reflections on feminist and mainstream economics to the theme of the book. The first part of this book is devoted to a reconsideration of Adam Smith as a starting point for feminist perspectives on exchange. Drawing on Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments Caroline Gerschlager sets the stage for expanding the economic concept of exchange. She analyses and develops Smith's insight that deception is inevitable in the social setting. Smith's system of sympathy, which Gerschlager analyses as a system of exchange, i.e. exchange is conceived in terms of changing places in the imagination, is compared with exchange as conceived by the neoclassical approach. Her analysis reveals that these approaches arrive at contrasting results with regard to deception. Whereas in the former deception is vital to an understanding of exchange, the latter regards deception as an inefficiency, hindering exchange and ultimately making it impossible. Gerschlager points out that a certain degree of deception is inevitable, and that living in society therefore also amounts to "deceiving and being deceived."

Contributor Bio:  Gerschlager, Caroline Caroline Gerschlager is Lecturer of economics at the University of Vienna and the University of Economics and Business Administration in Austria. Contributor Bio:  Jonassen, Niels Niels Jonassen is president of the Danish Veteran Car Club and chairman of the Danish Lancia Register. He works as a college lecturer and has already written six books on automotive history as well as magazine articles on the Lancia Aurelia. He lives in Humleboek, Denmark.