{"product_id":"works-like-a-charm-9781438494081","title":"Works Like a Charm","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBreaks the spell of economic thought by interrogating the widespread language and logic of \"incentives\" in public life from a Lacanian perspective.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorks like a Charm\u003c\/i\u003e addresses a simple question: Why are \"incentives\" everywhere now? From inducements to work harder at our jobs to tax rebates for corporations, \"incentive\" names a general theory of motivation-according to economists, we are \u003ci\u003eincentive-driven\u003c\/i\u003e creatures. Yet far from being a neutral generalization, this understanding of human behavior smuggles in a quintessentially economic way of seeing the world. \u003ci\u003eWorks like a Charm\u003c\/i\u003e applies Jacques Lacan''s psychoanalytic concept of \u003ci\u003eretroactive causality\u003c\/i\u003e to explain the metastasis of the language and logic of incentives: To discover an incentive is to place in the untouchable past an economic cause for a contextual, historical force. Tracing \"incentive\" from its roots in antiquity to its uptake by neoclassical and then Chicago-school economists, Robert O. McDonald diagnoses the spread of incentives across the social, cultural, and political field and warns readers of the dangers of handing over causality to the economists.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"State University of New York Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51039805210967,"sku":"9781438494081","price":24.27,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/works-like-a-charm-9781438494081","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}