Steven G. Medema. The Hesitant Hand. Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas
Abstract
Reviews Steven G. Medema. The Hesitant Hand. Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009. xi + 230 pp. ISBN 978-0-691-12296-0, $35.00 (cloth) Steven G. Medema presents an ambitious work dealing with economistsâ behavioral assumption of self-interest and the implications it has on establishing the appropriate role of the government. The book tells the story of the changing relationship between self-interested behavior as the building block of market economies and government action from the mid-nineteenth century up to the twentieth century. Medema shows that economists do not identify self-interest with egoism and, generally, find some degree of government intervention necessary to guarantee the well functioning of a market economy. The author illustrates how economists since the late eighteenth century have believed that individuals act motivated by their selfinterest. This action might or might not lead to the best social results. Each group of economists found in the book have different stands that go from confidence in the almost spontaneous coordination of private and public interest in the eighteenth century to the need of regulation in order to coordinate these interests in the nineteenth century and, finally, to a renewed confidence in