Exchange and Deception: A Feminist Perspective

The experience of deception is widespread in everyday life, where it appears in various forms, ranging from individual to the social deception. This book aims at expanding and correcting "malestream" economic concepts of the exchange economy and its role in society by focusing on deception from a feminist economic perspective. The main motivation for writing the book was the realization that the prototypical economic model of exchange is notable for the total absence of deception. In standard economic models individuals are regarded as "uncheatable". Hence deception, even if individuals have an interest in it, cannot succeed. By contrast, the authors of this volume examine deception as the key to understanding the functioning of exchange by focusing on settings in which deception is successful in exchange. The authors draw on Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments" as a starting point for a discussion on feminist views and perspectives on exchange and deception. This is supplemented by examinations of economic thought and traditional economic modelling within a feminist economic framework and by empirical insights into the situation of women.