“Homo economicus was surreptitiously taken as the emblem and analogue for all living beings. A mechanistic anthropomorphism has gained currency.”

—  Ivan Illich

"Brave New Biocracy: Health Care from Womb to Tomb" NPQ: New Perspectives Quarterly, Vol. 11, Issue 1 (Winter 1994) http://brandon.multics.org/library/Ivan%20Illich/against_life.html.
Context: Homo economicus was surreptitiously taken as the emblem and analogue for all living beings. A mechanistic anthropomorphism has gained currency. Bacteria are imagined to mimic "economic" behavior and to engage in internecine competition for the scarce oxygen available in their environment. A cosmic struggle among ever more complex forms of life has become the anthropic foundational myth of the scientific age.

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Ivan Illich photo
Ivan Illich 66
austrian philosopher and theologist 1926–2002

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