Methodological Individualism

316 Rational choice individualismto methodology are about ‘social mechanisms’, which are now treated as separatefrom methodological individualism (Elster, 1998: 47).I will not make another contribution to the already immense number of criticalwritings on Elster’s attempt to make sense of Marx. First of all, because, I donot believe that I have anything of importance to add. Second, because I believethat Elster has done Marxism and social science a great service, irrespective ofthe ultimate validity of his interpretation, or reconstruction. I do believe,however, that it is possible to find examples in Elster’s work on Marx of interpretations,which are more in line with structural individualism than withpsychologistic individualism. One example may be Elster’s suggestion thatMarxist class theory ‘attempts to explain collective action in terms of the classposition of the individuals engaged in it’ (1985: 336). Elster denies that this is aviolation of methodological individualism. According to him it is only a convenientshorthand. This is a somewhat desperate methodological individualism byfiat. It is, of course, possible to claim, with equal right, that all holistic statementsare shorthand for statements about individuals.John RoemerJohn Roemer is a Marxist economist, who has used the tools of neoclassicaleconomics in order to create an ‘analytical’ Marxism. He is also a moral philosopher,who wants to get rid of exploitation. In both capacities, he has relied onmethodological individualism as the proper method of investigation.In his first book, Analytical Foundations of Marxian Economic Theory (1981),Roemer’s main objective is to turn Marxian economics into a science, with thehelp of mathematics, deduction, equilibrium analysis and the microfoundationsapproach (p. 7). He notes that Marxism is a theory of class, rather than of theindividual, and admits that it is possible to ‘build a model in which classes are theatoms of the system’, but chooses the individualist path: ‘The reason is this: thatindividuals act as members of a class, rather than as individuals should be atheorem in Marxian economics, not a postulate’ (p. 7; see also 1982b: 518).Roemer invokes Marx, himself, in support of this methodological individualism.In his next book, A General Theory of Exploitation and Class (1982a) Roemerfocuses his attention on one particular topic of fundamental importance to aMarxist theory of history: exploitation. Once again he uses a neoclassicalapproach. 36 In the model he uses, ‘both exploitation status and class positionemerge endogenously as a consequence of individual optimization in the face ofa constraint determined by one’s ownership of productive assets’ (p. 15). This istraditional methodological individualism, even if one institution, viz., ownership,remains exogenous.Roemer compressed his theory of exploitation to an article (1982c), where theindividualist ambition appears even more clearly (p. 262f). Of those Marxists,who commented on Roemer’s article, at least one, Adam Przeworski, was enthusiasticabout Roemer’s methodological individualism.