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THE POLITICAL MIND
to achieve personal goals; hence it was seen as irrational to be against your self-interest. The rational actor model in economics is a tool to maximize self-interest, called "utility." The concept of utility is strange. in two ways: First, it assumes that utility is always linear, that you can always form a linear preference hierarchy, which is far from true. Second, it assumes that utility, if it is not economic profit (the default case), is something that benefits you in some other way that can be meaningfully compared with profit and perhaps placed on the same scale. Adam Smith's "invisible ha:nd" metaphor made seeking profit into a moral act, since it supposedly maximized the profit of all. Utility replaces economic profit with well-being. The rational actor model then is seen as maximizing overall well-being for you-that is, utility: in other words, self-interest, whatever that self-interest might be. The failure of the old view of reason calls into question the old view of self-interest with it. It's not that selfinterest disappears altogether. It still exists. But it does not simply define natural behavior. It is far from the whole story. The idea of self-interest is foremost in politics if it is assumed that voters vote "rationally"-on the basis of their interests. We know that is far from true. In foreign policy, self-interest becomes the "national interest"-military strength, overall economic health (measured by GDP), and political influence. As we have seen, the idea of reciprocal altruism is showing up in forms of foreign policy-that it is in our national interest to help other countries serve their national interests. Then they will be there when we need them. This is one of the themes of Robert Wright's book Nonzero, which promotes game theory models with non-zero-sum games in foreign policy.!~ It is still based on the old rationality and self-interest, it still assumes that selfinterest is natural, it still assumes the old national interest; it just says that reciprocal altruism maximizes it. Bill Clinton loved the book. After all, it was the policy that he and Madeleine Albright sromoted, and the idea was the basis of his free-trade policies. It was neoliberal thought iIi action.