Self-Reliance Self-Reliance "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." This essay is an analysis into the nature of the “aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded.” The first hint of the philosophy
Methodological individualism Methodological individualism Methodological individualism is the principle that subjective individual motivation explains social phenomena, rather than class or group dynamics which are (according to proponents of individualistic principles) illusory or artificial and therefore cannot truly explain market or social phenomena. In neoclassical economics, people's behavior is explained in terms of rational choices as constrained by prices and incomes. The neoclassical economist accepts individuals' preferences as given. Gary Becker and George Stigler provide a forceful statement of this view: Economist Mark Blaug has criticized over-reliance on methodological individualism in economics, saying that "it is helpful to note what methodological individualism strictly