Is Utility Maximization Valid?
Let's think about this logically. Is it better for a business to not have a purchaser or consumer that is aware of the world and the vagaries of the market? If the consumer buys a products based on the its image and not for what that product tangibly does for the consumer, they are falling for someone else's definition of success. People make decisions about consuming from a social (micro) and cultural standpoint of acceptance and the idea of being liked. The emphasis is not on rational consumer thinking; so much as it is on getting a maximum sense of social acceptance for every dollar spent. People will demand less of a product or be more forgiving of its negative, environmental, health or social (macro or society wide) effects, if it delivers them the status success they desire. More importantly they do not see that the ramifications of the consumer lifestyles that they are taught to espouse and revere. These consumer lifestyles that they have to choose from in a materialistic democracy are installed upon the fabric of society because they get to conform in turn to socioeconomic needs of the ruling class.
The economic model of "rational man" is based on the idea of utility maximization. People are said to make rational decisions in modern life based on all the facts and without inference from external forces that would also be logically interested in determining the outcome. Such models legitimize prevailing public policy, because people are said to function on a level where they create marketplace demand. Thus the myth is based upon the idea that the . "Rational man" supposedly weighs the important, known variables and then makes make that decision which is most likely to achieve the desired end (Jay Hanson “The Greatest Utility" 04/01/97). Thus, we can say that public policy is founded on the notion that people calculate the utility of each decision, somewhat like a computer.
Phillip Morris: "Smoking is a personal choice, and so is quitting."
Modern cognitive science has shown that people do not make decisions by calculating the utility of each decision. Thus, economic "rational man" is a fraud that leaves the public exposed to ongoing economic and political exploitation by corporate media experts. Moreover, this fraud provides economists and political leaders with effective "moral cover", or in the words of Adolph Eichmann, "a kind of Pontius Pilate feeling" that leaves them free of all guilt for their dirty deeds.