"So the notion of "Homo economicus," schooled by capitalism to be shortsightedly selfish, is these days something of a straw man ("Homo stramineus"?)"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324105204578384930047065520.html

Have We Evolved to Be Nasty or Nice?

But does commerce promote or hinder cooperative behavior? Most people assume it hinders, but economists have been arguing since before Adam Smith that markets promote good behavior as people discover the mutual advantage in exchange. "Sweet commerce," Montesquieu called it. A virtuous circle of voluntary cooperation allows both the producers and consumers of, say, bread or electricity to be better off.

As Joe Henrich of the University of British Columbia and colleagues found in a study a few years ago, the more people in small-scale societies are exposed to modern commerce, the more generous they prove to be when faced with a test called the "ultimatum game," in which participants must offer to share part of a windfall but lose it all if the recipient rejects the offer.

So the notion of "Homo economicus," schooled by capitalism to be shortsightedly selfish, is these days something of a straw man ("Homo stramineus"?). It is found more often being beaten up in the literature of social science than being celebrated in economics.