A Theory of Poor Economics

Recently, Eric Meade of The Center for Ego Demographic Research (CERD) posted this article refining his critique of the book Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.  Meade references a number of interesting ideas, like borrowing structures from Maslow's "hierarchy of needs"  This allows us to describe the impaired social ego poor communities experience because they 

"a) lack access to effective structures, b) have been constrained by adverse environments to earlier ego stages, or c) both."

I think these are excellent points.  Recently, a few economists - Dan Ariely, for one example - have effectively defined the limits of so-called "liberal economics" with tools borrowed from behavioral psychology (and several truly ingenious social experiments). Even more impressive is the fact that these few behavioral economists have managed to "win the hearts and minds" of a profession that has been entrenched in an unnecessarily cerebral stalemate over the last half-century. There are even behavioral economists teaching classes at Univeristy of Chicago. Russ Roberts of GMU's Mercatus Institute, along with director John Papola, even have a website (Econstories.tv) where Keynes and Hayek engage in a boxing match while rapping about their perspectives on economic and monetary policies. As much as you may respect Roberts before visiting that site, afterwards you will truly admire his unique teaching abilities and unparalleled desire to start an accessible and constructive discussion about economics. Roberts frequently hosts a wide array of viewpoints, even those like Pete Boettke's, who's employment at the traditionally conservative school bring traction to assertions of "Disaster Capitalism" where once there was little.

With so many talented minds and voices now studying the behavioral and psychological aspects of economics, new questions emerge. When once we might have considered ourselves in front of Mises' "coordination problem" of central government as we delved further into the Information Age, how do these additional metrics now affect the task of collecting accurate market data? Is this challenge of coordinating information solely one experienced by governments, or do private firms really do better in actualizing these consumer data? Perhaps most importantly: if so much of economics depends on rationality, which depends on an economic agent's ability to assess values (especially forward through time), how can a group "lacking vision of the future" be deemed "rational" in any economic sense? When limited to the "self-protective" stages of ego-nomic development, is it even appropriate to quote Maslow's description of the ego-stunted individual as the summary of a group?

“They are creatures of more or less opportunistic hedonism; they lack long-term goals and ideals. They want immediate gratification and, if they can, will exploit others for their ends.”

Surely this describes phenomena that occurs frequently within poor communities, but in what ways will this economic message be received by its "benefactors"?