Time for another picture. I've posted examples of how homo economicus was attacked visually. Classical economists recognized the attacks and responded in print. Supposing they knew of the visual attacks, racial or gendered caricatures of inferiority, was there a visual counter-response as well? How do we show similarity visually anyway? Our friend, Dan Hammond, asked that good question years ago when he hosted the HES annual meeting at Wake Forest University.
Fleeming Jenkin came up with the diagram that answers Dan's question. It's from an explicit attempt to defend economists' theory of exchange from the critics, notably John Ruskin. Here it is. It's a drawing of barter exchange. The participants are the same, there's no hierarchy, no one tells anyone what to consume or what to trade. Very graceful. David Levy and I like it so much we had Michigan use it on the cover of Vanity.
(From: Fleeming Jenkin, Papers, literary, scientific, &c., London, New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1887, volume 2, p. 150.)
Terrific, isn't it?