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Recent research on creativity has shown that our brain rejects full predictability of the outcomes of alternative choices, by adding some amount of ‘unknown’ to the ‘known’. In fact, human beings seem to need some novelty and surprise. In other words, even if uncertainty would not be there, individuals would generate it. In contrast with this perspective, rational choice theory assumes that reality is ‘external’ to the chooser whose exclusive role is to get as much utility as prices and endowments allow her to do. Moreover, rational individuals are ready to bear the burden of gathering costly information about all possible outcomes of their choices, in order to reduce uncertainty.

Uncertainty has been one of the most recurrent concern of G.L. Shackle, who criticized traditional neoclassical theory essentially for ruling out choice altogether from economics by interpreting the individual choice of the best feasible bundle as “the only thing that could have happened in the circumstances”. The main goal of this paper is to explore Shackle’s main insights on creativity, change and time in economics and to suggest how to use his profound intuitions to elaborate an alternative approach to consumption theory.

G.L. Shackle; Consumption theory; creativity; change; time