Abstract

Our aim is to show how the well-known tale of Charles Perrault, Le Petit Poucet, contains the illustration of two principles of rational choice in a situation of uncertainty, the maximin ("to limit the breakage") and the maximax ("to target the best"). It builds in a targeted and economical way highly fluctuating situations which make inapplicable the first while showing the virtualities of the second principle. As such, this children's story has a new reading, which is not without connection to the problem of the decisions of migrants in our troubled world.