Introduction

Abstract

Life is full of negotiations. Even childhood work and play involve bargaining. Trading household chores with a brother or sister or trading toys with a playmate gives us early experience with the potential of bargaining for solving and creating problems. As one matures, one finds that being older, stronger, or smarter does not guarantee that one always gets one’s way. Few people are born into a family where preferences are complementary or where rigid hierarchies require absolute obedience. If give-and-take do not rule the day, we nevertheless spend a great deal of time doing it. Reciprocal backscratching beats the contortions necessary for self-sufficiency. Even childhood experience suggests that nonnegotiable demands are intolerable. Sooner or later, these demands lead a sibling to passive resistance or to a more active fight. Although life has some situations where one only wins what another loses, more often reciprocal concessions leave all better off. The trick, of course, is to find the right combinations. Is washing dishes or profit sharing the better offer for a younger brother’s help with the Sunday’s newspaper deliveries? One has to know one’s brother, or at least remain on speaking terms.