Voluntary Collective Action

Abstract

Economists and political scientists, in recent years, have joined sociologists and social psychologists in the study of voluntary collective action. To economists and like-minded political scientists (notably those allied to economists within the growing “public choice” field), the most problematic aspect of voluntary collective action is its very existence. The prediction of the conventional economic theory of the voluntary provision of collective goods is that such goods will not be voluntarily provided at anything approaching their socially optimal levels. This prediction of the conventional theory expresses what economists call the “free-rider problem”, i.e., the problem that self-interested individuals will not find it worthwhile to contribute voluntarily either time or money to the provision of collective or “public” goods.¹ Such goods have the characteristic that individuals cannot be excluded from receiving their benefits, whether or not those individuals have contributed to their provision. Conventional thinking asserts that self-interested individuals, particularly but not exclusively in large groups, will prefer to “free ride” on the contributions of others, and thus the voluntary provision of public goods will be suboptimal from the standpoint of the group.