Abstract
Hell is other people. So is economics. Economics, therefore, is Hell. Every voter knows as much when, trapped in the maze of conjectural variation and strategic interaction where so much of the human drama is willy-nilly played out, he attempts to calculate his vote-value in the light of the darkness cast by the simultaneous attempt of each of his fellow-citizens to do likewise. His position, indicative as it is of the dilemmas and difficulties born of radical uncertainty and interdependent outcomes, is an uncomfortable one, but also, sadly, the standard case in a world not of kamikaze pilots, blood donors and Good Samaritans but rather of self-interested maximisers of benefit and minimisers of cost. David Hume knew as much when, trapped in the conventionalised conformity of a Calvinist Edinburgh never able fully to integrate the innovativeness of his individuality, he was able nonetheless to pen the following account of the paradox of individual choice. ‘Two neighbours may agree to drain a meadow, which they possess in common; because ‘tis easy for them to know each others mind; and each must perceive, that the immediate consequence of his failing in his part, is the abandoning of the whole project. But ‘tis very difficult, and indeed impossible, that a thousand persons should agree in any such action; it being difficult for them to concert so complicated a design, and still more difficult for them to execute it; while each seeks a pretext to free himself of the trouble and expense, and would lay the whole burden on others.’1
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Notes and References
D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), ed. by E. C. Mossner (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 590.
A. L. Stinchcombe, ‘Is the Prisoners’ Dilemma all of Sociology?’, Inquiry, Vol. 23, 1980, p. 190.
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LCA, p. 29. But there are exceptions: ‘During periods of all-out war or exceptional insecurity, it is likely that defense is (or is nearly) a superior good, and in such circumstances alliances will not have any tendency toward disproportionate burden sharing. The amount of allied military capability that Great Britain enjoyed in World War II increased from 1941 to 1944 as the United States mobilized, adding more and more strength to the allied side. But the British war effort was maintained, if not increased, during this period.’ See M. Olson and R. Zeckhauser, ‘An Economic Theory of Alliances’, Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 48, 1966, p. 270. The British, it would be fair to say, could not reasonably have been excluded from enjoying the public good represented by the defeat of the Germans. The fact that they chose not to ride piggy-back on the American defence capability but increased their own war effort accordingly suggests that there is, even to Olson, sentiment and/or obligation such as transcends the rational-choice model which he presents.
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D. Marsh, ‘More on Joining Interest Groups’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 8, 1978, p. 384. His argument is weaker than it appears, however, when one reflects how often the decision to join is taken not by profit-seeking owners but by salaried managers: in order properly to understand why firms join, it is likely to be helpful to disaggregate results so as to distinguish the ‘capitalistic’ from the ‘bureaucratised’ organisation. The inclusion of a control-group of non-joiners would in addition have strengthened confidence in Marsh’s conclusions: joiners and non-joiners might be differently motivated, and were that to be the case a sample drawn from either group would not be representative of British businessmen as a whole. It would, finally, have been interesting for the study to have sought to identify and explain particular changes over time: the elasticity of demand for membership with respect to variation in the quantity supplied of selective incentives would seem to be a particularly useful line of inquiry to follow up.
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© 1990 David Reisman
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Reisman, D. (1990). Free Riders and Free Markets. In: Theories of Collective Action. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230389977_4
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