The Rational Bully You are big, tough, and, like most people, fond of having your own way. You make it clear to all and sundry that you don’t like people disrespecting you and will respond by beating them up. You gradually expand your definition of “disrespecting” to include flirting with any woman you are interested in or failing to show proper respect for your opinions. Actually beating people up can be risky but most of the time you don’t have to, because other people take care not to offend you. A psychologist might describe it as an aggressive personality. To an economist it is a commitment strategy — one that usually works.
If market societies have nicer people, they will also have more people whose personal experiences imply collective economies can work, and the inverse for command economies... I guess this could be known as, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the iron curtain.".
What happens if you bring in/allow in people from a culture where dishonesty pays more than your honest culture does? We are watching many, many experiments with this right now.
(It so happens that I have had the opportunity to observe first-hand what happens when Romanians and Albanians in large numbers enter into a relatively honest US community. At first the newcomers attack the system they find themselves in with a dedication and ferocity that is awesome. But they eventually seem to "regress to the local mean" over a period of years, and their children frequently become much more than the average. That is for the Romanians. And I am happy to have dozens of Romanian friends. They were always nice individuals, but their previous experience seemed to impel them to seize every advantage they could, by hook or by crook. Until they "adapted" to their new situation over 10+ years or so.
The Albanians did not seem to change much, nor their children. I knew fewer of them, but they were like a smaller Mafia. I would never recommend doing business with them.)
On your final point, I'd suggest society size is going to be a bigger factor than society organisation.
A small-scale command economy such as manorialism, where the baron/seigneur/castellan/headman knows everyone will allocate jobs and treat people based in part on trustworthiness and favouritism; ceteris paribus, the known liar's going to get worse strips of land and a lot more scrutiny of the grain he's taking to the mill; to the extent there's a justice system locally, his testimony won't be worth much and he'll lose disputes with his neighbours.
Conversely, in a big market economy a liar can move from place to place and employer to employer without much of his reputation following him.
I think the above is necessary for honesty to evolve though; market economies are a recent phenomenon, but most pre-modern human interaction has been in small societies.
I would note that, on one hand, the ability to read facial expressions (in particular) is greatly enhanced by having high visual acuity. Human beings and probably other primates are near the peak of biological vision; an average mammal has visual acuity close to ten times lower (though it may be quick to detect motion). On the other hand, human faces have all sorts of small muscles that can produce subtle changes of visual expression whose identification this high visual acuity makes possible. If you look at maps of human brain function, our homunculi give a lot of neural tissue to the face. That tends to suggest positive selection to take advantage of the kind of behavioral signaling you describe.
There are recent reports that dogs have a couple of extra muscles in the face that let them produce "doggy eyes" expressions---muscles that wild canids lack. It seems possible that these produce facial expressions that dogs themselves can't see, but that work to elicit cooperation from humans.
Many dogs are incredibly good at reading human "body language". Not surprising in a species that used to have to hunt prey animals for a living. Anticipating what a prey animal will do improves your chances of a successful hunt. Reading humans improves your chances of a reward.
Hawk/Dove equilibrium and the mechanisms explained here also explain the elusive nature of institutional discrimination. Why do all the martyrs of BLM turn out to be criminals even though plenty of non criminals suffer police brutality? (Elijah McClain would have made much more sense to riot over than most). Why are obnoxious ERGs that mandate diversity celebration ubiquitous at the same time as class action lawsuits, such as at Activision? It's all poker, and it takes a full table to tango.
I wish people would quit ignoring an obvious accelerant in the George Floyd rioting.
Covid protocols at the time meant colleges were closed and people who could not work from home were effectively unemployed. Anyone who saw the video of Floyd’s death and was justifiably angered had the time to take to the streets. The ‘this is undeniably happening right now in your hometown’ video and the once in a lifetime work and school closures created ‘perfect storm’’ conditions for civil unrest.
So many people in the Twin Cities did this that law enforcement was quickly overwhelmed. For a short period - it seemed much too long at the time - there was in fact no day to day law enforcement in Minneapolis or Saint Paul.
At that point any malicious impulse could be acted on with little fear of prosecution.
George Floyd's death was videotaped. In comparison, during the killing of Elijah McClain, "The body cameras came detached from the police officer's uniforms during the encounter, but the audio can still be heard" (Wikipedia).
I know it would make sense for people to make decisions on the basis of their knowledge of what had happened, and not on their reaction to the form in which it was presented, but that is not what most people do. Guess why they shut down the internet access going out of the Gaza strip, when the details will nonetheless come out eventually?
That's true. George Floyd was a very legible escalation in what could be perceived as a broader exchange. If your goal is to draw a line in the sand for the benefit of an opponent so they know what not to do, then timing tit-for-tats based on the most salient and legible violations makes the most sense regardless of the facts. There is something else going on too I think: the people who get the most results from pressing grievances are often not the people with the most grievances, and this can lead to a situation where the best strategy for an honest person is to let dishonest people take the lead, since they are the ones that have the best talent for getting results over grievances. It's perverse but ubiquitous: in a fight, you want fighters in your corner, and fighters usually aren't saints.
I have mentioned before that I have known, reasonably well, three true sociopaths/psychopaths. Two killed others. To the extent of my knowledge the third did not. However they shared a couple of traits. 1) They seemed capable of lying successfully to people who should have known better, and 2) all three had a "snake-eyed" demeanor most of the time. Like a snake checking out potential prey, with extremely little movement of the facial muscles.
I always wonder why anyone would trust a person so "unreadable."
A question about life under communism. Your example has jobs determined from above, but I wonder how much that was true, at least for the more mentally active people. I suspect that there was quite a bit of choice, whether to study, what to study, who to opportune for a job. But I really don't know. Anyone have any info?
Good post and can't disagree with the behavioral economics here nor with the advantage of an open society. Beyond that, the libertarian case is that liberty makes for better people as discussed here. The conservative argument is that too much liberty makes for nastier people, due to the cost for offending being too low. The progressive case is that too much liberty makes for nastier people because the hawks will prey on the doves. Would be interested in a critique of Rawls-type of trade-off between liberty and justice, if you have one.
I follow, and agree with, the logic of your presentation. Has there been any empirical research that supports the logic, for example, of honesty in a market society versus totalitarian society?
Not that I'm aware. I'm basically a theorist and only occasionally willing to do the work of seeing whether the real world fits my theories. Ideally someone else does that.
Fair enough. You got me curious so maybe I’ll look into it. It would be interesting if there was any data supporting virtue traits in one economic system versus another.
“If you are a worker in a centrally planned society, on the other hand, your job is determined and your salary set by someone far away who does not know you and will not have to associate with you.”
The same can be said of workers in any large hierarchical organization (e.g. a corporation or an army). Your day-to-day interactions are with co-workers who can choose how, but not whether, to interact with you, and the people with actual influence over your job have probably never met you.
“it is in your self-interest to be committed to act in ways that maximize the summed benefit to the group of people with whom you are interacting. “
This doesn’t seem quite right. If only a subset of the group can benefit you, surely your self-interest should lead you to maximise the summed benefit to those who can benefit you, not to the group as a whole? This would lead to a different (perhaps more realistic) lequilibrium, where the group splits into subgroups whose members mutually benefit each other but do not act to benefit “outsiders”.
If market societies have nicer people, they will also have more people whose personal experiences imply collective economies can work, and the inverse for command economies... I guess this could be known as, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the iron curtain.".
Good point that hadn't occurred to me.
What happens if you bring in/allow in people from a culture where dishonesty pays more than your honest culture does? We are watching many, many experiments with this right now.
(It so happens that I have had the opportunity to observe first-hand what happens when Romanians and Albanians in large numbers enter into a relatively honest US community. At first the newcomers attack the system they find themselves in with a dedication and ferocity that is awesome. But they eventually seem to "regress to the local mean" over a period of years, and their children frequently become much more than the average. That is for the Romanians. And I am happy to have dozens of Romanian friends. They were always nice individuals, but their previous experience seemed to impel them to seize every advantage they could, by hook or by crook. Until they "adapted" to their new situation over 10+ years or so.
The Albanians did not seem to change much, nor their children. I knew fewer of them, but they were like a smaller Mafia. I would never recommend doing business with them.)
In practice most people are selective. As Van Vogt writes about the right man, https://phinnweb.blogspot.com/2004/10/right-man-and-fear-of-losing-face.html even bullies will frequently choose to only bully specific targets
On your final point, I'd suggest society size is going to be a bigger factor than society organisation.
A small-scale command economy such as manorialism, where the baron/seigneur/castellan/headman knows everyone will allocate jobs and treat people based in part on trustworthiness and favouritism; ceteris paribus, the known liar's going to get worse strips of land and a lot more scrutiny of the grain he's taking to the mill; to the extent there's a justice system locally, his testimony won't be worth much and he'll lose disputes with his neighbours.
Conversely, in a big market economy a liar can move from place to place and employer to employer without much of his reputation following him.
I think the above is necessary for honesty to evolve though; market economies are a recent phenomenon, but most pre-modern human interaction has been in small societies.
Even good conmen need to move on as they become known. Mark Twain's Duke and Dauphin pointed that out long ago.
I would note that, on one hand, the ability to read facial expressions (in particular) is greatly enhanced by having high visual acuity. Human beings and probably other primates are near the peak of biological vision; an average mammal has visual acuity close to ten times lower (though it may be quick to detect motion). On the other hand, human faces have all sorts of small muscles that can produce subtle changes of visual expression whose identification this high visual acuity makes possible. If you look at maps of human brain function, our homunculi give a lot of neural tissue to the face. That tends to suggest positive selection to take advantage of the kind of behavioral signaling you describe.
There are recent reports that dogs have a couple of extra muscles in the face that let them produce "doggy eyes" expressions---muscles that wild canids lack. It seems possible that these produce facial expressions that dogs themselves can't see, but that work to elicit cooperation from humans.
Many dogs are incredibly good at reading human "body language". Not surprising in a species that used to have to hunt prey animals for a living. Anticipating what a prey animal will do improves your chances of a successful hunt. Reading humans improves your chances of a reward.
Hawk/Dove equilibrium and the mechanisms explained here also explain the elusive nature of institutional discrimination. Why do all the martyrs of BLM turn out to be criminals even though plenty of non criminals suffer police brutality? (Elijah McClain would have made much more sense to riot over than most). Why are obnoxious ERGs that mandate diversity celebration ubiquitous at the same time as class action lawsuits, such as at Activision? It's all poker, and it takes a full table to tango.
I wish people would quit ignoring an obvious accelerant in the George Floyd rioting.
Covid protocols at the time meant colleges were closed and people who could not work from home were effectively unemployed. Anyone who saw the video of Floyd’s death and was justifiably angered had the time to take to the streets. The ‘this is undeniably happening right now in your hometown’ video and the once in a lifetime work and school closures created ‘perfect storm’’ conditions for civil unrest.
So many people in the Twin Cities did this that law enforcement was quickly overwhelmed. For a short period - it seemed much too long at the time - there was in fact no day to day law enforcement in Minneapolis or Saint Paul.
At that point any malicious impulse could be acted on with little fear of prosecution.
George Floyd's death was videotaped. In comparison, during the killing of Elijah McClain, "The body cameras came detached from the police officer's uniforms during the encounter, but the audio can still be heard" (Wikipedia).
I know it would make sense for people to make decisions on the basis of their knowledge of what had happened, and not on their reaction to the form in which it was presented, but that is not what most people do. Guess why they shut down the internet access going out of the Gaza strip, when the details will nonetheless come out eventually?
That's true. George Floyd was a very legible escalation in what could be perceived as a broader exchange. If your goal is to draw a line in the sand for the benefit of an opponent so they know what not to do, then timing tit-for-tats based on the most salient and legible violations makes the most sense regardless of the facts. There is something else going on too I think: the people who get the most results from pressing grievances are often not the people with the most grievances, and this can lead to a situation where the best strategy for an honest person is to let dishonest people take the lead, since they are the ones that have the best talent for getting results over grievances. It's perverse but ubiquitous: in a fight, you want fighters in your corner, and fighters usually aren't saints.
I have mentioned before that I have known, reasonably well, three true sociopaths/psychopaths. Two killed others. To the extent of my knowledge the third did not. However they shared a couple of traits. 1) They seemed capable of lying successfully to people who should have known better, and 2) all three had a "snake-eyed" demeanor most of the time. Like a snake checking out potential prey, with extremely little movement of the facial muscles.
I always wonder why anyone would trust a person so "unreadable."
A question about life under communism. Your example has jobs determined from above, but I wonder how much that was true, at least for the more mentally active people. I suspect that there was quite a bit of choice, whether to study, what to study, who to opportune for a job. But I really don't know. Anyone have any info?
Good post and can't disagree with the behavioral economics here nor with the advantage of an open society. Beyond that, the libertarian case is that liberty makes for better people as discussed here. The conservative argument is that too much liberty makes for nastier people, due to the cost for offending being too low. The progressive case is that too much liberty makes for nastier people because the hawks will prey on the doves. Would be interested in a critique of Rawls-type of trade-off between liberty and justice, if you have one.
I follow, and agree with, the logic of your presentation. Has there been any empirical research that supports the logic, for example, of honesty in a market society versus totalitarian society?
Not that I'm aware. I'm basically a theorist and only occasionally willing to do the work of seeing whether the real world fits my theories. Ideally someone else does that.
Fair enough. You got me curious so maybe I’ll look into it. It would be interesting if there was any data supporting virtue traits in one economic system versus another.
“If you are a worker in a centrally planned society, on the other hand, your job is determined and your salary set by someone far away who does not know you and will not have to associate with you.”
The same can be said of workers in any large hierarchical organization (e.g. a corporation or an army). Your day-to-day interactions are with co-workers who can choose how, but not whether, to interact with you, and the people with actual influence over your job have probably never met you.
“it is in your self-interest to be committed to act in ways that maximize the summed benefit to the group of people with whom you are interacting. “
This doesn’t seem quite right. If only a subset of the group can benefit you, surely your self-interest should lead you to maximise the summed benefit to those who can benefit you, not to the group as a whole? This would lead to a different (perhaps more realistic) lequilibrium, where the group splits into subgroups whose members mutually benefit each other but do not act to benefit “outsiders”.
A legitimate point.