I will argue there is no exact problem to collective action but the biggest consequence of collective action is defective agents. Anytime I refer to defective agents in the rest of the paper, I will be discussing those who do not maximize utility for society and rather defect from the norm to maximize their own individual utility. I argue that collective action only works effectively if all group members pay their fair share for the common interests of the group. I argue free riding of public goods and the selfish use of available common goods are the main actions performed by defective agents that make collective action a problem. I argue that collective action needs individuals to maximize group utility over personal utility in order to …show more content…
Since it is a one-shot game, people believe it will always be better to maximize their own utility rather than sacrifice some of their profit for the greater good thus becoming defective agents. Defective agents in this situation ultimately stop the public good from being created or operating at optimal standards because they create unfair conditions amongst the group and without them, the good is not feasible. An example of this is a group of four people deciding to finance a museum as a public good. No one member of the group has a desire to finance the museum solely but one person’s contribution is sufficient for the construction of the building. As a defective agent, I argue no one will want to finance the museum and it will never be built because they will take the free riding approach. Furthermore, it would not provide the most utility for any one person if they do contribute so they will always defect to protect themselves as I argue for the common knowledge of rationality. A solution to the agents continuously defecting is to introduce punishments into the game. If someone does not cooperate, they will gain a punishment that will cost more than any utility they profit from not cooperating. Permits would be optimal because if someone does not obtain the permit by cooperating with society, they cannot use the good, slightly changing it to a club good; a good that is excludable …show more content…
Common goods are rivalrous and non-excludable, meaning everyone can use these goods but there is only a limited supply. The most common problem discussed is the tragedy of the commons in which people selfishly use common goods because they can. An agent will continuously ask what is the utility of me taking more and if the answer maximizes their own utility, they will choose that option. A great example of this is a pasture that is provided as a common good to farmers with grazing animals. It is rivalrous because the grass can only be consumed by one animal and not by another but it is non-excludable because the farmers cannot stop another farmer’s animal from grazing. The farmers want to maximize their own utility by adding as many animals as possible so they will ask the question, “What is the utility of me adding one more animal to my heard?” There will either be a positive component of selling an additional animal for the farmer individually or the negative component of overgrazing shared by all the farmers. If the agent is rational, they will become a defective agent and maximize their individual utility by selling another animal because they are in a system that compels them to increase the herd. A solution to the tragedy of the commons is to introduce privatization and split the commons accordingly among the group. There will be a process to
A public good produces benefits – positive externalities – which others can enjoy, without the creator of the good having the capacity to avert such enjoyment. This effects in market failure because, despite the amusement of the good by a great number of people, they have no inducement to pay any expanse for such benefit. The market price of a product assists as a signal to impact future behaviour. Despite appreciating the benefits of the public good, consumers will rationally, understate their actual price proclivity for such goods, which will cause creators to collect skewed signs about the authentic demand for such goods, resulting in an inadequate supply of such goods. It also results in the producer of the good being unable to charge a price from all those who benefitted from the good, which reflects the benefit they derive from the
Cooperation between groups is often thwarted by tribalism and personal bias. One solution for this is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism holds that a combination of happiness and maximization of good consequences would allow tribes make good decisions (153). While the Tragedy of the Commons is mainly concerned with selfishness, the Tragedy of Commonsense Morality is a tragedy of moral inflexibility (172). Groups must be perceptive and impartial in order to overcome their differences and
The resources will dramatically decrease in the case of open shared resources or “commons”. Hardin insists this is due to the fact that each person will act selfishly and thus gain a benefit to themselves greater than the cost to themselves. Through the shared cost of a commons each person contributes slightly to its destruction and with the growing population of humans at the same rate of consumption, the human race will eventually lose that particular resource. Hardin then presents his solutions which are privatization or “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority affected.” In the case of privatization of a commons, all of the cost is placed on one entity which would cause that entity to value the commons enough to exploit it carefully. Mutual coercion would work almost as a reverse commons. Each person takes less of the resource immediately in order to preserve the commons for future benefit. This mutual coercion is not a plausible solution in our current time
The dilemma of collective actions is an objectively existing social phenomenon. Western scholars create theoretical models about dilemma of collective actions and provide theoretical interpretations according to the reflections to the real world. “These collective actions will be problems such as short supply of public goods, overuse of public resource, disorder of public order, loss of public organization efficiency and anomie of public policy implementation.” (Chen tan, 2009, Theoretical Interpretation … under Non-cooperation Game)
Act-consequentialism is a moral theory that maintains what is right is whatever brings about the best consequences impartially considering. The main and most renowned form of act-consequentialism is act utilitarianism which advocates agents choosing the moral path that creates the greatest good for the greatest number, this being the most widely known form of act-consequentialism is the moral theory that I shall be concentrating on though out my discussion. Impartiality is the notion that everybody should count for one and nobody more than one, which is often considered to be a “double-edged sword” (Jollimore, 2017) meaning there is debate as to whether impartiality is a strength or weakness of the theory. Throughout my essay I attempt to point out an important misunderstanding made by theories that uphold impartiality as a weakness of act-consequentialism and how this could lead to the view that impartiality is in fact a strength of both act utilitarianism and act consequentialism.
Adam Smiths ‘’invisible hand’’ shows us that when greedy individuals go into big cooperative action it helps their incentives grow into the lines that run to help others. The greed that helps these ‘’big people’’ gives them the incentives to seek out the best and most effective methods of production. The cheaper and more effective they can make a product, the cheaper prices of the product at the store is, which in this case benefits both the producer and consumer!
I will argue that according to Rawls, agents in the Original Position behind a veil of ignorance would not endorse a utilitarianism principle of justice because they, as rational individuals, would seek to create a cooperative scheme that would be the most beneficial to themselves, and advocating for a utilitarian principle of justice under such blind conditions would be far too great a risk for them to take. Utilitarianism is a moral theory asserting that the morally right action is the one that produces the most favorable balance of good over evil, everyone considered (69). It is wholly concerned with the amount of net utility that an action generates. Utilitarianism has been one of the most influential moral theories throughout history.
The pasture field is finite, with a finite amount of resources. Multiple herdsmen keep cattle on the field and directly receive profit. As long as there are enough resources covering each herdsman the so called ‘commons’ is prosperous. Eventually, the number of resources ideally matches the number of herdsmen, i.e there are no extra resources for more herdsmen. The tragedy occurs when a herdsman adds one more unit of cattle onto the shared field.
Setting up a timeline to track conference planning essentials is an effective way to ensure all tasks are accounted for and covered. In this lesson, you'll learn more about establishing a timeline for your event. Plan For Success Diana is gearing up to start planning her company's annual conference when a quote by Benjamin Franklin comes across her social media newsfeed: 'If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.'
Therefore a free market is not desirable as maximizing their utility is priority. So government is expected to correct the market failure by choosing to char...
Ostrom used the most frequently used example of a common pool resource; he speaks of the town pasturelands and how they will be overexploited and destroyed by the towns’ citizens without institutions. The overexploitation will come about due to the tragedy of the commons, as individuals will act in their own self-interest instead of the whole group’s long-term best interest, as they believe if they do not use the good then, others will and none will be left for their benefit. To prevent the depletion the town pasturelands we develop an institution with the goal to protect it for the future. To do this the institutions must employ a worker to limit who can use the pasturelands, how much they can use, for how long, and to maintain and repair the pasturelands so it can still provide the maximum benefit possible. To do this, rules are needed and someone is needed to enforce them which has a cost attached to it. To fund the protection of the pasturelands either the common land must become private property so it will be in one individ...