Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T16:52:24.503Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The hidden economy of esteem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2000

Geoffrey Brennan
Affiliation:
Australian National University
Philip Pettit
Affiliation:
Australian National University

Abstract

A generation of social theorists have argued that if free-rider considerations show that certain collective action predicaments are unresolvable under individual, rational choice – unresolvable under an arrangement where each is free to pursue their own relative advantage – then those considerations will equally show that the predicaments cannot be resolved by recourse to norms (Buchanan, 1975, p. 132; Heath, 1976, p. 30; Sober and Wilson, 1998, 156ff; Taylor, 1987, p. 144). If free-rider considerations explain why people do not spontaneously keep the streets clean, though they would each prefer unlittered streets, then those considerations will also explain why there is no effective norm against littering the streets.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)