a sociological treatment of the free-rider problem.pdf

Macro-economics and infantbehaviour: a sociological treatment ofthe free-rider problem

Barry Barnes

Abstract

A number of general issues in the social sciences are currently beingaddressed through consideration of the free-rider problem, also knownas the problem of collective action. Many different ways of cotnparingand evaluating cotrtpeting social theories can be co-ordinated asdiscussions of the problem. In attending to its relatively sitnple structurefundamental issues routinely arise, concerning the basis of social order,the nature of power, and the invariants of human nature itself, if suchexist. In this paper I adopt a sociological perspective in defending theplausibility of one kind of solution to the problem, and then explore thegeneral significance of that solution in a frankly speculative way.

Let us begiti with the familiar outlines of the free-rider probletn asit commonly arises, as a difficulty in rational decision theory(Olson, 1965; Hardin, 1982). Rational decision theory assumes, incommon with game theory, many economic theories, and someforms of political theory, that people always operate as indepen-dent rational agents separately pursuing their own self-interest. Ifthis is so, then there are a number of goods or benefits which, onthe face of it, groups of people will fail to provide for themselves.Clean air may be counted a benefit by all the members of a group,and indeed every member may coutit it a benefit well worth thecost of a catalytic converter for his or her car-exhaust. Yet it maybe that no member would rationally decide to purchase such aconverter. For such a purchase would not in itself provide cleanair. Only a number of purchases by nearly all the members of thegroup would provide that. Every individual converter makes anegligible difference to the air. Hence every individual is bound toreason that clean air is best left for everyone else to provide, that it

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Macro-economics and infant behaviour

is best to free-ride on the actions of others, reaping their benefitsbut making no contribution to their costs. And hence no individualat all will purchase an exhaust converter, and clean air will not beprovided.'

Qean air is an example of a collective good. The overall cost ofits provision may be far less than its overall benefit, once provided.The individual's portion of the overall cost may be far less than thebenefit that individual receives. Yet the good will not be providedby rational, self-interested individuals because the incrementalbenefit from an individual's contribution to its provision cannot beconfined to the contributing individual: the benefit is indivisible,and because it is indivisible individual self-interest is not coupledto the task of providing its cost. A collective good like clean airmay, overall, be as profitable as investment as an individual goodlike a bottle of whisky, but rational self-interested agents wouldonly invest in the latter: as to the former, if other group membersdo not provide it then the individual is helpless to provide it in anycase, and if others do provide it then it is best to free-ride on whatthey are doing and save the cost of contributing to it.

We can now specify the free-rider problem as an empiricalproblem.^ Rational, self-interested agents should not providecollective goods, and it must be emphasised that in very manycases indeed they do not. None the less, on the face of it, thereappear to be innumerable cases where in fact they do so: peoplegive blood; they volunteer for war; they go on strike insteadof scabbing; they give donations to worthy causes; they mayeven voluntarily purchase expensive low-emission motor cars inpreference to cheaper pollution-generating equivalents."' How isit, then, that these activities exist? Why do people, as it appears,act at times for the collective good instead of free-riding?

The nature of the free-rider problem is liable to be perceiveddifferently according to one's theoretical predilections. For therational decision theorist, apparent failures to free-ride areanotnalies in need of rationalisation. What, on the face of it, isauthentic collective action, directed to the collective good and onlythe collective good, must be made visible as really inspired by thegood of the individual after all: the situation must be analysedmore profoundly so that the underlying operation of self-interest isuncovered (OlM)n, 1965). Alternatively occasional minor lapsesinto irrationality or altruism may be acknowledged, sufficient toaccount for collective action as an occasional occurrence withoutcalling into question rational, self-interested calculation as the

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nonnal and predominant basis of action (Hardin, 1982). For thecritics of decision theory, however, and these include manysociologists, the existence of collective action has a more profoundsignificance. It stands as an indication of the fundamentalinadequacy of decision theory, a clear sign that its postulates areflawed.

Decision theorists tend to be unimpressed by the formalsociological theories of human behaviour which stand in clearopposition to their own. Self-interest is subordinated to altruism inthe early Durkheim; rational calculation is overridden by non-rational attachments to norms in Talcott Parsons' theories.But both of these postulates face even greater problems withempirical evidence than those of decision theory itself, or sodecision theorists claim, and not without some justification." Morepromising alternative jjerspectives to that of decision theory may,however, be found implicit in some widely employed informalforms of sociological explanation, although these alternatives arenot so eiBy to formulate as explicit postulates.

Mutual sanctioning •Decision theory uses a rationality postulate and a self-interestpostulate. From an informal sociological perspective these postu-lates may generate unease not so much through what they assert asthrough what they assert it of: they refer to a problematic entity -the independent individual. Informal sociological thought tendsto operate at the group or collective level, and to move to theindividual, if it moves that way at all, via the group and its inter-actions. The isolated, independent individual, whether rational orirrational, egoistic or altruistic, does not feature in the pattern ofthought at all. The clash with decision theory here is hence not somuch one of postulates (although perhaps it might be rationalisedas such, ex post facto) as one of concepts: the concepts in terms ofwhich the postulates of decision theory are formulated are con-cepts which serve to mislead. TTie isolated, atomised, independentindividual is an illegitimate abstraction.

From an informal sociological perspective individuals, if theyare recognised at all, are recognised as interacting individuals.Hence, a natural intuitive response when confronted with the free-rider problem is to presume that, in the couree of interaction,people will prevent each other from free-riding: scabs may beabused, or sent to Coventry, pacifists to prison; those who give

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blood may receive honour; those who give cheques may receivehonours. Simply put, members of the collective will sanction thecollective good. They will solve the free-rider problem by means ofmutual sanctioning.

This naive conjecture does at least allow us to account for, or atleast rationalise, the selective incidence of free-riding, the partialsuccess of collective action. For rational decision theory there istoo little free-riding; for traditional formal sociological theorythere is far too much. But if mutual sanctioning is the prophylacticagainst free-riding then perhaps there is just as much as we shouldexpect. Mutual sanctioning may be potent in some circumstances,less so in others. For mutual sanctioning requires interaction, andinteraction may be frequent or infrequent, weak or strong,optional or essential, avoidable or inevitable. Where sanctions arereadily applied, we may conjecture, collective goods will beprovided; where this is not the case free-riding is correspondinglymore likely. Needless to say, a detailed review of empiricalmaterials would be necessary adequately to evaluate this conjecture,but it is, on the face of it, consistent with much that is currentlyknown and to that extent can claim some plausibility.

Unfortunately, despite its prima facie plausibility, reference tomutual sanctioning has not been taken seriously as a means ofsolving the free-rider problem. This is because it faces anapparently decisive formal objection. If sanctioning is to allow usto account for collective action then sanctioning must itself beaccounted for. But sanctioning for the collective good is actionwhich generates indivisible benefits, that is, it is itself a form ofcollective action, which action is precisely what we are tryingto understand. On the one hand, if people are self-interestedcalculators who will always free-ride rather than act for thecollective good, then they will free-ride on the sanctioning activityof others and sanctions themselves will be collective goods whichpeople fail to provide. On the other hand, if people are not self-interested but altruistic, and willing to sanction the collectivegood, then they will also be willing to provide the good directlyand sanctioning becomes of minor significance. Either way,recourse to sanctions appears to contribute nothing to solving thefundamental problems of explanation.

Yet it may be that mutual sanctioning is the key to the problemafter all. Recent work by Barnes (1988) and Coleman (1988)points to special features of some kinds of mutual sanctioningwhich justify treating them as exceptional forms of collective

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action. Coleman's arguments are designed to be compatible withrational decision theory and its individualistic frame of reference.They subject mutual sanctioning to cost-benefit analysis in orderto demonstrate that self-interested individuals might rationallyengage in it. Mutual sanctioning of a purely symbolic kind* - theexample given is 'encouragement' - is remarkable in beingextremely cheap for its instigators to produce and yet of such greatvalue to its recipients that it may have far-reaching effects on theirbehaviour. The gearing involved here may be so great that evenhis sanctioning the collective good profits the individual: that tinyelement of the indivisible benefit of his sanctioning whichhe himself receives may still be greater than the costs an individualmust incur as a sanctioner. Hence sanctions may indeed accountfor the production of other collective goods: sanctioning maymake such production individually rational, and itself be individuallyrational.

In contrast, my own treatment of the problem is not offered asan application of rational decision theory, but as an argument forits modification. Like decision theory 1 assume that individualsadopt a calculative orientation in the course of social life, and I donot deny that self-interest occupies a prominent place in theircalculations. Like Coleman, indeed Uke social scientists generallysince the empirical evidence is overwhelming and the issue surelyuncontroversial, I acknowledge the potent effects of mutualsanctioning, even of a wholly symbolic kind. 1 even develop a cost-benefit analysis of mutual symbolic sanctioning very close in formto that of Coleman and substantially similar in its conclusions(Barnes, 1988; 137). But the analysis here m pro forma: it serves asan acknowledgement that symbolic sanctioning can be rationalisedin terms of the cost-benefit framework, but also as a preliminary toa rejection of that framework itself. I seek to argue that mutualsymbolic sanctioning is a special form of activity, not because of afjeculiarly high ratio of benefits to costs, but because it cannot beassimilated into a cost-benefit framework in the first place.

Suppose we do regard it as legitimate to enquire into the costs ofmutual symbolic sanctioning. How in that case should we set aboutcalculating them? With some forms of sanctioning we need expectno serious difficulties: law-enforcement is costly; violence is costly;trade embargoes are costly; all, for the most part, in some clearand straightforward sense. But what of the 'encouragement'considered by Coleman, or approval and disapproval, honour anddishonour, respect and contempt? It is not so much that

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production costs here are low as that the very notion of productioncost is obscure and problematic. The sanctions here are streams ofsymbols, verbal and non-verbal. It is wholly unconvincing to holdthat their production involves a costly diversion of symbol-generating competences away from some prior significant task:what is this prior task, and what evidence is there that it comesremotely close to demanding the full output of our symbol-generating systems? It is just as unconvincing to speak of absoluteproduction costs, as if every output of symbols somehow entails aconsumption of scarce resources, a loss to the economy of thehuman body: this would suggest that the preferred state of thenormal rational individual is something close to a coma, which isnonsense.

There is no sensible way of costing outputs of symbols. Symbolicmanipulation and symbolic communication cannot be treated inthis way, as mere instrumentalities. Indeed, any attempt toassimilate them to rational decision theory by treating them in thisway immediately encounters not just technical problems but generallogical difficulties. The exercise merely reveals the fundamentallimitations of decision theory itself. The individuals of rationaldecision theory are rational calculators with given preferences. Ifthese individuals are to realise their preferences they mustcalculate appropriate ways and means in the light of what theyknow. But such calculations are manipulations of symbols. Andthe knowledge incorporated into such calculations is transmittedand received, exchanged and evaluated, stored and received,through the manipulation of symbols. If symbolic communicationsare costly then rational calculation is itself costly, and to makesuch a calculation is to incur a cost before one knows what the costis - and to modify the cost every time one attempts to identify itand quantify it. If symbolic manipulations have costs then therational calculator is faced with the impossible task of allowing forthe costs of his own calculations, even as he makes them. If it isconsidered as a fundamental, fully comprehensive theory ofhuman behaviour, rational decision theory immediately self-destructs.

It remains the case that we do generate and exchange sequencesof symbols, and that much of the activity thus described iscalculative activity. How then should we understand this generalempirical fact about ourselves? We have to recognise, first, thatour symbolising activity, including our calculative activity, cannever be adequately reflexive: it can never satisfactorily be made

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the independent object of itself as activity. And, second, we haveto remember that something can only adequately be treated asinstrumentality when it can be made the independent objectof cakuiation. Calculation itself, and whatever is involved incalculation and essential to the existence of calculation, cannot betreated as a free variable within calculation itself. To note that weoperate as calculative agents is to take calculation, and that whichconstitutes calculation, as given. If we are calculative agents, thenin some sense we just do create and transmit sequences of symbols,evaluate and standardise them, share them and exchange them.And if this is so then mutual symbolic sanctioning must also besomething which, in the same yet-to-be-defined sense, we just do.For mutual symbolic sanctioning is just another form of symbolicmanipulation and communication.

What this means for the free-rider problem is that mutualsanctioning is not simply a cheap resource, as Coleman argues, noreven a free resource. In the last analysis it is not a resource at ail,but something intrinsic to the social situations wherein theproblem arises, something which just occurs in such situations.This implies that mutual sanctioning may be yet more potent in thegeneration of collective goods than Coleman's argument permits,*"although it will remain limited in effectiveness. The mutualsanctioning embodied in symbolic interaction will still haveconsequences dependent upon the conditions of that interaction:success or failure in the production of collective action will stilldepend upon circumstances. Moreover, to recognise that mutualsanctioning is ubiquitous is not to assume that any particularcollectively beneficial action is going to be sanctioned, or thatsanctions will be applied coherently and consistently so that theysystematically favour specific projects. Major problems of co-ordination always have to be overcome in making collectivesanctioning productive. The ubiquitous presence of symbolicinteraction and mutual sanctioning makes the free-rider problemeverywhere soluble, but does not ensure that it is everywheresolved (Barnes, 1988: Ch. 5).

The nature of mutual sanctionii^

Let me list what I take to be the key points of the argument so far:1. The crucial empirical claim is that in all groups and collectivitiespeople enjoy some success in providing collective goods: to some

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extent people choose to engage in collective action where theycould equally well free-ride.2. This claim is prima facie inconsistent with the postulates ofrational decision theory and hence with the numerous social,political and economic theories which accept those postulates.3. Recourse to mutual symbolic sanctioning is conjectured to bethe means by which in actual practice successful collective action issustained.4. Mutual symbolic sanctioning cannot be satisfactorily accountedfor as itself the outcome of rational, self-interested calculation. Itis an essential, ubiquitous feature of social activity which cannot besatisfactorily analysed as an implication of rational decisiontheory.

Opponents of rational decision theory may perhaps regard allthis as a laborious and unnecessary way of exposing the defects ofan obviously inadequate position. But there is much to be gainedfrom beginning one's attempts to understand human behaviourwith a clear theory, even if it is clearly inadequate. Whendecision theory is systematically developed and applied it runsinto difficulties of a quite specific form, which encourages thesearch for equally specific solutions. To recognise the irreducibleimportance of symbolic interaction and mutual sanctioning is onesuch specific solution. We can imagine calculative human beings- even calculative self-interested human beings - successfullysustaining collective actions, if we assume that they operateagainst a given backdrop of mutual symbolic sanctioning. Otherwise,such action remains dauntingly problematic. But what precisely isimplied by talk of 'a given backdrop'? In what sense is mutualsymlwlic sanctioning 'given'? We should take it as given rather asbreathing is taken as given. Primarily, we do these things becausewe are innately disposed to do them.

The dangers of making reference to the innate are very wellrecognised in the social sciences, to the extent that the mereappearance of the word in a text may, for some, serve as groundsfor dismissal of its entire contents. To call something innate isoften seen as an abdication of the task of studying it, or worse, asan acknowledgement that it is fixed and unchangeable, a standingrefutation of the sociological assumption of the plasticity of thehuman subject. But all theories of human behaviour imply someassumption about inherent human characteristics, even if it is onlythe assumption of plasticity. Nor, given the current state of the

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human sciences, should there be any longer a tendency to equatethe innate with the immutable, or to regard it as inaccessible toreputable empirical study. References to innate proclivities maybe more or less plausible in specific instances but they should nolonger evoke anxiety in themselves.^ One advantage of such areference in the present context is that it permits a link to be madewith empirical work in psychology.

A vast body of empirical materials is now available as aconsequence of psychological studies of cognitive development invery young children. As might be expected, this material isinterpreted in a number of different ways. Psychologists are nomore successful in the achievement of consensus and uniformity ofjudgement than are social scientists. Cognitive development isvariously attributed to innate propensities, individual-environmentinteraction, and social interaction. Different traditions of explanationare discemible, in particular those deriving from Piaget, on theone hand, and Vygotsky, on the other. Without denying thismanifest diversity, however, it is probably fair to say that the socialbasis of cognition is currently receiving more and more attention,in a field which previously had been dominated by individualismand nativism. Work in developmental psychology now has a veryconsiderable sociological significance, and some of it is of directrelevance to the argument unfolding here.

I shall cite the work of Trevarthen, which is especiallyfavourable to my case. But this is not just to select an authorwhose thinking matches my theoretical needs. It is to referto someone who documents extensive observations of youngchildren, accumulated over many years, and to a large extentpreserved for further examination by use of the video-recorder.'*And it is to cite papers which not only describe the methods andresults of an ongoing empirical research programme but alsoidentify and take account of many related studies in their field.There is no question here of solving sociological problems by useof accepted psychological wisdom, nor, as an outsider, do Ipresume to identify the 'best' psychological account of cognition.But I do claim to be referring to well-supported psychologicalwork of good standing, the conclusions of which deserve to begiven some weight.^

Trevarthen's views are interesting in being very stronglynativist, yet not at all individualistic. He interprets his empiricalstudies as demonstrating the existence of a complex array of innateproclivities and competences in the child (Trevarthen, 1988;

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Trevarthen and Logotheti, 1987, 1989). These innate character-istics, however, are the prerequisites not of isolated, autonomousbehaviour but of co-operative social interaction. Their existencesuggests a conception of man as essentially a social agent, oflearning as irredeemably bound up with social interaction, and ofknowledge as collective achievement. Indeed, Trevarthen presentshis findings in a way which directly supports the sociologicalsolution to the free-rider problem propo^d above, so that theimport of what follows might be said to be that observations oninfant behaviour illuminate problems in macro-economics.

It may be best to begin by stressing the differences of viewbetween Trevarthen and one of the most widely acceptedsociological orientations to child learning, the 'social behaviourism'of G.H. Mead (1934). For Mead learning is mainly a matter of'biological' motions being assumed to be meaningful by parentsand teachers, and rewarded until their 'social' significance isgrasped by the child and their role in social life mastered. Childrenbecome competent members of cultures because they are quicklearners, because they are susceptible to reward, and becauseadults treat them as if they intend meaning with their variousmotions. For Trevarthen, this involves an unduly simple accountof the initial state of the child: it is incompatible with evidence thateven prior to any socialisation the child must be taken to be acomplexly motivated active agent (Trevarthen, 1988: 80). 'Humanbeings show preferential responses to persons from before birth'(p. 41). As infants they exhibit 'potent control behaviours . . . thatstimulate a particular diet or syllabus of supportive and instructivebehaviour from caretakers' (p. 37). This leads Trevarthen to anaccount of how children acquire competence in the use of symbolsand the deployment of knowledge which is replete with nativismyet profoundly sociological.

Symbols are not inserted into the child purely by externalagency, and their standard meanings impressed and enforced on achaotic mentality by social control. The child, innately, is a'meaning' seeker, pre-formed as a potential communicator with aninnate self-other scheme available from the start as the basis forcommunication. The child actively seeks communication andactively co-ordinates his use of symbols with their use by others inthe course of communication. Indeed the child has an ^enthusiasmfor communicating with symbols' (Trevarthen and Logotheti,1989: 51, my italics), and for co-operating in practices wherein hisuse of symbols can be co-operatively developed in conjunction

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with that of others and co-ordinated with theirs. It is indeed thisactivity of co-operation and co-ordination which, considered as awhole, sustains the meaning of symbols as the product of acollective communicative interaction, and hence sustains cultureand society as a whole.'" Analogously, knowledge is not astandardised version of the world which a society impresses uponnew members. New members have from the start a 'primarymotivation to gain an evaluation of experience that has inter-personal and communal validity' (Trevarthen and Logotheti, 1987:77). They are born with an 'inherent readiness to link theirsubjective evaluations of experience with those of other persons'(Trevarthen, 1988: 37), and with a 'self-regulating strategy forgetting knowledge by negotiation and cooperative action' (p. 39).Thus, the child actively connives in the transmission, evaluationand application of the knowledge teachers make available: he doesnot merely assimilate. Presumably, it is existing knowledge whichthe child acquires and perpetuates, not because the child is passiveand the teacher active, but because existing knowledge representsthe prominent solution to a problem of co-ordination recognisedby two active agents.

The child is innately predisposed to become a 'competentmember'," an agent able to participate in the public realmof communicative interaction. This is a well-exemplified andreasonably precise notion but is not easy to formulate in autilitarian terminology. It does not mean that the child isaltruistically oriented to his culture, or irrationally committed toparticipation in his culture, since the very notions of altruism andirrationality lack grip in the contexts being considered: paradigmexamples of altruistic or irrational activity stand in no obviousanalogy to the cases of communicative interaction at issue.Similarly, care is needed when formulating the notion in asociological framework. An inherent readiness to align cognitionand co-ordinate activity is not an inherent inclination to conformity,whether it is conformity to rules, or routines, or to the demands ofothers. Nor is it a matter of being inclined to agree with others -unless the agreement referred to here is the kind of agreementwhich makes both agreement and disagreement possible, the verygeneral form of agreement in practice which makes it possibleto formulate agreement and disagreement of opinion. Evenreferences to innate co-operativeness need careful interpretation.Trevarthen, if I read him aright, is not suggesting that everychild is a latent assembly-line worker, inexplicably attracted

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toward complex co-ordinated activity. Rather, the child jxissessescompetences which permit rapid co-ordination of cognition andco-operative interaction. In practising and perfecting these com-petences the child is enthusiastically developing powers which lieunder his own active control. In putting these powers to use inrelations with others the child is not subordinating himself to, butrather constituting, social relationships. Innate propensities arenot the constraints which bind the child into a given social order;they are the resources which facilitate his participation in a form oflife.'2

Precisely what innate propensities allow the child effectively toengage himself as a participant in a form of life will continue to bethe subject of further investigation and analysis.'^ But for theneeds of the present paper it suffices to advance just a few modestand highly plausible claims. First, as an inborn communicator thechild lives normally and naturally in a medium of symbolicexchange, transmitting and receiving messages, much as he lives ina medium of metabolically crucial gases, inhaling and exhaling.Although any particular output of symbols may have the status ofa consciously chosen speech act, it is incorrect to imagine that theeconomics of choice and preference can be applied to theproduction of symbols generally. Secondly, both as an inborncommunicator and as an agent whose primary motivation is 'togain an evaluation of experience that has interp>ersonal andcommunal validity', the child has the capacity and the motivationto align and standardise the use of symbols. Without standardisationthere is no shared meaning, no shared knowledge, and nocommunication. But a motivation to standardise implies a dispositionto influence others in symbolic interaction and a susceptibility tothe influence of others in such interaction. There can be nosymbolic exchanges without mutual regulation of the use ofsymbols, no communicative interaction without mutual susceptibilitybetween those who interact. Where there is symbolic interaction,there must be mutual sanctioning. Mutual symbolic sanctioningmust be a part of what is normal and natural to us if Trevarthen'svision is correct. That which sociology has to take as given to solvethe free-rider problem, psychology confirms as being inherentlypresent.

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Sanctioning the collective good

If man is by nature an active communicator, then we are entitled,as it were, to help ourselves to symbolic sanctioning as we attemptto account for the generation of collective goods. The basic fact ofthe existence of such sanctioning requires no rationalisation ineconomic-instrumental terms. Indeed, our conception of what isinstrumental in a given context could not be sustained in theabsence of our natural proclivity for symbolic manipulation andcommunication.

This is why it will not do to admit the role of symbolicsanctioning but to retain an overall economic-instrumental frame-work. Coleman does this when he identifies mutual symbolicsanctioning as instrumental action with the special feature ofhaving extremely low production costs. The error is a fundamentalone. It is a denial of the authenticity of symbolic sanctioning whichflies in the face of experience. If activities like 'encouragement','approval', 'honouring' and so forth were mere instrumentalities,cheap to produce but worth a great deal to consumers, then a morethan adequate supply of them could readily be obtained throughexchange. We should all find it easy to exist upon pinnacles of self-esteem, as members of mutual adoration societies, satiated withapproval. But we do not. For honour or approval offered out ofexpediency in this way, merely as the payment for reciprocatedhonour or approval, are by that very fact drained of value andmade worthless: they are no longer honour or approval.'''

To understand the incidence and effect of mutual symbolicsanctioning we have, of course, to recognise that it operates in thecontext of a vast range of instrumental considerations, and that itis conditioned by them.'^ But we have to resist the temptationto subsume the sanctioning itself wholly to the instrumentalframework. Acting directly for the collective good may be actingpurely as means: acting to sanction the collective good never is.The analogy between the two kinds, of action must be resisted.There is indeed a clear sense in which it is unprofitable, and to thatextent irrational, to contribute to the direct provision of acollective good. On the face of it, it seems analogously irrational tosanction the provision of the good, but on further consideration weshould reject that analogy in favour of another. We shouldrecognise that sanctioning the collective good is no more irrationalthan the truly analogous symbolic activities of defining and

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categorising the good, of establishing it as a generally recognisableand recognised good in a collective in the first place. Indeed, it willbe a rare situation wherein we are able to identify two distinct setsof symbolic activities, one which makes the collective good visibleand another which encourages its realisation.

That a communication is a sanction does not mean that it mustbe a sanction and nothing else. Indeed it is probably typical ofsymbolic sanctions that they are something else at the same time,that without necessarily losing effectiveness or efficiency theymay simultaneously be related to a number of ends of whichsanctioning is just one."* A mother need not identify a child'saction as a good action, go on to point out the good it furthers, andthen express approval of the child: a single remark may approveaction and performer, and suggest the grounds for such approval.'That is nice and clean' may at once be a part of the business ofteaching what cleanliness is, a part of its identification as a good,and a sign of approval for the child who, deliberately orinadvertently, has just done the 'cleaning'.

Similarly, when people consider the merits of striking orreturning to work, of voting this way or that or not at ali, ofenhsting for war or desisting from enlisting, they are generally atone and the same time identifying, constituting and sanctioningthe collective good. The normal natural symbolic activity whichestablishes the collective good in the collective understanding atthe same time sanctions it and encourages its realisation. If there isanything left of the free-rider problem here, is it not a problem ofcognition as much as action? Why trouble to think the collectivegood: why not let others think it on our behalf? It may indeed bethat this is a question nol altogether devoid of interest, but nobodyto date has proposed a rational decision theory of cognition.

Decision theorists are right to question the ability of rationalagents, acting independently, to supply collective goods. But theyare wrong to imagine that such agents are unable to overcome theproblem by interacting together. Mutual sanctioning allows theproblem to be solved. And mutual sanctioning is, I believe, whatdoes generally solve the problem, in those cases where it is solvedin actual practice. This is to give an immense significance to mutualsanctioning, for the free-rider problem is no marginal difficulty inneed of tidying up, but a fundamental issue at the core of socialtheory. All societies have to produce a range of public goods,including systems of norms and conventions which are publicrather than individual goods. The production of many individual

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goods is dependent upon the prior production of public goods: inmodem societies the voting of representatives is the key exampleof this relationship. Even the production and reproduction ofthe collective itself may be collective action, not individuallyadvantageous action: the boundary around the collective has to bemaintained by work, and any individual, however much hebenefits from the boundary, may be tempted to let others do thework of boundary maintenance. Individualistic styles of thought,of which decision theory is a paradigm example, tend to obscurethe truly profound significance of collective action and interaction.

Implications for decision theory

Tliis paper has argued that a well-recognised empirical anomalyfor rational decision theory is indeed indicative of a genuineinsufficiency in the theory. The anomaly is an excess of collectiveaction; the cause is a form of symbolic activity which cannot besubsumed into the existing structure of the theory. The effect ofthe argument is to show that decision theory cannot stand as ageneral and comprehensive theory of human behaviour. Thetheory is insufficient as an account of symbolic interaction andthe mutual sanctioning which is part and parcel of symbolicinteraction.

Should we then treat economics, game theory and other theorieswhich rely upwn the individualistic assumptions of decision theoryas theories of limited scope, valid in their appropriate domain, butproperly applicable only to certain kinds of action? Should werestrict them to the realm of profane, instrumental actions andallow that sociology and other holistic social sciences shouldbe used to account for communicative interaction, discourseand conversation, the generation of images, ideas and culturalartefacts, the performance of rites and ceremonies? Certainly, thiswould nicely sustain the modus vivendi between the two differentkinds of social sciences, and ensure that in explaining theoperation of any given society both kinds would gain, as it were, apiece of the action. Such an approach is wholly misconceived,notwithstanding. The provision of collective goods is, after all, apart of what is generally taken to be the instrumental activity ofany society: if a theory fails here, it fails as economics. Indeed partof the importance of the foregoing discussion is that it challengesthe widespread presumption that a clear empirical distinction can

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be made between systems of instrumental action and symbolicinteraction.

Decision theory is constructed in a way which makes theindependent, isolated human being paradigmatic. This renders itinadequate as a sociological theory and ipso facto as an economictheory. There is nothing to be said against a sociological theorymaking reference to individual human beings, but such beings are,paradigmatically, intensely susceptible to those other humanbeings with whom they are invariably engaged in symbolicinteraction. Individual agents must be perceived, not as islands,but as points in a field of influences and pressures constituted byother agents. Decision theorists claim that their theory as it standsis successful in accounting for an impressive amount of data, butsuccess of this kind does not justify retention of the theory. Therewill always be particular cases where interpersonal pressures arelow, or where they reinforce self-interest, and hence there willalways be cases where an incorrect general assumption of the non-existence of interptersonal pressures will yield the 'right' answer.There is nothing strange in 'wrong' theories sometimes, or evenmostly, yielding 'right' answers in this kind of way, and no case forretaining such theories unchanged on these grounds.'^

None the less, it would be wrong simply to abandon the entireapproach represented by decision theory. Note that the specificcriticism directed against it, although a fundamental one, does notdirectly challenge either of the two explicit postulates initiallypresented as characteristic of the theory. Indeed I am not at allsure that the postulates of rationality and self-interest should bedirectly challenged. Perhaps some version of them should actuallybe retained even after the move from an individualist to aninteractionist frame of thought, although quite how the postulatesmight best be reformulated to sit consistently in the newframework I am not sure.

Nothing asserted here straightforwardly contradicts a postulateof rationality. Symbolic interaction cannot be entirely the con-sequence of rational calculation, but the existence of symbolicinteraction, sui generis as it were, does not imply any lapse fromrationality or willingness to act against the indications of rationalcalculation. The analogy has been made between symboliccommunication and breathing: breathing is not irrational, nor,given its beneficial consequences, is it in any clear sense non-rational. It could be argued that breathing is involuntary andhence necessarily non-rational, but the response would be that

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breathing is susceptible of voluntary, conscious control: everybreath we take is a matter of choice if we wish to make it so, just asis the case with every communication we make, every sequence ofsymbols we put forth.

We may consistently continue to think of individuals as rationalagents, and there are strong grounds for doing so. In all the socialsciences at the present time, from psychology, through sociologyand ethnomethodology, to economics, empirical evidence is be-coming increasingly difficult to reconcile with a view of humanactions as passive, unmediated responses to 'external' promptings,whether these promptings are located in the general physical en-vironment or in the immediate environment of the body itself.Individuals initiate actions. And where their actions are responsive,the responses are the outcome of complex processes involvingmanifestly planful, future-oriented, richly-informed cognition.This is often expressed in the assertion that individuals are activeagents. And there is an intimate connection between the notion ofan active agent and the postulate of rationality. Deny the role ofrational calculation in the planning and appraisal of action and onedenies the possibility of activity itself, in the full sense of the term.Thus, we should probably retain the postulate that individualactions are in some sense rationally calculated, as a part of theattempt to understand interacting individuals as active agents,although it must be acknowledged that many difficulties surroundthe question of what precisely might be meant by 'rational calcula-tion' here.

As with the rationality postulate so with that of self-interest:nothing asserted here straightforwardly contradicts it. And againthere are empirical grounds for retaining the postulate, or rathersome modified version of it. First of all, it is worth pointing to thealmost complete absence, as empirical phenomena, of the mostunproblematic forms of altruistic behaviour. It is difficult toidentify even prima facie cases of behaviour patterns whereinindividual members act to the systematic benefit of non-members,to the detriment of themselves and other members. There is nosignificant empirical problem of altruistic action in this sense. Thissuggests that the very real empirical problem of collective action isdistinct from the wider problem of altruism, and should be solvedwithout any essential dependence on altruistic dispositions orproclivities. And indeed precisely this is a feature of the solutionproposed here: it holds that mutual sanctioning may induceindividuals to contribute to the indivisible a)l!ective good without

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any necessary conflict with self-interest, and hence without needfor altruism; and conversely it accepts that mutual sanctioning mayfail if it is insufficient to effect the required transformation of self-interest. The crucial grounds for the citation of mutual sanctioningare first that it is plausible empirically, but second that it spares usthe need to explain why individuals should coherently andsystematically act in opposition to their own self-interest. Inother words, the very plausibility of mutual sanctioning as anexplanation of collective action derives in part from a recognitionof the importance of self-interest. Once more, however, it isnecessary to add a proviso, and to emphasise the many difficultiesinvolved in specifying what might be meant by 'self-interest' here,in conditions where people are indissolubly bound together, inthought, feeling and future, by symbolic interaction.

Human beings everywhere operate in ways which manifestcaiculative skills and strong concern with self: possibly it islegitimate to characterise them as self-interested, rational calculators.But, equally, human beings everywhere are interacting humanbeings, constitutively communicative human beings intenselysusceptible to each other through communication: for them to becharacterised as rational and self-interested the meanings of theseterms must be developed and modified until they are compatiblewith the inalienably social nature of the individual, his existence as aparticipant in a form of life. If such an enriched conception of theindividual were to be satisfactorily articulated and disseminated,the conflict between individualistic and holistic traditions in thesocial sciences might be much alleviated. Further consideration ofcollective action and the free-rider problem could well have animportant part to play in developments of this kind.

Science Studies Unit Received 18 April 1989University of Edinburgh Finally accepted 17 July 198934 Buccleuch PlaceEdinburgh EH8 9JT

Acknowledgments

In 1987 I attended a conference on Cognition and Social Worlds atthe University of Keele which proved an invaluable preliminary tothe writing of this paper. I want to express my appreciation toAngus Gellatly, Don Rogers and John Sloboda for their efforts to

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bring together psychologists and sociologists in the context of thatevent. The original text has been improved in response to specificsuggestions from David Bloor, Gianfranco Poggi, and a referee ofSociological Review. 1 aiso wish to thank Colwyn Trevarthen foran extremely useful discussion of his ideas, but at the same time itis important to emphasise that he bears no responsibility for theway in which his work is used, or misused in the above.

Notes

1 Hardin (19S2) analyses at length the precise circumstances in which thepostulates of rational decision theory imply tree-riding.

2 [ speak of the empirical problem in contrast to what is sometimes regarded asthe logical problem raised by free-riding: how is it that self-interested rationalbehaviour by the individuals in a group is not the optimal behaviour forfurthering the self-interest of those individuals?

3 Although Hardin (1982) is inclined to minimize the significatsce of cases whereinfree-riding is overcome, his careful survey of what is known empiricallyprovides many examples of successfui collective action and leaves no room fordoubt that it is of profound importance. One particulariy interesting pr/ma/adecase of collective action is, of course, voting.

4 E)ster (1984, IIJ) cites strong empirical evidence relevant to his preference fordecision theory as opposed to some 'sociological' alternatives. Note also thatthose sociological theories which stress either altruism or a non-rationalcommitment to social norms face a kind of inverse free-rider problem evenmore serious than the original: they must explain why there is so much free-riding, and why successfui collective action is often extremely difficult toachieve.

5 By 'purely symbolic" sanctioning 1 mean sanctioning which involves no changein the physical condition of the sanctioned agent, and no gain or loss of hisrecognised rights, obligations or powers, either as manifest action or as genuinethreat, Physical coercion and economic inducement are thereby excluded. Whatremain, in effect, are communication sequences, elements of which signify or'symbolically represent' the regard or lack of regard of others. The overallargument of this paper actually requires agents to possess some basic, inherentcompetence in the perception of sign/signified relationships and in the directapprehension of the regard or Sack of regard of others. But it is difficult to seehow any account of socialisation might avoid making analogous requirements.

6 It should be possible to identify and check specific differences in the empiricalexpectations generated by Coleman's approach and my own. One suchdifference may be that, whereas on my approach mutual sanctioning maysustain the production of collective goods for groups of unlimited size, withColeman this apparently is not so.

7 References to innate propensities are still often closely coupled with biologicalevolutionary perspectives, and these in tum are still sometimes developed inclose association with political polemics, so that they operate as ideologieslegitimating policies and doctrines. But both these connections are eontingent

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and should not be allowed to engender a generalised hostility to any referenceto the innate.

8 Trevarthen's papers give great emphasis to the presentation of empiricalmaterials, something obscured by mji use of selected quotations andconcentration upon general conclusions. I make no attempt to provide adetailed evaluation of these empirical materials here, or to assess theirrelevance to the conclusions they are used to justify. Not only do I lack space forthe task and the competence to perform it, there is the further difficulty thatmuch of the evidence must be looked at, not read about. I must emphasize alsothat Trevarthen uses his findings to support a great number of conjectures, onlya few of which are of central relevance here. 1 have been highly selective in theuse of his material, ordering and interpreting it to maximize its relevance tomatters at hand, probably at the cost of obscuring some of its author's originalpriorities, possibly at the cost of weakening or distorting some of his arguments.

9 My citation of material which I am not fully competent to evaluate is, I hope,justified by the inter-disciplinary context and the difficuity of operating in such acontext in any other way. There istoolittle transfer of findings and theoriesbetween disciplines: it needs to be encouraged.

10 It would probably be worthwhile to attempt some improvement of vocabularyhere. The terms 'meaning* and 'symbol', used in references to children whohave not yet acquired symbols or understood meanings, could in somecircumstances lead to difficulty. The notion of the child as a 'meaning seeker'could be misunderstood in a teleological sense. The notion that one individual'suse of symbols may be co-ordinated with Ihat of another individual coutd betaken to imply that symbols are individual and not collective possessions.Perhaps it would be better to speak of the child's inherent enthusiasm for"constituting symbols' and 'generating meanings' in conjunction with others,and then to offer some behavioural account of such activities. However, for thelimited purposes of the present discussion I hope the present text will serve.

11 The ethnomethodologieal notion of 'competent member' comes as close asanything in the social sciences to what is needed here. See Garfinkel (1967).

12 Wittgenstein's (1968) notion of'participation in a form of life" is as close asanything in philosophy to what is required, and is very close to the notion ofcompetent membership. The work of Alfred Sehutz (1964) is also seminal toany attempt to develop such notions. Continental philosophy and social theory,of which Arendt and Habermas are the most obvious examples, offer anextended literature abounding in closely related ideas.

13 The formation of groups, with associated member/stranger or insider/outsiderdistinctions; the formation of hierarchies, with associated superior/subordinatedistinctions; and the formation of exchange relationships, with generalisedreciprocity and co-operation, are other topics of importance in macro-socialtheory where the identification of innate proclivities by developmentalpsychologists could be of profound importance.

14 This is not to claim that the professional flatterer and toady cannot hope forsuccess, but only that he will not obtain it if he explicitly acknowledges himselfas such. Sycophancy is, of course, an extremely important form of activity whichprecisely stands as testimony to the potency of symbolic sanctioning.

15 Although the point has been made more than once already, it cannot beemphasised too often that symbolic sanctioning offers only the potential for asolution to the free-rider problem, not an actual solution in every given case.

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Symbolic sanctioning may always be possible or even actual, but it must also becoherent, and inescapable, and strong enough to incite the action at issue.Often it will not be enough, which from a theoretical point of view is as it shouldbe, since collective action so often fails (Barnes, 1988: Ch. 5).

16 A very important kind of communication,whichldo not consider here,operates at the level of explicit meaning to transmit empirical infonnation,whilst simultaneously operating implicitly to communicate approval, respect,regard, or their ofqxKites. In some contexts sanctioning may be almost entirelyimplicit, carried free of charge by the spare capacity of the main informationtransmission system.

17 There is no hard and fast distinction to be made between the replacement of atheory and its development and adaptation. See Barnes (1982), where the caseis made in relation to natural scientific theories. In the present context thisallows a choice. My argument may be taken, according to taste, as an attempt toimprove decision theory, or as an attempt to overthrow it.

Bibliography

Barnes. B., (1982). T.S. Kuhn and Social Science, London. Macmillan.Barnes, B., (1988), The Nature of Power, Cambridge, Polity Press.Coleman, J.S., (1988), "Free riders and zealots'. Sociological Theory, vol. 6, pp.

52-7.Elster, J., (1984), Ulysses and Ike Sirens, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Garfinkel, H., (1967), Studies in Elhnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice

Hail.Hardin, R., (1982). Collective Action. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press.Mead, G.H., (1934), Mind, Self and Society, Chicago, Chicago University Press.Olson, M., (1%5), The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA, Harvard

University Press.Schelling, T.C., (1960), The Strategy of Confiict, Cambridge, MA, Harvard

University Press.Sehutz, A., (1964), Stttdies in Social Theory. Collected Papers. The Hague, Nijhoff.

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Trevarthen, C. and Logotheti, K., (1987), "First symbols and the nature of humanknowledge', in Symbolism and Knowledge. Cahiers de la Foundation JeanPiaget, No. 8 (ed. J. Montangero), Geneva, Archives Piaget.

Trevarthen, C. and Logotheti, K., (1989), 'Chiid and culture: genesis of co-operative knowing', in Cognition and Social Worlds, (eds A. Gellatly, D. Rogersand J. Sloboda), Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Wittgenstein, L., (1968), Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

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