Free rider effect is basically that cooperation is difficult to win because those who choose not to cooperate would be advantaged and there would be little cost to defection.
A and B can be easily eliminated but C D and E were all tough for me to eliminate.
C) This was my choice. I couldn't bring myself to eliminate because there 1 person attempting to recycle even though there no law or obligation to do so (i.e. unilateral action) and every1 else is just trashing their recyclables because theres no cost to defection and it's to their advantage (less work, less time spent sorting things etc). I guess it's not a great match because it doesn't seem like theres any cooperation in the works and one person opting out and benefiting from it but their is a collective cost (lots of waste and unrecycled products) and a people freeloading so I just couldn't eliminate it.
D) Person not contributing to fund matches but he's not recieving any benefit or advantage by not so I guess I see why this one is wrong.
E) The farmer seems like he's freeloading off the common fields but I'd appreciate further commentary to clarify how it matches up. I'm guessing because every1 has pledged to purchase food for their own farm animals and allow the field to be regrown and this one farmer is preventing that from happening it is clearly a deleterious issue for the collective well-being similiar to carbon emissions and he is being advantaged in the way others who refuse to use the common area are not. Is this basically it? Thanks!
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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q21
I think you nailed it in the end, as you talked through it.
We want a collective action in which someone/something who defects from that collective action BENEFITS from everybody else's collective action without expending the cost that everybody else is expending.
In (C), the recycler is not BENEFITING from everybody else not recycling. We might say that all the people who don't recycle benefit from the actions of the single guy who recycles, but that's not the right match for collective action vs. defector. We either say that the recycling dude is the defector, but he gets no benefit and the others aren't collectively doing anything. Or we say that the recycling dude is the "collective action" and the "defector" is everybody else (they do benefit, less directly than the shepherd in (E), but it's a stretch to call one person's efforts a collective action). So it's a poor match, either way we slice it.
In (E), the shepherd IS benefiting. Overgrazing is a severe problem; there aren't enough fields for everyone's sheep. Everyone else is taking the collective action to feed sheep with feed, while the defector is benefiting by letting his sheep just graze on the communal fields.
Hope this helps.
We want a collective action in which someone/something who defects from that collective action BENEFITS from everybody else's collective action without expending the cost that everybody else is expending.
In (C), the recycler is not BENEFITING from everybody else not recycling. We might say that all the people who don't recycle benefit from the actions of the single guy who recycles, but that's not the right match for collective action vs. defector. We either say that the recycling dude is the defector, but he gets no benefit and the others aren't collectively doing anything. Or we say that the recycling dude is the "collective action" and the "defector" is everybody else (they do benefit, less directly than the shepherd in (E), but it's a stretch to call one person's efforts a collective action). So it's a poor match, either way we slice it.
In (E), the shepherd IS benefiting. Overgrazing is a severe problem; there aren't enough fields for everyone's sheep. Everyone else is taking the collective action to feed sheep with feed, while the defector is benefiting by letting his sheep just graze on the communal fields.
Hope this helps.
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