One upon a time there was a tribe of 100 people or so. One member of the tribe was named UGGG and he made spears, another was SSSJ and she made nets. Now, SSSJ needed a spear and UGG needed a net so they decided to trade for it. One net for a spear, a simple proposition. Do you know where the story leads?
You may think about this as bartering and economics, supply and demand and the like but it isn't. This trade is a trade backed by morality and ethics and enforced by the community even though it is between two independent individuals.
Neither party need honour the agreement and each can attempt to cheat the other by non-compliance or lowering quality or the like but, there is a severe penalty for doing so as in a small community unit of 100 people, everyone knows everyone and being labelled a cheat or scammer is to commit a harm to the community and the community will enact its punishment.
Often, the punishment was ostracisation from the group and in a hostile environment, that meant death. Being a social outcast by extracting value from the community without return was very high as there would be no other community to take one in and most could not survive alone, nor would they want to as social desires would warn against it.
So if SSSJ decided to take the spear without providing a net, the community would arbitrate and she would either be forced to comply or, be cast aside as the cost of extractors in such a small group is high. If everyone acted the same and only took, the community would be unable to trust in others and would not cooperate and therefore, not be able to solve the problems too large for an individual. It is the community that backs this, not retribution from UGG for being cheated.
This cost to the individual meant that one would have to learn how to be part of the community to benefit from the cooperated problem solving of large issues outside of personal capabilities. This required to be a valuable member (useful) for the community and for the most part, that meant the community would grow without any particular member having a lot more or less than the next. This worked in such small groups.
But, society has been moving away from that position for a long time and the community backed social cost of being an extractor has been replaced by maximisation of the individual bound by laws created by authorities. The cost to the individual of being ostracised is no longer high as there is always another group to turn to that will take them in, another group that is filled with maximisers to support other maximisers.
This means even when SSSJ is caught scamming UGGG and not offering a net in return, she need not worry as her reputation in the community is spread to many smaller groups with many of those to either unknowingly keep supporting or, hold the same ethics. This is a diversification of reputation risk and incentivizes poor ethics over community growth, optimisation of individual wealth over distribution for the community.
In the times of nets and spears, it was the best net and spear makers who were incentivized and rewarded, not the scammers as after one or two poor performances, trust would be lost. The problems we face now of course is that with a low cost to the individual for not adding value means that there is little incentive to actually add value to the community that their own value is being extracted from.
The problem with the entire system is that if everyone only extracts it collapses but, there is very little cost to the extractors who are only able to operate because enough community orientated people choose to put in more than they take out or, forego their own extraction benefits.
The extractors have a massive advantage in this as in time, other extractors grow and band together to create a circle of extractors at the expense of the community.
Once upon a time, people would be ashamed and would hide if having the behaviour of an extractor but now, it is rewarded, a badge of honour of sorts. The ones incentivised are those who are able to do the least for the most personal gain, even at the expense of others.
In a community of 100 people, that could not fly, the group would fail and everyone would fail along with it. These days, the extractors just move onto the next community to bleed it dry without missing a step. Most likely, thinking they are clever for getting out before the collapse when it was they who collapsed it.
There is an eventual cost to greed and lack of community and it is one we will all pay, one way or another. For me, it is not about the punishment of bad actors, it is about the incentivizing of good as only when it becomes more valuable to build the community than extract from it will the community be able to really get back to solving those problems much larger than any one individual within can do alone.
Taraz
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