Rat choice
But I agree that more recently Bates's insights have seemed to me to be more obscured than sharpened by the "rational choice" methodology in political science... how does the "rat choice" method of PoliSci differ from that of economics? supposedly, rat choice logic is one of the major theoretical tools that sharpens rather than obscures economic thinking, right? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
[PEN-L:2867] illusions of rat-choice (was: AIDS and the blow back)
Rob: "Dropping contaminated corpses" was - of course - a historical metaphor showing the illusion of safet provided by walls, wasn't it Constantinople that not only fell to the "bacteriological warfare" but whose refugees also spread the disease across Europe? For that matter, the film "Safe" - arguably one of the best American motion pictures in the last quarter of the century -- beautifully shows the illusory safety offerred by new age "refuge communities" (no wonder why liberals and new agers hated the film). As far as responses to crises are concerned, I am really far away from rat-choice and game theories, beacuse they try to explain behaviour from omniscient hindsight assumed by the viewer. These theories assume that the actors think what the viewer does - indeed, an example of the arrogance of (social) philosophy - without trying to investigate into the actors' actual thinking, motives, definitions of the situation etc. I am much more inclined to accept a situationist point of view claiming that people re-eneac certain role that come with the definition of the situation, even if that means being harmed in the end. That point is well argued by Jack Katz in _ Seductions of crime : moral and sensual attractions in doing evil_ New York: Basic Books, 1988 -- where he shows how crime requires a ceratin cooperation between the perpetrator and the victim, each one playing the appropriate to the situation and predictable role. He furrther argues that defining the sitiuation as a certain type of crime by the perpetrator is a prerequisite of a success, for otherwise the behavior of the victim is not predictable. I am pretty sure that such is the explanation of the apparent cooperation of nazi victims - the victims simply succumbed to the definition of the situation imposed by the nazis and duly played their victims roles (cf. Richard Rubinstein, _The Cunning of History_ ). I sincerely doubt that any rat-choice calculation, e.g. "compliance will prolong my life by a few minutes" took place. I am pretty sure that had someone transgressed the nazi-imposed script and, like that proverbial child souting "the emperor has no clothes" -- the people quietly marching to the gas chamber would ceased so doing and behaved "unpredictably." That illusrates the powerful influence of collective norms on individual behavior. "Keeping up with the Jonses" may not stand up to the standards of rat-choice, but certainly reduces uncertainty. That I think may explain much of the behavior associated with capitalism - people go shopping sprees, vote answer opinion polls in a predictable way, scapegoat the poor, flee to the burbs etc. not because of some rationally (mis)calculated risks, but because they have been lead to believe that everyone does so and hence it is the "right thing to do." They simply play out the roles they think are expected of them. That view, BTW, offers some hints about the possible scenearios for a revolution in the US Doug asked about a few days ago. Here is one. Have a few truckloads of dynamite to blow up TV stations and newspaper printing facilities and a few crates of ammo to shoot the celebrities and pundits - or find some other way to shut the tube up so people will not know anymore what is being expected of them, what script to follow. Chaos will result, but chaos is a prelude to a revolution. Best regards, Wojtek
Prostitution, marriage rat-choice
At 04:05 PM 1/8/98 -0800, Bill Burgess wrote: This is not only too much faith in the equality of buyer and seller in the market, it is too bleak a view of most (physical and emotional) relations between men and women to be taken seriously. It is not the matter of faith in the market, but of the fundamental difference in cost/benefit calculation between transaction in the market vs. one in the so-called traditional social institutions. Assuming no relation between a sex worker and her client other than a "spot" transaction exchanging sex for money, there is little opportunity cost for a sex worker passing on a particular prospective client. However, the very nature of most social institutions is to increase the opportunity cost to motivate the actor to engage rather than not to engage in a particular sort of activity. In a marriage-type relationship that opportunity may vary form informal sanctions imposed by the husband who got a cold shoulder (ranging from displaying his dissatisfaction to getting physical) to ending the relationship. Thus, the opportunity cost of sex (emotional attachment, informal and formal sanctions) for a woman is considerably higher in marriage than in a "spot" sex-for-money transaction. Of course, that is not limited to marriage. By their very nature, social institutions impose opportunity cost on certain actions which does not exist from a rat-choice perspective (assuming no relationship among actors other than how they value the exchanged objects) - and that explains why people do what they should not be doing from a rat-choice point of view. Thus, most women have little to gain from marriage, both emotionally and financially -- and if they calculated the cost/benefit from a purely rat-choice perspective, few of them would marry. That, however, is not what happens, for there is a considerable opportunity cost attached to the institution of marriage in the form of a host of informal sanctions (ostracism, loss of status, ridicule, etc.) which alter the cost/benefit marriage for the woman and push her into a relationship in which she may have little to gain personally. There is a very good reason for the 'socialist moralism' regarding prostitution - it reflects the plebian horror of falling into poverty, privation, dependency, lumpenization, etc. Perhaps, but that may or may not be an important factor. I think that the fear of falling down the social ladder is much greater in the middle class than in the working class - for two reasons: working class has much less to loose than the "middle" class, and working class has social mechanism to cope with life contingencies that the "middle" class is lacking. That mechanism is social solidarity or the obligation to aid another member of the community in need. The "middle" class, by contrast, tends to rely on accumulated wealth and formal agreements (insurance, retirement accounts) rather than informal social solidarity ties. That explains, for example, why working class is less attached to their material possessions and is more willing to share them (cf. on average working class contributes a higher share of their disposable income to public causes than the middle class). IMO, the main reason behind 'working class moralism' is that not playing expected social roles jeopardizes social solidarity ties - the main mechanism of coping with contingencies. Thus, prostitution threatens the unity of the household, just as homosexulaity and any other non-conventional gender role does. In the same vein, flag burning threatens the unity of the nation. Hence the staunch oppostion of the working class to non-traditional gender roles, falg burining, and other forms of individualism that intellectuals falsely interpret as "conservatism." Regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233
