|
The Logic of Collective Action
Book
Mancur Olson
January 1971 |
| |
|
| Professor Olson's book challenged the then-prevailing conception about group behavior and collective action, which was that people would instinctively or naturally act on common interests, and that inaction need to be explained. He posed two questions: What makes collective action possible? And, what is the relationship between group size and the cohesiveness and effectiveness of the group? Olson stated, "what needs to be known, in the words of the German sociologist Georg Simmel, is ‘the bearing which the number of sociated individuals has upon the form of social life’." He begins his analysis with the traditional assumption of rational individual actors, but his conclusion is radically different: rational, self-interested individuals will NOT act voluntarily to achieve their common or group interests. Instead, when interests are shared, rational actors should prefer to free-ride--that is, to let others pay the cost of goods that will benefit everyone. Groups may nevertheless act to further group interests to the extent that collective action is accompanied by private incentives to reward contributors or to punish non-contributors. The first part of the book is devoted to detailing and explaining this thesis. The rest of the book presents the history of labor unions, classes and the state, interest groups and pressure groups, as the empirical evidence supporting the argument. |
| |
| Last updated on: 3/23/2006 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|