User:Nick Gardner /Sandbox

Social capital then emerges in the form of expectations that others will reciprocate in response to co-operative initiatives; and it can spread through the community as more and more people become aware of the advantages of cooperation.

whether or not co-operation takes root will depend on the pre-existing set of social and political relations in the community and on the degree of inequality and polarization suffered by society

. Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984).

Humans are prone to cooperate, even with strangers. Thus many people cooperate in anonymous one-shot PD games (Marwell and Ames, 1981), Marwell, G. and R.E. Ames 1981 Economist Free Ride: Does Anyone Else? Journal of Public Economicsand often vote altruistically (Sears and Funk, 1990)Sears, D.O. and C.L. Funk 1990 Self Interest in Americans' Political Opinions. In Beyond Self-Interest, edited by J.J. Mansbridge, pp. 147-170. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.. People begin contributing substantially to public goods sectors in economic experiments (Falk, et al., this volume; Kopelman, et al., this volume; (Ostrom, 1998). The experimental results accord with common experience. Most of us have travel in foreign cities, even poor foreign cities filled with strange people for whom our possessions and spending money are worth a small fortune, and found risk of robbery and commercial chicanery to be small. • Cooperation is contingent on many things. Not everyone cooperates. Aid to distressed victims increases substantially if a potential altruist’s empathy is engaged (Batson, 1991). Being able to discuss a game beforehand, and to make promises to cooperate affects success (Dawes, et al., 1990). The size of the resource, technology for exclusion and exploitation of the resource and similar gritty details affect whether cooperation in commons management arises (Ostrom, 1990: 202-204). Ostrom, E. 1990 Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — 1998 A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action. American Political Science Review 92: 1-22. Scientific findings again correspond well to personal experience. Sometimes we cooperate enthusiastically, sometimes reluctantly, and sometimes not at all. People vary considerably in their willingness to cooperate even under the same environmental conditions. • Institutions matter. People from different societies behave differently because their habits have

Fehr, E. and J.-R. Tyran 1996 Institutions and Reciprocal Fairness. Nordic Journal of Political Economy (punishment)

Social Capital: Explaining Its Origins and Effects on Government Performance CARLES BOIX AND DANIEL N. POSNER British Journal of Political Science (1998)

Ostrom, Elinor, 1990, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press).

Darwin (1874:178- 179)Darwin, C. 1874 The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: American Home Library.

thought, competed tribe against tribe as well as individually, and that the “social and moral faculties” evolved under the influence of group competition: It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.