Irrational group dynamics

David Ignatius:

A theory that explains the chaotic world of 2006 -- one where people from Baghdad to Beijing seem unable to cooperate on projects that would make them better off -- was written more than 40 years ago by an obscure American economist named Mancur Olson Jr. His short 1965 book, "The Logic of Collective Action," explained why big groups, including nation-states, cannot agree on actions that are in their common interest.

You can see this perverse "logic" at work in nearly all the conflicts that vex the planet today. The divisive political dynamic that blocks collective solutions -- what Olson described as the "surprising tendency for the exploitation of the great by the small" -- is apparent even in the United States. But I'm going to stick to foreign examples.

... Iraqis know they would all be better off if they could agree on a national compact that would subordinate sectarian differences to the larger national interests of stability and prosperity. Their leaders keep pledging support for this goal, but it doesn't happen.

Why? Olson, who taught at the University of Maryland until he died in 1998, explained the underlying problem this way: "Unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests."

The problem, he said, is that although everyone would benefit from the collective good of, say, greater security, it's irrational for any individual to make voluntary sacrifices to achieve it.

...

While this is an explanation for why multilateralism is largely a failure, it does not explain why we keep trying it. How has multilateralism solved the problems in Darfur or Somalia or Zimbabwe? It is yet to resolve the ambitions for self destructive behavior in North Korea or Iran. With all this failure what does Ignatius propose? Would you believe more multilateralism.