Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T03:03:21.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THINKING ABOUT SOCIAL NORMS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2022

Ken Binmore
Ken Binmore*
Affiliation:
Economics Department, Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that it is a waste of time seeking to treat populists as examples of homo economicus when seeking to persuade them that the conspiracy theories to which they subscribe are big lies. But it does not follow that homo economicus is worthless in this context. He has a role in explaining the evolution of the social norms whose violation is the root cause of the rise of populist movements. Such an approach requires a willingness to entertain both proximate and ultimate explanations of human behaviour simultaneously.

Keywords

proximateultimatehomo economicussocial normconventionreciprocityfolk theoremA13B00B52C70
Type
Special Issue Articles: The Political Economy of Populism
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 259: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF POPULISM , Winter 2022 , pp. 20 - 30
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of National Institute Economic Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alchian, A. (1950), ‘Uncertainty, evolution and economic theory’, Journal of Political Economy, 58, pp. 221–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axelrod, R. (1984), The Evolution of Cooperation, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bicchieri, C. (2006), Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms , Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bicchieri, C. (2012), The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Binmore, K. (2001), ‘A review of Robert Axelrod’s: The complexity of cooperation: Agent-based models of competition and collaboration’, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, available online at http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/1/1/review1.html.Google Scholar
Binmore, K. (2005), Natural Justice, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, K. (2010), ‘Social norms or social preferences?’ Mind and Society, 9, pp. 139–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, K. (2020), Crooked Thinking or Straight Talk? Modernizing Epicurean Scientific Philosophy, Cham: Springer Nature.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, K. and Samuelson, L. (1994), ‘Equilibrium selection and evolutionary drift’, Review of Economic Studies, 66, pp. 363–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. (1953), ‘The methodology of positive economics’, in Friedman’s Essays on Positive Economics, Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Hindricks, F. and Guala, F. (2015), ‘Institutions, rules and equilibria: A unified theory’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 11, pp. 459–80 (see also the commentaries in the same issue).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, D. (1739), A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford: Clarendon Press (edited by Selby-Bigge, L. A. Revised by Nidditch, P., 1978.)Google Scholar
Kirman, A. and Vriend, N. (2000), ‘Learning to be loyal: A study of the Marseille fish market’, in Gallegati, G. and Kirman, P. (eds), Interaction and Market Structure, Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems 484, Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1969), Conventions: A Philosophical Study, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. (1982), Evolution and the Theory of Games , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, G., Cabrales, A., Rissing, S. and Binmore, K. (2012), ‘Suicidal punishment in the ant Acromyrmex versicolor’, Evolutionary Ecological Research, 14, pp. 1–21.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. (1960), The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tinbergen, N. (1963), ‘On aims and methods of ethology’, Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie, 20, pp. 410–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trivers, R. (1971), ‘The evolution of reciprocal altruism’, Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, pp. 35–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, P. (2001), Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar