Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T04:42:44.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The continuing evolution of ultrasocial economic organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2016

Joshua C. Farley
Joshua C. Farley*
Affiliation:
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. [email protected]/~jfarley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ultrasociality, as expressed in agricultural, monetary, and fossil fuel economies, has spurred exponential growth in population and in resource use that now threaten civilization. These threats take the form of prisoner's dilemmas. Avoiding collapse requires more cooperative economic organization that must be informed by knowledge of human behavior and cultural evolution. The evolution of a cooperative information economy is one possibility.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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

Axelrod, R. M. (1984) The evolution of cooperation. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Benkler, Y. (2002) Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and the nature of the firm. Yale Law Journal 112(3):369–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowles, S. (2008) Policies designed for self-interested citizens may undermine “the moral sentiments”: Evidence from economic experiments. Science 320(5883):1605–609.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (2004) The evolution of strong reciprocity: Cooperation in heterogeneous populations. Theoretical Population Biology 65(1):17–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. J. (2003) The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100(6):3531–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cipriani, G. P., Lubian, D. & Zago, A. (2009) Natural born economists? Journal of Economic Psychology 30(3):455–68. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2008.10.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farley, J. (2010) Ecological economics. In: The post carbon reader: Managing the 21st century's sustainability crises, ed. Heinberg, R. & Lerch, D., pp. 259–78. Watershed Media.Google Scholar
Farley, J. & Kubiszewski, I. (2015) The economics of information in a post carbon world. In: Free knowledge, ed. Hepting, D., pp. 199–222. University of Regina Press.Google Scholar
Farley, J. & Perkins, S. (2013) Economics of information in a green economy. In: Building a green economy, ed. Robertson, R., pp. 83–100. Michigan State University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E. & Fishchbacher, U. (2002) Why social preference matter – The impact of non-selfish motives on competition, cooperation and incentives. The Economic Journal 112(478):C1–C33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E. & Gachter, S. (2000) Cooperation and punishment in Public Goods experiments. The American Economic Review 90(4):980–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, B. & Schulze, G. G. (2000) Does economics make citizens corrupt? Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 43(1):101–13. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0167-2681(00)00111-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, R. H., Gilovich, T. & Regan, D. T. (1993) Does studying economics inhibit cooperation? Journal of Economic Perspectives 7(2):159–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gächter, S. (2007) Conditional cooperation: Behavioral regularities from the lab and the field and their policy implications. In: Economics and psychology: A promising new cross-disciplinary field, ed. Frey, B. S. & Stutzer, A., pp. 19–50. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gintis, H. (2000) Beyond Homo economicus: Evidence from experimental economics. Ecological Economics 35(3):311–22. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(00)00216-0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R. & Fehr, E., eds. (2005) Moral sentiments and material interests: The foundations of cooperation in economic life. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirchgässner, G. (2005) (Why) are economists different? European Journal of Political Economy 21(3):543–62. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2005.05.003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kouchaki, M., Smith-Crowe, K., Brief, A. P. & Sousa, C. (2013) Seeing green: Mere exposure to money triggers a business decision frame and unethical outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 121(1):53–61. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.12.002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kubiszewski, I., Farley, J. & Costanza, R. (2010) The production and allocation of information as a good that is enhanced with increased use. Ecological Economics 69(6):1344–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lea, S. E. G. & Webley, P. (2006) Money as tool, money as drug: The biological psychology of a strong incentive. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29:161–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marwell, G. & Ames, R. E. (1981) Economists free ride, does anyone else? Experiments on the provision of public goods, IV. Journal of Public Economics 15(3):295–310. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0047-2727(81)90013-X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mustonen, M. (2003) Copyleft: The economics of Linux and other open source software. Information Economics and Policy 15(1):99–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowak, M. & Highfield, R. (2011) SuperCooperators: Altruism, evolution, and why we need each other to succeed. The Free Press/Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Sober, E. & Wilson, D. S. (1998) Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vohs, K. D., Mead, N. L. & Goode, M. R. (2006) The psychological consequences of money. Science 314(5802):1154–56. doi: 10.1126/science.1132491.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vohs, K. D., Mead, N. L. & Goode, M. R. (2008) Merely activating the concept of money changes personal and interpersonal behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(3):208–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, L., Malhotra, D. & Murnighan, J. K. (2011) Economics education and greed. Academy of Management Learning and Education 10(4):643–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. S. (2007) Evolution for everyone: How Darwin's theory can change the way we think about our lives. Delacorte Press.Google Scholar