| Abstrakt: |
The problem of cooperation has not yet been effectively answered by sociology. Indeed, although much literature has been devoted to the subject, there exists considerable ambiguity regarding the origins and maintenance of cooperation over time. Various categories of theory have been offeredâ?”public resources theories, such as those championed by Hechter (1987); normative theories of the kind articulated by Coleman (1990); affective theories, such as those offered by Lawler and Yoon (2000); and more recently network theories, of the kind offered by Heckathorn and Rosenstein (2002). While each of these theories certainly addresses different aspects of the problem of cooperation, no one theory is independently able to satisfactorily explain it fully.Central to the controversy is the problem of free-riders. Free-riding, socioeconomic exploitation, and other inequalities are well known features of society (Smith 2003). In fact, the pervasiveness of monitoring and punishment against such behaviors demonstrates the ubiquitous nature of these antisocial behaviors. Considerable space has been devoted in the literatures of a variety of disciplines in an attempt to explain the origins and maintenance of cooperative behaviors in the face of the seemingly natural desire to free-ride. Many possible solutions have been offered ranging from the nearly completely biological explanations of Trivers (1971) to the nearly completely cultural explanations of McPherson and Smith-Lovin (2002), and Heckathorn and Rosenstein (2002). Recently, explanations have been offered that attempt to incorporate both biological and sociological reasoning into a coherent theory of the origins and maintenance of cooperative behavior (Bowles and Gintis 2003). None of these explanations, however, are fully satisfactory from a theoretical point of view; and they seem even less desirable from an empirical point of view. In this paper, I briefly review the problem of cooperation, and assess the current explanations from a variety of perspectives. I conclude that all extant theories of cooperation share in common one untenable assertion that prevents satisfactory resolution to the problem of cooperation. I propose an alternative, and construct a mathematical model to demonstrate the possibility and utility of this new theoretical paradigm. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
