Cohousing-L Mailing List: Alternatives to sanctions

[Hans G. Ehrbar (ehrbar]

In the previous discussion about rules and regulations, a
recent article from Science was cited as evidence that
rule-enforcement by sanctions is a necessity in cohousing.
Does this mean that we have to forget about all that touchy
feely consensus stuff, since there is no alternative to a
policeman knocking at your door?


Whenever the conclusion is reached that there is no
alternative (TINA) to the wonderful social system in place
in the USA today, something is usually overlooked, because
ours is clearly not the only possible form of society.
Therefore I downloaded the article itself instead of its
subtly distorted summary in the New York Times and
discovered the following two points:


(1) The sanctions and rewards in the Science experiment did
not enforce any specific rules, but they were given in
response to whether the particular member pitched in towards
the common goal (which benefited everybody) or whether they
were freeriding on the efforts of others.  The conclusion
from this is therefore not that we need rules that are
backed up by sanctions, but that people are needed willing
to go through the trouble of sanctioning those who are
freeriding.  Indeed the experiment showed that enough people
are motivated to do this, although sanctioning others
decreases one's own payoff---i.e., sanctioning others
is in this experiment an altruistic act.


(2) The Science experiment was set up in such a way that
those who were sanctioned did not know who was sanctioning
them.  If someone wanted to invent a social structure which
is the diametral opposite of consensus decision making, this
would probably be it.  This is not a setup in which, as the
NYT summary says, ``power is distributed equally'', but it
requires a centralized apparatus similar to the StaSi
(security police) in the former Communisty East Germany.
Indeed, their system functioned (limped along) fairly well
but it created a nightmare of divided loyalties only fully
apparent after the opening of the StaSi files.


A better alternative becomes available if we do away with
the false dichotomy between punishment and cooperation.
Openly engaging with a free-rider in a loving way should not
be seen as punishment but as a form of co-operation.  This
is why cohousing is known as an ``expensive self-improvement
scheme.'' The danger of co-dependency is minimized as long
as this engagement is a group effort.  Individuals may get
sucked into co-dependency but the group as a whole usually
has enough wisdom to avoid this trap.  Not everyone can be
won over, but we should aim for doing it in such a way that
even those who eventually move out again can look back at
this effort as a worth while and enriching experience.

Hans G. Ehrbar

-- 
Hans G. Ehrbar   http://www.econ.utah.edu/~ehrbar   ehrbar [at] 
economics.utah.edu
Economics Department, University of Utah     (801) 581 7797 (my office)
1645 Campus Center Dr., Rm 308               (801) 581 7481 (econ office)
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