When Money Changes Society by Giacomo Bazzani

Author:Giacomo Bazzani
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783658285333
Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

4.2 Cooperation

4.2.1 Cooperation Mechanisms

The trust that exists among members of the Sardex network facilitates their economic transactions and social relations. The correct behaviour of members is partly the effect of contractual and legal constraints and the presence of hierarchical sanctioning in the network and partly the effect of the horizontal social mechanisms, described above, which develop among members. The moment in which the truster’s trust is reciprocated by the trustee doing that which is expected of him/her, can be considered the basic element of cooperative behaviour. However, cooperation cannot be reduced to a consequence of trust because cooperative behaviour can also emerge when there is no trust between the interacting partners (Cook et al. 2005). For example, the presence of stringent contractual rules makes cooperation possible even when there is no interpersonal trust or direct interaction. Broadly speaking cooperation can be considered as the capacity of individuals to coordinate their behaviours in order to achieve a shared goal (Bowles and Gintis 2011).

Cooperation has been studied in the social science field mostly in relation to the issue of trust (Gambetta 1988; Fukuyama 1995; Bacharach and Gambetta 2001; Cook 2001; Yamagishi 2011), to the use of common goods (Olson 1965; Ostrom 1990, 2000) and to social networks (Granovetter 1985; Gould 1993; Baldassarri and Grossman 2013). The (lack of) ability to cooperate is seen as a central problem in complex societies where often the most advantageous behavioural option is free-riding. In societies characterised by weak social ties, free-riding is usually seen as undermining the likelihood of achieving common goals.8 Management of common goods is particularly vulnerable to free-riding which can render the coordination efforts of many citizens ineffective (Ostrom 1990). This highlights “the disparity between individual optimisation and collective optimality” (Coleman 1989, p. 5). Lack of cooperation can also make the ordinary functioning of complex systems difficult, inducing, in the case of markets, for example, a low level of trust among the actors and disadvantaging economic transactions, productivity and economic growth (Fukuyama 1995; Zak and Knack 2001).

The conceptualisation of trust as an “encapsulated interest” highlights the mutual interdependence of protagonists in social relations: where there is repeated interaction, horizontal monitoring or reputational sanctioning, the positive effects of cooperation over time should exceed the benefits of free-riding. Although this assumption may be valid in specific contexts, it does not means that cooperative behaviour emerges spontaneously as an effect of the greater utility expected (Marx 1963 [1852]; see also Pizzorno 1983). For example, as the Sardex case demonstrates, the level of trust estimated in alter influences the propensity to trust and consequently to cooperate. Dirks and Ferrin (2001) note that incentives to cooperate are not sufficient to produce cooperation within a group either. In a group situation, individuals with a low level of trust are more likely to free-ride than others with a high level of trust who are more committed to common goals. Trust and cooperation are usually positively correlated personal characteristics (Kimmel et al. 1980).

Trust, however, is not the only mechanism generating cooperation.

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