Liars and outliars av Bruce Schneier

En bok som verkar sympatisk: Liars & Outliers av Bruce Schneier. Några utdrag ur Arnold Klings recension:

He says that there are four "societal pressures" that induce cooperation: moral pressures (internalized desires to cooperate); the value of reputation; institutional and legal incentives; and security systems. …

Kling citerar följande ur boken:

From the perspective of trust, societal dilemmas involve a Red Queen Effect. On one hand, defectors should evolve to be able to better able to fool cooperators. And on the other, cooperators should evolve to better recognize defectors. It's a race between the ability to deceive and the ability to detect deception.

Samt

Schneier sprinkles a fair amount of this anti-corporate rhetoric into the book. The classic pro-market defense would be that Facebook is induced by market forces (consumer demand, competition) to act as its users' agent. However, I could concede that those market forces work less than perfectly. Still, I would suggest that government acts quite imperfectly as an agent for consumers, also. To be sure, Schneier does not turn to government as the all-purpose solution for market imperfections, and in that regard he shows more wisdom than most mainstream economists.

Comments

[Anders M.L.]

Håller med Kling om den lite slentrianmässiga företagskritiken, men boken är klart läsvärd. Däremot är det - surprise, surprise - snarare en bra debatt/översiktsbok (principal-agent-problem, regulatory capture, diverse spelexempel, reciprok altruism av mer eller mindre generaliserat slag...) än Den Stora Sammanhållande Förtroendeteorin som omslaget utlovar.

(utvecklat annorstädes: http://www.svensktidskrift.se/?p=43263 )