More on Cooperation

There is a great post by the venerable Tom Peters. Please check it out. It’s titled “Love Thine “Enemy”! It’s good Business”.

He says that if others thrive his share of market will go down for sure but the enhanced market size will more than compensate for the loss of share. Further, quality competition will only enhance quality of the originator and will force the innovator to do better and different work.

This yet another example of how cooperation is not just a tool for altruism, but also an effective means of growing and prospering. Just like Dawkin’s “Memes” and Analole Rapoport’s “Tit for tat” strategy.

Anatole’s comments on the prisoner’s dilemma are worth repeating “the cooperative solution is the only truly rational outcome in a non-constant sum game”. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is played many times by the same participants. Eventually they learn to cooperate; and cooperation is based on trust, the belief that the other will reciprocate, now or later, the actions taken by me that benefit the other. This is how social capital is built.

Trust is created by people who repeatedly interact with one another. It follows that trust will be difficult to obtain in one-off interactions or interactions limited to a few people where depending on the power equation a cartel can coerce the less powerful.

That in effect is a vote for a democratic and open economy.