Samuel Bowles

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Selfishness vs. altruism

Bowles has recently studied the way that people are motivated by selfishness and the desire to maximize their own income as compared to altruism and the desire to do a good job and be well regarded by others. People act not only for material interests, but also "to constitute themselves as dignified, autonomous, and moral individuals."

Behavioral experiments suggest that "economic incentives may be counterproductive when they signal that selfishness is an appropriate response" and "undermine the moral values that lead people to act altruistically". Bowles gives the example of day care centers in Haifa, where a fine was imposed on parents who were late picking up their children at the end of the day. Rather than avoiding late pick-ups, parents responded by doubling the fraction of time they arrived late. After 12 weeks, the fine was revoked, but the enhanced tardiness persisted unabated. According to Bowles, this illustrates a "kind of negative synergy" between economic incentives and moral behavior, further stating: "The fine seems to have undermined the parents' sense of ethical obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to think of lateness as just another commodity they could purchase".

Bowles cites research by Ernst Fehr and others establishing that behavioral experiments modeling the voluntary provision of public goods show that "substantial fractions of most populations adhere to moral rules, willingly give to others, and punish those who offend standards of appropriate behavior, even at a cost to themselves and with no expectation of material reward". Diego Rivera's mural of factory workers at Ford's River Rouge assembly plant shows that according to Bowles organizations motivate members "by appealing to other-regarding motives such as the desire to do a good job and a sense of reciprocal obligations among members of a firm".

In most cases, "[i]ncentives undermine ethical motives" as they "may frame a decision problem and thereby suggest self-interest as appropriate behavior". Simply using market terminology offers justifications for actions that would otherwise be unjustifiable. Economic structures of societies produce people with different values. In a game in which individuals could choose how much to withdraw from a common pool ("the forest"), the withdrawal that maximized the gains of the group was substantially less than the withdrawal that maximized the gains of the individual. When subjects were trained in a game with incentives to be selfish, they continue to be selfish even when they play in a second game without those incentives. In a "regulation" model where individuals were fined for "overexploitation", their behavior was entirely self-interested. In a society, "if the relevant incentives allow the selfish to exploit the civic-minded, then the latter are less likely to be copied". Studies of 15 small-scale societies shows that "individuals from the more market-integrated societies were also more fair-minded" in that they made more generous offers and preferred to reject an unfair offer even at the cost of receiving nothing. In these societies, "individuals engaging in mutually beneficial exchanges with strangers represent models of successful behavior who are then copied by others".

Publications

Bowles, Samuel (1969). Planning educational systems for economic growth. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674670907.

Bowles, Samuel; Kendrick, David A. (1970). Notes and problems in microeconomic theory (1st ed.). Chicago: Markham Publishing. ISBN 9780841020122.

Also as Bowles, Samuel; Kendrick, David; Dixon, Peter B. (1980). Notes and problems in microeconomic theory. Amsterdam New York: North-Holland. ISBN 9780444853257.

Bowles, Samuel; Gordon, David M.; Weisskopf, Thomas E. (1983). Beyond the waste land: a democratic alternative to economic decline. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday. ISBN 9780385183451.

Also as Bowles, Samuel; Gordon, David M.; Weisskopf, Thomas E. (1984). Beyond the wasteland: a democratic alternative to economic decline. London: Verso. ISBN 9780860918233.

Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert (1986). Democracy and capitalism: property, community, and the contradictions of modern social thought. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 9780465016006.

Also as Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert (2011). Democracy and capitalism property, community, and the contradictions of modern social thought. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415608817.

Bowles, Samuel; Pagano, Ugo; Franzin, Maurizio (1999). The politics and economics of power. London New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415185424.

Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert (1998). Wright, Erik Olin (ed.). Recasting Egalitarianism: new rules for communities, states, and markets. London, England: New York Verso. ISBN 9781859842553.

Bowles, Samuel; Arrow, Kenneth; Durlauf, Steven (2000). Meritocracy and economic inequality. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691004686.

Bowles, Samuel; Henrich, Joseph; Boyd, Robert; Camerer, Colin; Fehr, Ernst; Gintis, Herbert (2004). Foundations of human sociality: economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199262052.

Bowles, Samuel (2006). Microeconomics: behavior, institutions, and evolution. Princeton, New Jersey Woodstock: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691126388.

Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert; Osborne Groves, Melissa (2005). Unequal chances: family background and economic success. New York Princeton, New Jersey: Russell Sage Foundation, Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691136202.

Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert; Fehr, Ernst; Boyd, Robert (2005). Moral sentiments and material interests: the foundations of cooperation in economic life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262572378.

Bowles, Samuel; Roosevelt, Frank; Edwards, Richard (2005). Understanding capitalism: competition, command, and change. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195138658.

Bowles, Samuel; Durlauf, Steven; Hoff, Karla (2006). Poverty traps. New York Princeton, New Jersey: Russell Sage Foundation Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691125008.

Bowles, Samuel; Wallerstein, Michael; Bardhan, Pranab (2006). Globalization and egalitarian redistribution. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691125190.

Bowles, Samuel; Bardhan, Pranab; Baland, Jean-Marie (2007). Inequality, cooperation, and environmental sustainability. Princeton, New Jersey: Russell Sage Foundation, Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691128795.

Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert (2011). A cooperative species: human reciprocity and its evolution. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691158167.

Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert (2011). Schooling in capitalist America: educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. ISBN 9781608461318. Original printed in 1976.

Bowles, Samuel (2016). The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300163803.

Samuel Bowles

Samuel Bowles

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Live room · 1 here

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Academic work and interests

Selfishness vs. altruism

Inequality vs. economic success

Publications

Notable quotes

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About Samuel Bowles

About Samuel Bowles

Article

Biography

Notable quotes

Related journals

Live room · 1 here

Article

Biography

Work

Academic work and interests

Selfishness vs. altruism

Inequality vs. economic success

Publications

Notable quotes

Related journals