The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #105705 Message #2176742
Posted By: Bill D
22-Oct-07 - 04:10 PM
Thread Name: BS: Free rider problem- Comments?
Subject: RE: BS: Free rider problem- Comments?
There are a dozen formats of the "free rider" issue...NIMBY "Let george do it" etc...each slightly different, but mostly adding up to "It's not my problem" and "it alll depends on whose Ox is being gored"
Fortunately, not everyone feels like that, else there'd be no "Doctors Without Borders", Peace Corps, etc.....but when solving the problem involves LOTS of money and/or danger, volunteers, national or individual, decrease.
In the last analysis, all the millions of years of evolution leading to self-interest in the SHORT scale is at fault, and it takes a lot of explaining to overcome that for the multitudes. I can't see any real solution except lots more education and/or perecived immediate personal interest.