Joe Lieberman not only does nothing for Democrats, but he actively thwarts their purposes, yet continues to receive a salary and chairmanships at great public cost: He actively supports wars abroad, and refuses to lift a finger to help fellow Americans in New Orleans. We tried to punish him with a primary challenge from Ned Lamont, and succeeded in that battle, but lost the war when Lieberman defected yet again and ran as an Independent. Clearly, punishment via a primary challenge was the correct impulse, as Ned Lamont’s vision of the public good is far superior to Lieberman’s. Unfortunately, as Lieberman’s ability to reap the benefits of coalitions while continually defecting knows no bounds, the impulse towards punishment wasn’t nearly widespread or vindictive enough to stop him from defecting and winning again at great public cost. The party failed to punish his multiple defections, and now reaps all the benefits of that failure. Pretty stupid.
Despite the Democrats' abysmal resistance to netroots' primary challenges, for the sake of the common good, we cooperated enough amongst ourselves and returned Democrats to power. Most in this nation wish that this war were never started, and that the occupation comes to a conclusion. Most wanted relief for Katrina victims. Such sentiments are strongest in the Democratic base, but surely includes by now a majority of independents, so there is simply no excuse for continued capitulation to Mr. 28%. I now demand cooperation from fellow Democrats in the strongest of terms. How do we get some freaking cooperation around here?
Theoretical biologists are greatly concerned with the problem of how cooperation could ever have evolved among individuals who are assumed to be selfish and genetically unrelated. Cooperation is a significant question for evolutionary theory, but the answers to such questions have enormous implications to everyday problems of society, including achieving the greatest common good. Originally, theoretical game simulations were very simple "Hawk-Dove" games, which gave rise to more realistic mixed bourgeois or Tit-for-Tat strategies, wherein future cooperation is conditional on the past behavior of others. When mutual reciprocity exists, everyone benefits, but when some defect for self-aggrandizement, the defector walks with the prize to the detriment of all. Therefore, tit-for-tatters remember who screwed them and pay them back in kind in the next interaction. Generally, mixed strategies are far superior to pure strategies, such as "always fight," "always be pacifist," "always defect," "always cooperate." One common theme of the superior mixed or conditional strategies is the ability and will to use punishment.
Punishing non-cooperative behavior can also be a stable strategy, as sanctioning processes result in a competitive advantage in situations where the common good is to be maximized:
Gürerk et al. address the issue of equilibrium selection with an elegant addition to the existing experimental work on public goods. In their experiment, individuals (the "players") choose between two different "institutions." In one institution, players can contribute money to a group project. The sum of all contributions to the project is augmented by a fixed percentage and then is divided equally among all players, regardless of their contributions. Previous experiments established that when this interaction is repeated, mean contributions to the public good drop to near zero (a noncooperative equilibrium). The other "sanctioning" institution is very similar, except that after players have contributed, they can pay to punish (reduce the payoff of) other players. When this interaction is played repeatedly (11) a substantial fraction of players punish low contributors, causing mean contributions to rise and stabilize near full cooperation (a cooperative equilibrium). Both institutions were run concurrently for 30 interactions and players could, initially and after each subsequent interaction (after seeing others' payoffs), choose their institution for the next interaction.
The principal findings of Gürerk et al. can be summarized simply. Initially, most players picked the institution without sanctioning possibilities. But, as usual, free-riders in the nonsanctioning institution started driving mean contributions downward, so cooperators, who hate being exploited by free-riders, started reducing their contributions. Meanwhile, in the sanctioning institution, punishers started driving contributions up by inflicting costs on noncontributors, despite the personal cost of punishing. After a few interactions, players from the nonsanctioning institution--presumably seeing the higher payoffs of those choosing the sanctioning institution--increasingly switched institutions. Notably, despite the incoming flow of migrants from the nonsanctioning institution, the mean contributions in the sanctioning institution consistently increased or held stable near full cooperation. In fact, most incoming migrants, consistent with local norms in their new setting, increased their contributions during their first interaction in the sanctioning institution, and a majority administered some punishment.
http://www.sciencemag.org/...
(subscription required)
There are many types of such models, many assumptions, considerations, parameters, etc., but the strategies that lead to cooperative behavior generally involve the use of punishment. The ability to turn Hawkish on a potential defector's ass is essential to guarantee future cooperation. In fact, some models are capable of generating "altruistic punishers," that is, individuals who will punish defectors to benefit the common good, at considerable cost to and no immediate gain for themselves. This is not just theoretical crap: Brain scans show that when humans engage in altruistic punishment, it lights up reward systems in the brain associated with euphoria, wanting, and drug-taking.
Punishment may yield a solution to the problem of cooperation. Laboratory (5, 6) and ethnographic (7, 8) evidence suggests that many people are willing to engage in altruistic punishment, paying a personal cost to punish free riders in public goods games. They do so even when interactions are anonymous, there are no reputation effects, and the punisher is a third party who is unaffected by the free rider's actions (9). Altruistic punishment has also been shown to stimulate the reward center in the brain, suggesting that humans may have physically or developmentally evolved this behavior (10).
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/...
(subscription required here, but trust me, there are a zillion articles on the need for punitive action to prevent defection and promote cooperation.)
Some people will say that punishment is a nasty or thuggish behavior with which they want nothing to do. That is fine. Not everyone need engage. However, some must. There is room for altruists and doves at the table, provided they have the protection from a significant number of those who will return defectors blows in a tit-for-tat fashion. Otherwise, the Hawks, Defectors, and Free-Loaders will eat the non-sanctioning groups alive. While you may dislike the idea, my engagement in Tit-for-Tat behavior with defector Democrats benefits the unconditional supporters. Of course, my punishment of Dems alone won’t do it. What will definitely alter the strategy of Democrats is if a large portion of their base promises massive sanctions, should they continue to defect from us.
As Paul Krugman notes (via Big Tent Democrat):
The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.
This is precisely why I previously pledged that if this war/occupation is still raging uncontrollably in 2008, I would vote a straight Republican ticket. Let me now add to that: If a war breaks out with Iran before 2008, I will vote a straight Republican ticket. Not only will I punish the Democrats, I will go postal. And apparently, modern science tells me that I will not only want to punish them, but that punishing them will be euphoric, activating the same brain systems as drugs of abuse. It will be like hitting a crack pipe. Perhaps fatally addictive, but googly-eyed good while it lasts. Democrats have put me in an impossible position in which I can no longer cooperate with anyone, and perhaps that angers me most of all. I cannot support them supporting Bush, but if I punish Democrats, I essentially punish everyone. Democrats are essentially threatening me a catch-22 of helplessness, which elicits my pure rage and merely galvanizes my decision to go postal if Democrats take advantage of our previous cooperation, assume leadership and power fully expecting to take the Presidency and both Houses in 2008, while failing to improve the situation when they could. They think they can benefit without contributing by taking advantage of my loyalty, but their defection will be costly.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
BTD has clearly laid out how to end this debacle in Iraq. Thankfully, WE DON’T NEED A VETO-PROOF MAJORITY. He also gently provides some useful guidelines for Democrats to get busy with NOW.
http://www.talkleft.com/...
First, do no harm. The Iraq Supplemental saga was a fiasco and did great harm imo. No more of that please.
Second, propose a strategy that might work, the Reid/Feingold/ McGovern framework I have discussed many times here.
Third, seize the initiative in the political debate. Today the NYTimes provides a story that tells you everything that is wrong about the continued US presence in Iraq:
And do not cower at every single insult that the GOP might hurl. It really is embarrassing.[emphasis mine]
Pretty modest stuff, considering the hell of this Presidency. And by the way, when Big Tent says "do no harm," I interpret that to include, "Do no harm to your base supporters."
While I encourage as many people as possible to pledge to go postal on Democrats should they fail to mitigate the atrocities in Iraq, or, god forbid, (b) a war with Iran breaks out, I realize some may want to take a more measured approach to punishment. Fortunately, plf515 provided a helpful list of Democrats who support Bush and have high priority for being primaried, as they represent heavily Democratic districts. Either way, select your own cudgel, and be warned about taking punishment off the table. Punishment is necessary for the common good, and ultimately encourages cooperation. It discourages defectors like Joe Lieberman, just like a real threat of impeachment would rein in Bush. Put punishment on the table and use it as needed. Announce your plan to punish Democrats should they persist in their lack of cooperation. It is time to put the fear of god into Democrats for defecting from the common good.
Comments are closed on this story.