[Marxism] Co-operators succeed: Good news for socialists

["Ruthless Critic of All that Exists" <ok.president+marxml@xxxxxxxxx>]

 March 19, 2008,  5:29 pm
Nice Folks: On the Right Track?

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/nice-folks-on-the-right-track/index.html?hp

By Mike Nizza

Does holding out for goodwill pay off in the end?
What an encouraging piece of news to arrive on Wednesday, the day that
nice folks everywhere begin questioning whether their altruism is for
naught: "Harvard study finds that nice guys do finish first."

The "guys" in this case were 100 college students who played thousands
of games of prisoner's dilemma, a favorite non-zero-sum game of
economic theorists. But this study, which was published in Nature,
added a twist: retaliation.

Instead of the one-on-one game lasting one decision — cooperate or
betray — the betrayed party was allowed to return the favor and then
some. For example, the player who lost 20 cents in a game could decide
to take away 40 cents from the winner.

Details notwithstanding, researchers found that those prone to
retaliation were also prone to losing in the long term — they had less
money at the end of the game.

"Our finding has a very positive message," Professor Martin Nowak told
The Daily Telegraph of London. "In an extremely competitive setting,
the winners are those who resist the temptation to escalate conflicts,
while the losers punish and perish."

The researchers, alas, cannot vouch for results outside the ivory
tower, Mr. Nowak told The Associated Press. For now, nice guys finish
first and the vengeful are losers, but only in science experiments. As
for everywhere else, your opinion is as good as any.

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism