Individual rational self-interest can systematically produce collective disaster.

Evidence

It is tempting to conclude, therefore, that people in the south are either stubbornly irrational or entertain masochistic preferences. While the possibility cannot be excluded that they may have evolved such preferences as a means of reducing the cognitive dissonance caused by prolonged exposure to such an environment, the overall aim of this paper is to reconcile individual rationality with protracted collective disaster. If anything, in this case, the latter results from an excess of individual rationality. This paper is an account of the remarkable responses to a generalized absence of trust and of the mechanisms by which such responses, while reinforcing distrust, have none the less brought about a relatively stable social structure. Its major underlying assumption is that the mafia - although by no means its only element — represents the quintessence of this structure, in which all the crucial behavioural patterns converge to form an indissoluble but explosive mixture. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2093 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Social dilemmas constitute a special set of interdependence problems in which individual and collective interests are at odds. The dilemma arises whenever individuals acting in their own rational self-interest would engage in behaviors that cumulatively disadvantage everyone. In the modern world, social dilemmas include problems of maintaining scarce collective resources such as water and rainforests, preserving public goods such as parks and public television, and preventing pollution and destruction of the environment. The self-interests of each individual are best served by taking advantage of the benefits of collective resources without contributing to their maintenance, but the cumulative effect of such selfinterested actions would be that everyone pays the cost of resource depletion and environmental damage. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2498 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

It’s tempting to imagine that these three are deliberate in working together, and perhaps they are. But the beauty of the partnership is that each plant does what it does in order to increase its own growth. But as it happens, when the individuals flourish, so does the whole. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 467 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Purely self-interested individuals collapse when organization and terror arrive — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 169; Collective alienation arises when individually rational actions sum to negative outcomes. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 497; Individual serial actions intensify the collective catastrophe they aim to prevent. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 499 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Protracted collective disaster can result from an excess of individual rationality. #corroborates (0.95) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2093
• Rational self-interest yields collectively disastrous resource depletion #exemplifies (0.92) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2498
• Individual self-interest can produce collective flourishing without intention #complicates (0.80) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 467
• People act collectively in emergencies despite being conditioned toward individual self-interest. #complicates (0.75) — John Drury, The role of social identity processes…, 14