Small groups cooperate easily but large groups fail without coordination

Evidence

Two neighbours may agree to drain a meadow, which they possess in common; because it is easy for them to know each other’s mind; and each must perceive, that the immediate consequence of his failing in his part, is, the abandoning the whole project. But it is very difficult, and indeed impossible, that a thousand persons should agree in any such action; it being difficult for them to concert so complicated a design, and still more difficult for them to execute it; while each seeks a pretext to free himself of the trouble and expence, and would lay the whole burden on others. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 412

Categorization

• XREF: Adam Smith’s classic statement of collective-action failure at scale — groundwork for the free-rider problem driving why Big Gods and institutional religion emerged, which connects to the reader’s Baumard partner-choice framework. — connects to: A preponderance of small producers and buyers must effectuate enormously complex coordination — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1020; The occupation tactic lost potency once the Square fragmented into many small groups. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 302; Well-brokered cross-organizational coalitions coordinated large-scale resistance — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 577