Xiangyang Li
The problem of group solidarity is very important almost for every group.
Group solidarity measures the group’s capacity to influence members’ behavior. The
more solitary a group, the greater the influence it casts upon its members. Groups
corporate interest and by ensuring that these obligations will be fulfilled. Sociologists
provided two solutions to the problem what accounts for the varying solidarity of
groups. The first is normativist. The normativists argue that some groups, such as
families, are more solitary than others, such as choruses, because the members of
why are some groups more effective than others? And normativists do not offer
answers. The structuralist solution to the problem is quite different. Individuals are
seen coalesce into solitary groups not because they carry group norms within them,
but because they share common individual interests. When we are employed by Yale
University, we have common interests. In this way, the greater the commonality of
individual interest, the greater the resulting solidarity of the group. However the
author think that this solution predicts far more group solidarity than the historical
record reveals. I guess maybe that can be solved by anal sizing the difference between
the representative agent’s expectation and what he gets in the group. If the difference
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is very small and even what he gets from the group is larger than what he expected,
initially form groups, or join existing ones, are to consume various excludable jointly
individual producers. Those goods are public goods. The characteristic of the public
good is that rational actors will choose to free ride that is to consume the good without
contributing to its production. How can free riding problem be solved? Three kinds of
answers have been proposed. The first answer is coercion: the state enforces social
order by threatening to imprison anyone who violates it. The second answer is
goods selectively, to members alone. The third answer is repeated exchange. To solve
the problem, the group requires the establishment of several different kinds of rules.
Once these rules are agreed upon, members actually abide by the rules out of
on the group’s behalf. In fact, the author thinks that solidarity can be best understood
obligation too much. Many members join in the group for something, which they
cannot get by themselves, just as in the economics analysis. We first assume that we
are selfish and just care ourselves. I agree with the idea that economists omit many
colorful aspects of human characteristics. But I think the most stable (or solidarity)
system or groups are those, which can satisfy what the members need.
compliance with obligations. Compliance requires formal controls because only then
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can free riding and/or deviance be precluded. Some agency of the group must have
the ability to monitor the members’ behavior and to provide sanctions to reward the
compliant and punish the noncompliant. Dependence and control capacity are each
compliance and group solidarity can be attained only by the combined effects of
dependence and control. The author thinks about the role of dependence by
concludes that party solidarity is enhanced when these representatives are dependent
on party leaders for reelection and career advancement. However the quality of the
evidence is far from ideal. The author points out that the case of legislative party
solidarity is unusual in that the roll call voting procedure enables party leaders to
monitor their members costless. Few groups are blessed with such an ample, ready-
The necessity of formal controls for the production of joint goods and the
and helping behavior—is likely to emerge in the absence of any controls at all. As I
mention above, there is nothing in rational choice that denies that individuals can
pursue altruistic or prosocial ends. However we cannot explain why there are so many
formal controls in the society. The second thought comes from selection theories or
game theory which argues that prosocial behavior can spontaneously emerge either on
the basis of selection mechanism or repeated exchange. But we know that the
in large groups. So formal controls are necessary for the attainment of solidarity in
large groups. I cannot agree with it more. The most big obstacle confronted with
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every economist, politics, or other scholars is that we donot know full information.
Every agent does not have full information in the world. Asymmetric and incomplete
know each other. Just as Knight said, there is something (uncertainty) in the world,
which even cannot be measured by probability. Although there are some papers on
AER and other journals, which discussed Knight’s idea, I have not seen operatable
models.
collective good, why would rational members ever consent to establish them in the
first place? The author attacked the question by considering the evolution of formal
controls in two nonhierarchical groups, rotating credit and insurance groups. It argues
that members institute these formal controls when they are the only means of gaining
access to some joint good. However the mere existence of these controls offers no
guarantee that rational members will abide by them. Whereas the enforcement of
production and allocation rules is generally inexpensive in small groups, the costs of
enforcement rise exponentially in large ones. These costs are the major obstacle to the
The author particularly studies the problem of group solidarity and examines
the cost of controls in the firms. One of necessities of formal controls is low labor
efficiency. Although the firm compensates its workers to comply with production
rules, the workers’ interest may lie in shirking rather than in full compliance. In order
to reduce the risk of shirking and to attain full compliance with production rules,
firms must resort to costly formal controls. There are many different types of controls,
such as direct supervision and scientific management. Of course, each has its merits
and weakness. The most important factor which determines which of these types is
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adopted is cost-benefit analysis. Direct supervision typically leaves employers
vulnerable to high agency costs. Yet scientific management and other piece-rate
schemes are ineffective within it comes to compliance with nonroutine and complex
tasks that are difficult to monitor. In the face of tasks that involve costly monitoring,
compensation offers a limited basis for compliance. Sometimes firms even establish
internal labor markets to solve the problems. The classic example of the internal labor
market in industry is the large Japanese corporation with its lifetime employment,
seniority-plus-merit wage system, and high level of firm welfare benefits. Firms will
always invest in control, but how much and what kind depends on the nature of the
good being produced and the opportunities for monitoring and sanctioning. Whether
the nature of the relevant talks. Costs involved in measuring compliance and
mobilizing resources for sanctioning are the major constraints on the adoption of any
control system. Thus there is no single solution to the problem of control; the most
I think those ideas are not very new. And you have detailed with those ideas
better. The firm is a set of contracts, implicit or explicit, between managers and
shareholders, managers and workers, etc. As you have written in your book,
accounting is very important in the control system and is useful for group solidarity.
In the macro-level, conventions, standard, and law control firms and its employers’
group solidarity. I think the most efficient way of group solidarity is to set up the
compensation and standards. But maybe we can develop some firms’ culture
environment and feelings with the employees to enhance group solidarity. It will
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become more and more important when human capital became the most important
resources in the world. I will expound this point in the other paper.