Central to the aims of this blog is to promote a federalist
construct – liberated federalism – to guide the curricular choices that civics
educators make. Why? Because federalism, at its core, stands for
the power of collectives. Collectives
get things done efficiently. Forming
collectives is a way to pool the resources of various parties, be they
individuals or other collectives. They
open up possible projects out of the reach of individuals. But anyone who has ever been part of a
collective – and that’s all of us – has been frustrated by the obstacles that collectives
encounter. Sometimes the obstacles are
just part of the challenge a project presents, but other times they are the
product of having to deal with others. I
have presented the progression – groups, organizations, associations – before, as
a way to point out that collectives vary in degrees of bonding among their
members. As our experiences within our
family and other social groupings indicate, the level to which the members feel
affinity for each other will affect how successfully the particular collective
functions. The higher the affinity, the
more likely that success is achieved.
Affinity is, in turn, affected by the levels of trust that
exist, the communication patterns enjoyed among members, clear roles, and
respect. Surely, as collectives grow in
size, affinity becomes a harder quality to secure. Knowing those you are dealing with ups the
chances you will care about them and be willing to cooperate in your mutual
efforts. There are probably other
factors, but I believe you get the idea.
But in addition to intergroup dynamics, there are other factors: resource availability, legitimacy of intent,
timing, and so on. Let me focus on one
such problem area: free-rider or cheap-rider.
Again, I have written about the free-rider problem
before. But this posting is more in
regard to how free-riding affects the efforts of collectives. This concern has been brought to my attention
in an article by Andrew B. Kennedy.[1] He gives
an analysis of the extent that China is a free-rider when it comes to contributing
to collective, international efforts to secure and maintain open sea passages from
piracy, especially in transporting oil, and in fighting terrorism. China benefits from international policing,
but the question remains whether China contributes in terms of financing or applying
actual military assets which would be mostly naval assets. Kennedy claims China does provide some
assistance and is limited in its capacity to contribute, but that it could do
more. In such cases, one does not have
free-riding, but cheap-riding. What are
the consequences of such “cheapness?” In
either case, being free or cheap leads to mistrust and resentment.
This whole treatment of the free-rider problem reminded me of
my classroom experiences. I often
assigned group work and a lot of my time was taken up by devising ways to make
each member of a group accountable for helping rather than just riding along
and getting credit for the work of others.
This is apparently part of the human condition: a significant number of people will tend to
enjoy the labor of others and not feel sufficiently compelled to contribute to
that labor if they don’t have to. It is
equally part of the human condition to resent providing labor that benefits
those who don’t contribute. Be it nations
or just any social group, people will tend to feel as if they are being taken
advantage of if this type of asymmetry exists and they are on the working end
of the relationship.
As for civics, this whole train of questions as to whether a
particular party benefits from the efforts of others is worth asking. Not to give credence to the charges of Tea
Party types, but I believe a lot of the motivation for their efforts is to
rectify the level of assistance that is given to those who accept welfare but
don’t do their share of the work that permits our public policy to provide the assistance. Of course, this is overstated; it might be a
rationalization of their resentment for paying the taxes that pay for the assistance. We can’t ignore that this line of argument
does readily garner agreement among many.
This seems to indicate that at times this whole problem of free-rider
can be a “slogan” for those who want to welch on their responsibilities to meet
the challenges that providing for the general welfare present. If the aim is to promote federalist values,
problems such as free-rider or cheap-rider need to be addressed and students
should work to devise solutions to this problem. This is true whether we are considering those
cases where there is actual shirking of responsibility or where there are
manufactured cases of such shirking.
[1]
Kennedy, A. B.
(2015). China and the free-rider
problem: Exploring the case of energy
security. Political Science Quarterly, 130 (1), Spring, pp. 27-50.
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