Tag: tragedy of the commons

Ordering in large groups

When you go out in a large group, ordering can sometimes become a pain. This is especially the case if you know each other well and want to collectively share a large number of dishes rather than each person ordering a dish for herself. Usually, you can end up either under ordering (I’ve seen cases where three curries have been ordered for a table of ten people) or over ordering (when lots gets left over). And someone or the other is usually left unsatisfied.

There are two extremes in which collective ordering for a large group can actually work. At one extreme, there is one “leader”, whom everyone else trusts to order. The leader finds out the group’s preferences and aggregates them and takes the decision on the group’s behalf. Usually the leader is someone who is trusted, so their decisions are generally followed. There might be some inefficiencies but the rest of the people can focus on the conversation while the leader can bask in the glory of power.

The other extreme that works is completely decentralized ordering, like we did last night when I met a bunch of relatives. People trickled in slowly, and we found it was not feasible (for the butterflies in our stomachs) to wait for the whole group to arrive before we started ordering. And so I ordered a pizza and a pitcher of sangria (when in a large group you don’t need to specifically target who is going to consume the pizza and each glass of sangria – it gets aggregated over). I took a slice of the pizza and a glass of the sangria, and the rest actually disappeared rather quickly.

As people came in, they got the hint, and we never had to waste any time in discussions of the “shall we order this” sort. People kept ordering what they wanted, and since we had an implicit agreement of “sharing”, everything presently got consumed. That we were collectively full was indicated by the point in time when no one was ordering. It turned out to be a fantastic dinner.

Now, there are some conditions that need to be met for this kind of ordering to work. Firstly, there should be no one in the group who is shy or hesitant to order by themselves or requires pampering – such people will end up hungry in this situation. Secondly, there should be some sort of implicit trust in the  group that people will be somewhat reasonable in their order. Finally, given that the only way to split the bill in such situations is equally (since who ate what is rather fuzzy) “tragedy of the commons” should not happen. All conditions were broadly satisfied last evening, and (in my opinion) things worked out.

What kind of ordering algorithms have you used in the past, and how has that fared? Do you think decentralized ordering actually works, or if there are other conditions that need to be satisfied for it to work? Do leave a note on your experiences with ordering!

Caste, socialism and social capital

Some new research by Dan Ariely (of Predictably Irrational fame) and co shows some interesting correlation between a socialist/communist upbringing and attitude towards lying (The Economist reports this research under the headline “Lying Commies“). While I’m not particularly convinced about the research methodology (sample of 250 respondents under a simulated environment – but then most behavioural research suffers from this problem) I find this research interesting since it supports another hypothesis that my wife and I came up with a few days ago – that India’s low social capital is a consequence of the caste system.

I’ve long maintained that the Indian caste system is perhaps the earliest example of a socialist economy. Assuming that reproductive rates across different castes were similar (there is no reason to believe otherwise) what the caste system ensured was that the relative supply of labour across different occupations remained constant even in small geographical areas, and consequently the relative prices of goods remained broadly constant. We can thus think of the caste system as an instance of a socialist model where each one’s profession is determined at birth, and relative prices are fixed. I will go as far to say that there is no better example of a planned economy than the ancient Indian caste system.

One of the inherent problems of Indian society is the lack of social capital. To use my co-INI blogger Nitin Pai’s framework, Indians value Swaartha (self-interest) over Paraartha (interest of others) to an extent that is far beyond the optimal level. The hypothesis goes that there is an optimal mix of Swaartha and Paraartha that should enter one’s objective function while making decisions in everyday life. For example, do you allow the other car to pass before you so that you avoid the traffic jam or do you rush ahead just because there is space in front of your car? Do you over-graze the commons just because it is there or do you consume it in moderation so that others have something to consume, too? A society with a high degree of social capital gives a higher weight to Paraartha in these objective functions, and people in such societies cooperate more and collectively take decisions that make more sense at the societal level.

Now, societies where life is tough (due to geographical or environmental factors) generally face a higher degree of social capital than those where life is easier. One way to experience this would be to drive from Punjab to Himachal Pradesh. On the wide roads of the Punjab plains, it is dog-eats-dog on the road – people overspeed, overtake like crazy and don’t give too much consideration to others on the road. Once you enter the hills of Himachal Pradesh, though, the whole equation changes. Here, a confrontational paradigm doesn’t get you too far – the narrow roads and winding curves mean that drivers need to cooperate more in order to get their way. Social capital in such societies is naturally higher.

Social capital is sticky in one way – if a particular generation in a particular location has high social capital, it is extremely likely that the preceding generation also had high social capital. The reverse, however, is not necessarily true – social capital can sometimes be destroyed in double quick time (think, for example, of the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990). Thus, the fact that social capital in India today is low could either be because it was always low, or because there was a particular event that destroyed social capital. Since it is unlikely that there was one event which destroyed social capital in the entire country, it seems more likely that social capital in India has always been low.

Social capital is important in a society where there are no rules – if you have a traffic signal at an intersection, for example, the lights will ensure that there is no jam. However, in the absence of rules (or lights) high degree of cooperation is necessary between drivers in order to lead to higher throughput from the signal. One way of combating a society with low social capital is to have lots of rules – these rules rather than social conventions can then drive the society. The converse is also true – in a highly rule based society there is no real need for social capital, and thus social capital can wear off down the generations.

As explained earlier, the caste system meant that the ancient and medieval Indian society was highly planned and rule based. Complex caste rules ensured that there was a rule for any possible social occurrence which might otherwise require cooperation. A brahmin’s cart and a shudra’s cart on the same one-lane path? There was a rule regarding right of way. Two people reaching the river at the same time to bathe? A rule governed who might swim upstream. And so forth.

My hypothesis is that the rule-based society ancient India had due to the caste system meant that there wasn’t much need for social capital. And thus India has never been a high social capital country (except of course for tracts such as Himachal Pradesh where life has been difficult). To put it another way, we see that a socialist economy from the past ages has led to consistently low social capital.

Which is not that far off from what Ariely et al say in their paper.