BACKWARD-LOOKING SOCIAL-CONTROL

Rational-choice theorists stress the need for social control to overcome the free-rider problem in collective action. Critics counter that mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement are themselves public goods that presume collective action rather than explain it. In response, Heckathorn (1989) proposed an analytic solution based on ''hypocritical cooperation'' in which rational actors calculate the optimal allocation of resources between compliance with collective obligations and their enforcement. I relax these ''forward-looking'' behavioral assumptions and show how social control might evolve among ''backward-looking '' pragmatists. Computer simulations test the ability of various sanctioning regimes to generate cooperation as well as resist stampedes that risk overcooperation and needless sacrifice. External moral sanctions produce too little cooperation, while internalized sanctions produce too much. The best performer induced self-sustaining cooperation and then turned itself off once enforcement was no longer needed. This self-regulating system shows how collective rationality can obtain without the actors intending it.