Reports were heard that Peru had closed its borders to Venezuelans, in light of increasing crime rates. As images of chaos in Venezuela spilling over into Peru filled my mind, I saw decisions in the margin, "what do I have to do to survive?", spreading like a plague across a landscape of intact communities, inflicting violence on their systems of sustenance. The communities that had generously received the Venezuelans received all of them, all of them desperate, some of them willing to steal or cheat to meet their needs, and some of them already criminals in the country they came from, and the Peruvians experiencing this disruption in their communities must be asking, "Why would we endure the loss of our own security and sustenance to benefit people who do not respect our way of life?". Of course, the Venezuelans probably emerged from such communities as well, but intact communities can absorb only so much disruption before they begin to break down. As the communities are flooded with people struggling to survive, burdening the capacity of individuals to respond with compassion, the cooperation and sharing that is intrinsic to community life is unrewarded, and the choices in the margin – "Today, will I cooperate and assist my neighbor, or will I protect myself and ignore my neighbor?" – lean toward self-protection, and away from generosity.
The Prisoner's dilemma suggests that in many instances cooperation will yield the greatest rewards for the community, but not the actors in the scenario, and if the actors do not trust each other, their choices will be guided by the edict, "Make the choice that benefits me, no matter what the other person does." In the prisoner's dilemma, that is the low value choice to not cooperate.
Our dilemma, as researchers, as activists, and as people who see life in peril, is that we need everyone to choose the common good over the private good. We need them to choose cooperation in scenarios that scale from not using plastic bags to joining together in a strategy to reverse Global Warming. But when faced in the margin by hunger, violence from gangs or governments, loss of family, what is the incentive to "cooperate"?
At the level of hunger and safety, the most elemental form of cooperation is whether to use violence, whether to steal, whether to attack another person or their property, or not. Those communities in which people feel safe are communities in which people follow a simple principle: I shall respect you and your property, in my confidence that you will respect me and mine. They are also communities in which people are able to find means to meet their needs without hurting other people. They have jobs, homes, food, family, and friends.
Violations of this principle always hurt, and many laws are written to prohibit and sanction these violations. Unfortunately, the laws are often written to protect the "safe" community from the unsafe community, the community of property from the community of poverty, the community in which the principle of "me first" results in great wealth, from the communities in which there isn't enough food, enough housing, enough health care, enough jobs, enough education, in which the violence is structural, in which cooperation is itself submission to violence, in which great disinvestment produces that violence which teaches "me first". At a larger scale, in which we include the impoverished and the wealthy, "me first" is the defining ethic, because at this scale, wealth can be accumulated only by interposing forms of violence such as fences, laws, and police, between those who have and those who do not. Arching over the "safe" wealthy community is the principle of "me first": that the communities of the rich might seem safe is a product of exported violence.
As a form of the prisoner's dilemma, inter-communal cooperation is thus much more complicated than the simple example of individuals considering what to do. Perhaps in this matrix, the wealthy actor continues to accumulate wealth when not cooperating, and must pay in more when cooperating, while neither "me-first" nor cooperation improves well being of the poor actor. Not only are individuals asked to cooperate with other individuals for the greater good, but they are asked to cooperate in an effort of their group to cooperate with other groups for a gain that is shared among many groups, at a loss to itself, while it is still possible for individuals and the group to gain more from making the "me-first" choice. Nor is the actor given any reason to trust that the other groups will reciprocate. So what is the reason to cooperate? Most people understand the rules and necessity of cooperation and sharing without being instructed - it is instinctual. And when presented with low cost opportunities, they will cooperate. So how do we induce cooperation between people?
By reducing the causes of violence – you ensure that people have reliable means of self-support, you build economies in which people can rely on their jobs, their homes, the food supply, the water supply. You must enforce the distribution of wealth to those who do the work, and to those who cannot work, you provide that least which is sufficient to create stability, security and health. In short, by cooperating for the good of all.
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