Free Riding

by Richard Tuck

Overview

A proposition of contemporary economics and political science is that it would be an exercise of reason, not a failure of it, not to contribute to a collective project if the contribution is negligible, but to benefit from it nonetheless.Tuck makes careful distinctions between the prisone's dilemma problem, threshold phenomena such as voting, and free riding. He analyzes the notion of negligibility, and shows some of the logical difficulties in the idea - and how the ancient paradox of the sorites illustrates the difficulties.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674033894
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	439 KB

About the Author

Richard Tuck is Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government, Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface Introduction: Olson's Problem Part I. Philosophy 1. the Prisoners? Dilemma 2. Voting and Other Thresholds 3. Negligibility Conclusion to Part I Part II. History 4. Rule- and Act-Utilitarianism 5. Perfect Competition, Oligopoly and Monopoly Conclusion to Part II Index

What People are Saying About This

Original, full of good ideas and insights, Richard Tuck's Free Riding could initiate an important debate about the least human of the human sciences.

Philip Pettit

This is a hugely interesting book that will almost certainly start a controversy. It addresses some of the widest assumptions in contemporary economic and social thought and calls them into question; and it provides a very illuminating history of the appearance of those assumptions. --(Philip Pettit, Princeton University)

John Ferejohn

Original, full of good ideas and insights, Richard Tuck's Free Riding could initiate an important debate about the least human of the human sciences. --(John Ferejohn, Stanford University)

Editorial Reviews

This is a hugely interesting book that will almost certainly start a controversy. It addresses some of the widest assumptions in contemporary economic and social thought and calls them into question; and it provides a very illuminating history of the appearance of those assumptions.

Philip Pettit

Original, full of good ideas and insights, Richard Tuck's Free Riding could initiate an important debate about the least human of the human sciences.

John Ferejohn