A study at UCSD found that students exhibit "Robin Hood" like behavior in a game designed to determine if we have a tendency to cooperate toward equality. The findings really beg the question, if we are egalitarian beings, which the study seems to suggest, why do we tolerate so much inequality? If we're genuinely interested in distributing wealth, then why are we not dropping coins into every mendicant's open hand?
The study found that a player's choice to increase another player's wealth was made when there was disparity among participants and the player could spend their own money to enrich those with the least, most often spending to "take from the rich and give to the poor".
The experiment seems to suggest that the presence of a mechanism that allows one person to take from someone with more wealth elicits the "Robin Hood" behavior. When that condition is satisfied then participants are also more likely to donate their own money to less wealthy individuals, as well as take from wealthier participants.
In the vast majority of societies such a mechanism is not legally available to individuals, and so the behavior is considered criminal. But people still commonly commit the crime. The piracy of software, movies and other intellectual property is often attributed to individuals' rationalization that they are redistributing wealth. Any petty theft might be attributed to this rationalization.
There is a degree of irony in the fact that the laws preventing Robin Hood like behavior are absolute. Protection of our right to property is intended to to promote social stability. Yet the absolute interpretation of this right has denied society's tendency toward egalitarianism, and often results in major conflicts and instability. Look at any one of the hundreds of "mineral wars" - Angola and Ivory Coast come to mind. Even the labor disputes involving Wal Mart are manifestations of the conflict between the corporation's enforced right to dominate a market and the desire to equalize.
Does our egalitarian tendency need a more central role in society? Given the increasing inequality of wealth distribution and resulting conflicts, is it time to reexamine our right to property in a more global and sustainable context? How would the rights of corporations be different?
Quite inspiring,
Thanks for sharing,
Keep up the good work
Posted by: web development company | December 10, 2009 at 02:39 AM