14 DAY TRIAL // It's in the nature of economics: to get the maximum income with the least energy consumption. So, at best, if you do not lift a finger but still get the benefits, will you not choose this? Only if you are not punished...
"The problem with punishment-why it's an interesting question for evolutionary biologists and anthropologists-is [that] it's not clear how this behavior would evolve," said Christoph Hauert, a research associate in evolutionary dynamics at Harvard University who has led a research on punishment.
Hauert and co-author Karl Sigmund, a mathematician at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, developed a mathematical model showing how groups behave when collaborating on a mission.
They detected three types of individuals in any community: cooperators, who do their work and get the reward for their effort; defectors, who do not work but still benefit from the effort of the others; and punishers, who penalize the second category. Among various versions, the researchers found that the punishers must dominate to keep the collective activity going. But their dominance must be voluntary.
The team cited what happens in hunter-gatherer communities. Initially, each community subsists on gathering, for example mushrooms encountered on the ground. When weapons are developed, the individuals turn into hunters. After a period of cooperating and sharing the kill, one member of the tribe realizes that he can get to the same benefits without wasting his energy, by hiding behind a tree while the others do the hunt. In this case, hunt participation was mandatory.
"Under those conditions, other members of the community began to notice the freeloaders and realized that the biggest payoff for the least amount of work came from also being a defector. Soon, the so-called defectors came to dominate the group, which, in this instance, would likely result in the failure of hunting as a means of survival and force everyone to revert to subsisting on mushrooms," said the authors.
When they introduced a nonparticipant, who would neither hunt nor receive a share, the community became dominated by punishers, who maintained everyone in line; by punishing defectors, they forced out others from adopting their life style, keeping on controling the hunting community.
Therefore, there is an oscillating cycle: some cooperators may come from nonparticipants, who increase their share relative to the group. But after that, the group of cooperators may turn dominated by defectors, who ruin everything for everyone. When defectors turn dominant, punishers may not be welcomed.
When punishers are dominant before defectors controlling the group, they can maintain long-term cooperative communities, till a new technological innovation appears, like let's say processed food, and the cycle starts again.
"Essentially, we are looking here at a game between cops and robbers. When the activity is compulsory, the robbers win; when it is optional, the cops win. If there is a possibility for being a nonparticipant, then everyone becomes a cop" said Sigmund.