First I don’t think conflating blame and “bad person” is necessarily helpful.
Sociopaths exist, and may need to be truly avoided and outed as a “bad person” (although pro-social psychopaths also exist; being a sociopath doesn’t automatically make you a bad person).
The most case is what is traditionally called “being tempted by sin”, e.g., someone procrastinating and not doing what he was supposed to do.
Since we assume that people do have somewhat common goals
However, not entirely common goals. A group of people can all agree that something must get done while each one also wants to get the most credit for the least amount of work. And don’t get me started on situations where most of the participants are only there for a paycheck, a.k.a., the real world.
The blame model seems something like this. There are strong social norms which reliably distinguish good actions from bad actions, in a way which almost everyone involved can agree on. These norms are assumed to be understood. When someone violates these norms, the appropriate response is some form of social punishment, ranging from mild reprimand to deciding that they’re a bad person and ostracizing them.
As I see the blame model is about enforcing skin in the game after the fact. When something objectively bad happens, e.g., a bridge collapses, profits collapse, a car accident, it’s necessary to enforce skin in that game on those whose decisions were responsible for bringing it about, i.e., make the person responsible for a risky decision bear the downside risk, especially if he would have received the benefits if it had succeeded, e.g., a CEO who decided on a risky strategy and would have gotten a big bonus if it had succeeded should also bear a cost for failure. Of course, in the question of who is responsible social norms might be relevant, e.g., if two cars collided in an intersection, the person who ran the red light is the one responsible.
First I don’t think conflating blame and “bad person” is necessarily helpful.
OK, yeah, your view of blame as social incentive (skin-in-the-game) seems superior.
The most case is what is traditionally called “being tempted by sin”, e.g., someone procrastinating and not doing what he was supposed to do.
I agree that imposing social costs can be a useful way of reducing this, but I think we would probably have disagreements about how often and in what cases. I think a lot of cases where people blame other people for their failings are more harmful than helpful, and push people away from each other in the long term.
And don’t get me started on situations where most of the participants are only there for a paycheck, a.k.a., the real world.
It sounds like we both agree that this is a nightmare scenario in terms of creating effective teams and good environments for people, albeit common.
However, even when the primary motive is money, there’s some social glue holding things together. I recommend the book The Moral Economy, which discusses how capitalist societies rely to a large extend on the goodwill of the populace. As mutual trust decreases, transaction costs increase. The most direct effect is the cost of security; shops in different neighborhoods require different amounts of it. This is often cited as the reason the diamond industry is dominated by Hasidic Jews; they save on security cost due to the high level of trust they can have as part of a community. Some of this trust comes from imposing social costs, but some of it also comes from common goals of the community members.
The Moral Economy argues that the lesson of the impossibility theorems of mechanism design is that it would not be possible to run a society on properly aligned incentives alone. There is no way to impose the right costs to get a society of selfish agents to behave. Instead, a mechanism designer in the real world has to recognize, utilize, and foster people’s altruistic and otherwise pro-social tendencies. It is also shown empirically that designing incentives as if people were selfish tends to make people act more selfish in many cases.
So, I will try and watch out for blame being a useful social mechanism in the way you describe. I’m probably underestimating the number of cases where imposed social costs are useful precisely because they don’t end up being applied (IE, implicit threats). At present I still think it would be better if people were both less quick to employ blame, and less concerned about other people blaming them (making more room for self-motivation).
First I don’t think conflating blame and “bad person” is necessarily helpful.
The most case is what is traditionally called “being tempted by sin”, e.g., someone procrastinating and not doing what he was supposed to do.
However, not entirely common goals. A group of people can all agree that something must get done while each one also wants to get the most credit for the least amount of work. And don’t get me started on situations where most of the participants are only there for a paycheck, a.k.a., the real world.
As I see the blame model is about enforcing skin in the game after the fact. When something objectively bad happens, e.g., a bridge collapses, profits collapse, a car accident, it’s necessary to enforce skin in that game on those whose decisions were responsible for bringing it about, i.e., make the person responsible for a risky decision bear the downside risk, especially if he would have received the benefits if it had succeeded, e.g., a CEO who decided on a risky strategy and would have gotten a big bonus if it had succeeded should also bear a cost for failure. Of course, in the question of who is responsible social norms might be relevant, e.g., if two cars collided in an intersection, the person who ran the red light is the one responsible.
OK, yeah, your view of blame as social incentive (skin-in-the-game) seems superior.
I agree that imposing social costs can be a useful way of reducing this, but I think we would probably have disagreements about how often and in what cases. I think a lot of cases where people blame other people for their failings are more harmful than helpful, and push people away from each other in the long term.
It sounds like we both agree that this is a nightmare scenario in terms of creating effective teams and good environments for people, albeit common.
However, even when the primary motive is money, there’s some social glue holding things together. I recommend the book The Moral Economy, which discusses how capitalist societies rely to a large extend on the goodwill of the populace. As mutual trust decreases, transaction costs increase. The most direct effect is the cost of security; shops in different neighborhoods require different amounts of it. This is often cited as the reason the diamond industry is dominated by Hasidic Jews; they save on security cost due to the high level of trust they can have as part of a community. Some of this trust comes from imposing social costs, but some of it also comes from common goals of the community members.
The Moral Economy argues that the lesson of the impossibility theorems of mechanism design is that it would not be possible to run a society on properly aligned incentives alone. There is no way to impose the right costs to get a society of selfish agents to behave. Instead, a mechanism designer in the real world has to recognize, utilize, and foster people’s altruistic and otherwise pro-social tendencies. It is also shown empirically that designing incentives as if people were selfish tends to make people act more selfish in many cases.
So, I will try and watch out for blame being a useful social mechanism in the way you describe. I’m probably underestimating the number of cases where imposed social costs are useful precisely because they don’t end up being applied (IE, implicit threats). At present I still think it would be better if people were both less quick to employ blame, and less concerned about other people blaming them (making more room for self-motivation).