ABSTRACT

Our collective failures to deal with crises in the environment and elsewhere are often based in a failure of political will. But that failure in will is itself based in part in an intellectual failure. Since the 1950s, our world has had the intellectual tools to understand collective action problems, with their embedded free rider dynamics. Most political scientists are aware of these dynamics, which constitute the major argument for government. But most citizens and journalists do not yet grasp the central idea.