BACKWARD-LOOKING SOCIAL-CONTROL

Rational-choice theorists stress the need for social control to overco me the free-rider problem in collective action. Critics counter that m echanisms for monitoring and enforcement are themselves public goods t hat presume collective action rather than explain it. In response, Hec kathorn (1989) proposed an analytic solution based on ''hypocritical c ooperation'' in which rational actors calculate the optimal allocation of resources between compliance with collective obligations and their enforcement. I relax these ''forward-looking'' behavioral assumptions and show how social control might evolve among ''backward-looking '' pragmatists. Computer simulations test the ability of various sanction ing regimes to generate cooperation as well as resist stampedes that r isk overcooperation and needless sacrifice. External moral sanctions p roduce too little cooperation, while internalized sanctions produce to o much. The best performer induced self-sustaining cooperation and the n turned itself off once enforcement was no longer needed. This self-r egulating system shows how collective rationality can obtain without t he actors intending it.