Collective Action and Rational Choice: Place, Community, and the Limits to Individual Self-Interest

Abstract

Despite geographers' increasing concern with place-based politics, the effects of place-based social relations on collective political action remain largely untheorized. By emphasizing the free rider problem--why a rational, self-interested individual would engage in collective action when his/her impact is negligible and the benefits of collective action are public and free--rational choice theory correctly problematizes collective action. Its reliance on the essentialist homo economicus model of human nature, however, often leads to untenable solutions that do not consider nonstrategic forms of rationality, collective identity formation, and the crucial effects of place-specific social relations. Habermas's The Theory of Communicative Action, in contrast, provides a broader conception of rationality that recognizes communicative as well as strategic and instrumental forms of rationality and focuses on social interaction rather than on isolated individuals. Individuals reach common understandings, form communal bonds, and construct collective identities through communicative action. The relative importance of communicative versus strategic forms of action coordination varies geographically and historically and cannot be understood apart from systemic processes. As communicative forms of action coordination (based on communicative rationality) are "colonized" by systemic forms of action coordination (based on strategic and instrumental rationality) and destabilized by capital hypermobility, communal bonds break down. Places become less significant as bases for community and more significant in corporate location and investment decisions. These processes, however, engender resistance. Strong place-based communities mobilize when threatened and new forms of collective identity arise through channels created by time-space compression.

- Full paper here

It is no surprise that Toxic Individualism is Taking Over Our Culture:

This problem used to be a pain. Now it’s turning into a problem that dominates our society. We’ve got a bunch of spoiled children who want to take-take-take without giving anything back.

It’s the definition of entitlement, and it’s wrecking everything. This week we’re talking about Texas, but what’s going on now happens in deep red states all over the country. I happen to live in one. Let me tell you, it gets truly depressing to realize how alone you are. Even if you don’t have a mayor who flips you the mental bird-like Tim Boyd does, you know it’s what they’re thinking. They don’t want to help you, not really.

That’s why people like me take survival prep seriously. We know there’s a 50 percent chance we could get stuck in the exact same situation Texans are now. So we’ve got our gear handy.

Every day, you remind yourself that you’ll probably run across five or six jerks who truly don’t give a shit about you. Trying to point out contradictions in their thought process doesn’t work. It just makes them angry, and even less likely to change their minds.

You learn to spot them from a distance, and avoid them.

It’s the only way.