Mancur Olson

Mancur Lloyd Olson, Jr. ( born January 22, 1932 in Grand Forks ( USA), † 19 February 1998) was an American economist who interdisciplinary docked his works and co-determined the development of sociology and political science.

• 3.1 Primary Sources
• 3.2 secondary literature

Life

After graduating from North Dakota State University Olson studied at Oxford Economics and received his PhD in 1963 at Harvard. His first appointment as an assistant professor, he got from Princeton University, where he worked until 1967. He then worked for a short time in the U.S. Department of Health and Social Affairs, and returned in 1969 back in university life when he accepted a professorship in economics at the University of Maryland. At this university he founded in 1990, the Center on Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS, dt: Center for Institutional Reform and the shadow economy ). Later he founded along with James M. Buchanan, among others, the Public Choice Society, the sixth president he was. He also held the offices of President of the Section of Social and Economic Sciences of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Vice President of the American Economic Association.

Work

He is considered the rational choice theory ( rational choice theory ) and used these for the analysis of collective action in groups to entire nations.

Logic of Collective Action

In his 1965 work authored Logic of Collective Action Olson discusses the problems for groups, if all its members would behave rationally in the sense of the theory of rational decision. Starting point for reflection is a critique on the one hand of liberal pluralism Bentleys and Truman, determined the political science discussion in the 1950s especially, and of Marxism. Both approaches have in common is the criticism of Olson postulate that in the provision of public goods as long as no problems occur, such as the members of the organization have a common interest in this collective good. Olson now points to that this correspondence is given not necessarily between individual and collective rationality, but rather that the provision of public goods by a group is precarious because it may be rational for individual group members not to act in the interests of the group, but the own benefit to maximize.

It result from the fact problems of the organization of groups. Here, it differs from the group size between privileged groups, medium-sized groups, and deferred groups, only when latent groups in which the contributions of a member if the size of the group are no longer perceptible, rational action plays a role. In these latent groups, the problem of free-riding is constantly virulent and it must be provided by the organization known as selective incentives (positive or negative nature ), to enable collective action.

In " free riders " ( free -rider problem), the pull without own contribution benefit from the collective actions of others, there is no more incentive to participate in the collective action. At this point the bond Olson occurs in the theory of public goods to light: a prerequisite for the above problem is in fact that - as with public goods also - the " consumer " or the benefit of the collective good, no one can be excluded (non- exclusivity ), such as a lighthouse: the shipowners' I do not need to entertain the lighthouse contribute because others would place it out of their need for security out without my post and I can not be excluded from the "consumption".

Olson also points to a second problem, the cause of which is closely related to the group size, the so-called trivial contribution trouble. It is very similar to the problem of free-riding, but has even more on the group size as a cause of problems of collective action towards: Suppose my own contribution makes due to the high number of members, only a fraction of the necessary funds from that of an organization to provide public good requires. Then I have little incentive to continue to make this post, because he can not improve the ability of an organization to achieve its goals. Can at this point the reach of Olson's theory is clear that not only provides useful predictions for the economics, but in particular the analysis of collective action in the policy support and questions such as the following, theorized: Why should I choose to go, if only in exceptional cases, just my casting vote for which party is in the government? Why should I become a member of a party or union with many members in the go under my interests?

Is "Crucial According to Olson, not the will to contribute directly to a public good, but rather the incentive to do so indirectly. So it becomes a question of institutional arrangements, whether group members - be compelled to act in the common interest group - through selective incentives. Insofar Olson 's group theoretic paradox that rational actors can just have a common interest group only with the help of the incentive effects of institutional arrangements in a socially desirable manner, due to their individual rationality, the direct analogue of the classical theorem of the invisible hand. "

Olson examined on the basis of the presented system unions in the U.S., trade journals for medicine and farm - offices of American agriculture. At the end he goes into the social theory of Karl Marx, and shows that the interest in Marx of proletariat and the bourgeoisie will not ally itself according to rational criteria, suggested Marx, and act together.

The Rise and Decline of Nations

The work, published in 1982, developed an economic theory of the relationship between degree of organization of interest groups and the rate of economic growth of an economy. The author is distinguished from the " classical liberal laissez- faire ideology " from that " that government is best which governs least. " Not at all the markets would solve every problem alone, if the government allows only at rest ( engl edition, p.233 ). Due to the self-interests of stakeholders did these not necessarily in the sense of the common good as adopted by the State.