In all my classes I try to get students to think about theory by following James Rosenau’s prescription in his book Thinking Theory Thoroughly (2000), which calls on readers to ask themselves “What is this an instance of?” and in this way to work their way up what Rosenau calls “the ladder of abstraction.”  I took on this challenge myself when, in my last blog, I decided to reflect about my surroundings here at Lake Hawthorne through the lens of the theories I am reading about. The first book I picked up was Brian Skyrms’ The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure.  Reading it, the first related thought that came to mind was “Of course, Lake Hawthorne is a Commons.”  That is to say, it is one big, on-going stag hunt.  Let me explain…

Brian Skyrms begins his book with Rousseau’s metaphorical account of the Stag Hunt, which now constitutes a well-known game in game theory. Based on this metaphor, Skyrms explores the question of how cooperation comes about, given the relative strong disincentives not to cooperate.   At issue in this case is what a hunter will do, given a choice to hunt stag–which has a higher pay off but requires the cooperation of others, and thus entails the risk of gaining nothing–or to hunt for hare–which has a low payoff but entails little risk, because the hunter can accomplish the task independently, on his own.    

Of course Elinor Ostrom has made a convincing case for how certain kinds of institutions and “rules of the game” can alter the incentive structure so that individuals cooperate to sustain a “commons.”  But Skyrms goes further, exploring the question of how do these incentives/norms, themselves, come about.  What accounts for the evolution of the social contract? How can it overtake the strong incentive to defect? His tentative answers are very CCT-like: They all have to do with spatial structure, location, and locational interaction.  Greatly simplifying, the key to cooperation is to assure that stag hunters (cooperators) are positioned so that they come into contact with one another before they meet hare hunters (defectors) who together constitute a a basin of attraction large enough to take over the stag hunters.  With signaling–the subject of a future blog entry–the size of the cooperative community can be quite extensive and unstructured to a greater extent. 

The history of Lake Hawthorne’s evolution is fully consistent with Skyrms’ characterization with respect to both how the social contract was established, and how it evolved and was maintained over time. The purchase of the Lake property in 1895, as a resource that was to be held in common, was greatly facilitated by the fact that all the founders already knew each other in a variety of ways.  For example, many were teachers in the Paterson/Newark New Jersey school districts, a number were related, and all were participants in a hiking club that drew its members from the same locale.  Linked to each other in so many ways, none of the founders were likely to encounter a viable hare hunter–and so defect.  Over five generations, these links have been continuously reinforced and made more dense through social interactions and the process of jointly administrating the property–activities that are sometimes difficult to differentiate.   Surely–as Skyrms points out–there is a possibility that hare hunters might invade the commons at the edges, and convert some stag hunters to hare hunters.

The most dangerous prospect of this so far has been the attempt by a major developer to build luxury homes just above our mountainside, making the prospect of privatizing the commons and selling out to developers a much more lucrative option. Instead, the stag hunters of Lake Hawthorne joined together in opposition, and even extended their protest and resistance efforts to outlying towns and communities.  The result: That part of Sparta Mountain now constitutes an even greater commons–it is public parkland owned by all the people of the State of New Jersey.