Product Description

How can co-operation emerge in a world of self-seeking egoists - whether superpowers, businesses, or individuals - when there is no central authority to police their actions? The author explores this central question, and its implications in this age of nuclear weapons and arms talks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121000 in Books
• Published on: 1990-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Robert Axelrod is the Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding at the University of Michigan. He has been consulted on cooperation by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the U.S. Department of Defense. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Customer Reviews

Can cooperation emerge among egoistic individuums?
Sometimes, the individual benefit seems to conflict with the benefit of the community as a whole, even though the community includes this very individuum. One such example has been formulated as the Prisonner's Dilemma: two suspects, A and B, are arrested, and kept separated so that they cannot communicate. If they continue to cooperate, they will be both sentenced to one year. However, if suspect A cooperates, but suspect B defects, A is going to be sentenced to five years, and suspect B will be released. Vice versa, if B cooperates and A defects, A will be released and B sentenced to five years. Finally, if both defect, they will both be sentenced to three years each.

It is clear that the best solution for both of them is cooperation. On the other hand, each individual is also tempted to maximize his own individual benefit. And each of them benefits most if he decides to defect, which in turn brings the worst possible outcome for both (six years total). So one-shot Prisonner's Dilemma rarely leads to cooperation. Now, what if the very two chaps are later arrested again? Will they cooperate when given another chance? And if they know they will face the same situation every five years? Professor Axelrod tested the iterated Prisonner's Dilemma with computer programs, and investigated under which circumstances cooperation can emerge.

The book is nicely scattered with fragments of game theory and examples from world politics. All in all, as Richard Dawkins has commented in the foreword to the Penguin edition of this book, in breathes with optimism, and is a delight to read. Still, it has one problem, and actually shares it with Dawkins: the book reaches its climax right at the beginning. The book starts with a strong and very convincing idea, but later fails to keep the same pace of dynamic. The idea is splendid, but the structure of the book could be improved.

An "ah ha" type read. A game-theoretical analysis of how co-operation can defeat selfishness.
I have to admit this is not a riveting read. It is largely a factual description of experiments Axelrod carried out over a number of years, with a variety of experts competing to find the most successful tactics in games of iterated prisoner's dilemma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

However the outcome of the research is truly eye-opening and fascinating. Unlike a single round game of prisoner's dilemma (where co-operation is, to say the least, dangerous), the most successful tactics were to co-operate rather than act selfishly, unless that co-operative behaviour was abused by the other player (in which case neither player would do very well). Axelrod also shows how co-operation can spread through a network squeezing out selfish behaviour.

You know the book has to be worth a read when Richard Dawkin's, author of the Selfish Gene, writes in the introduction:

"THIS IS A book of optimism. But it is believable, realistic optimism... As Darwinians we start pessimistically by assuming deep selfishness, pitiless indifference to suffering, ruthless heed to individual success. And yet from such warped beginnings, something that is in effect, if not necessarily in intention, close to amicable brotherhood and sisterhood can come. This is the uplifting message of Robert Axelrod's remarkable book."

There we are, a book to save Dawkins from himself - has to be good.

A groundbreaking study on effective cooperation
Every so often a book comes along that is so groundbreaking it changes the popular worldview. This book, written in 1984 by Robert Axelrod, is just such a seminal work, an original analysis that changed the way experts view cooperation. Its ramifications apply to individuals, organizations, countries and even nonthinking - but nevertheless cooperative - biological life forms, such as bacteria. Axelrod based his book on the famous Prisoner's Dilemma, a classic game created in 1950 by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher of the Rand Corporation. Canadian mathematician Albert W. Tucker added the prison sentence payoffs and gave the game its colorful name. Players have two choices: cooperation or betrayal. Axelrod organized two repeating Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments played by computer programs devised by game theorists, scientists and other experts. His analysis of the tournaments' results confirmed that cooperation is always a better long-term strategy than betrayal and, thus, evolution has favored it. This book, based on that analysis, has become a true classic. getAbstract suggests that anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of cooperation should start by reading this pivotal, illuminating study.