1. The Problem of Social Order

2. The problem of social order Why doesnt our world resemble The Road Warrior? Why is social life mostly so predictable? Why do people Look out for one another? Conform to social rules? Make and obey laws? Make investments in future ventures?

3. Social order in insect societies Worker ants sacrifice their lives on behalf of the colony Workers of one North African species of ants face virtual suicide in foraging for food Ant supercolonies In Europe, an Argentine species covers 6000 km; comprises millions of nests, billions of individual workers Mechanism: high degree of genetic relatedness, combined with chemical signaling of this relatedness

4. Explanation Explanation: inclusive fitness Among social insects, sisters share 75% of their genes Among most animals, sisters only share 50% of their genes

5. Critique Helps explain mother-child bond in human society Cannot account for cooperation among non-related individuals

6. Two components of social order Order as coordination Disorder as lack of coordination Order as cooperation Disorder as lack of cooperation

7. Social order, contd Coordination Predictability allows people to develop stable expectations, which in turn enable them to coordinate. EG driving EG the value of money

8. Disorder from lack of predictability Financial crises

9. Examples of coordination Traffic Everyone drives on the right and passes on the left Availability of consumer goods Food in the stores

10. Cooperation People do things that benefit others, not just themselves EG NPR donations, volunteer work EG Refrain from taking others property, refrain from polluting

11. Disorder from lack of cooperation Montegrano, Southern Italy, ca. 1950, pop = 3400 (Banfield. 1958. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society) There is only one voluntary association a clubroom where 25 upper class men play cards No organized charities Churches do not carry out welfare or charitable activities Hardly anyone puts money on the collection plate at church People dont understand the concept of public- spiritedness – says that no one in town is public-spirited

12. Montegrano: political activity is feeble Political parties are weak People are too individualistic to care about mobilizing others for any collective purpose Political cynicism is extreme

13. Montegrano: collective needs are unmet Because there is so little collective action, most collective needs are unmet in Montegrano Amoral familism Still characteristic of Southern Italy, as compared with Northern Italy R. Putnam, Making Democracy Work

14. Example of cooperative order New York, and the entire U.S., in the wake of the events of September 11 th Volunteers flooded Ground Zero NY businesses gave free food to rescuers and victims Celebrities raised money for the victims in a huge telethon

15. What makes cooperation difficult to attain? People are social They need others to be happy and healthy People are also individual

16. Cooperation, contd So, there is tension between the interests of the individual and the interests of the group

17. Recap The problem of social order is a key issue in the social sciences and in public policy In order to create the world we want, we need to have social order

18. Recap Social order includes two components: Coordination (predictability) Cooperation (overcoming individual self- interest) In this course, we will discuss five theoretical solutions to the problem of social order