User:Sweubank/Alliances—A Theory of Concerted Human Behavior

Alliances—A Theory of Concerted Human Behavior by Stephen W. Eubank seeks to answer the question, “Can a band of prehistoric hunters, a soccer-mom carpool, a billion-dollar corporation, a criminal conspiracy, and a modern government all be analyzed using the same principles?” According to the author, humans regularly create, participate in, and terminate “alliances.”  These alliances can be incredibly complex, such as a modern government, or simple and short-lived, such as a carpool.

Summary
All alliances have four common elements: (i)	two or more members; (ii) 	an agreement to participate in the alliance called an “accord” that encompasses spoken or written agreements, as well as tacit, unspoken agreements; (iii)	contribution of “resources” that include obvious items such as labor, material, or money, and less evident things such as time, prestige, life and limb, and even liberty and freedom; and (iv)	an objective that the members either cannot attain on their own or can attain more effectively and/or efficiently through a combined effort.

The book uses 20 recurring examples to illustrate alliance theory. These examples include cavemen, primitive farmers, charities, mercenaries, and carpools. The four common elements noted above are present in all examples.

The author contends that the principles in the book are “value-neutral” and can be used by anyone to understand current events, history, and their own personal circumstances. The introduction suggests that the book might offer a common language for persons of widely varying viewpoints to converse in and to identify the true points upon which they agree and disagree.

The Objective Concept
The objective concept is a central focus of the book. As noted above, the author contends that alliances form to pursue one or more objectives. These objectives must be of a certain nature. Specifically, an alliance will be formed to pursue an objective only if: (i) the objective is one that an individual can attain solely through working with others, or (ii) the objective is one that can be attained more efficiently and/or effectively through working with others. If neither of these situations is present, an alliance will not form. The reason is that individuals will conclude that the proposed combined undertaking does not offer an advantage over what individuals can attain through their own solo efforts.

The author demonstrates these concepts through the examples that recur throughout the book. The first example is of a caveman who encounters a boulder blocking his favorite pathway. If the caveman has the strength to shove the boulder out of the path, the caveman will use his own individual effort to attain that objective. But if the boulder is too massive, the caveman will seek to enlist other cavemen who frequent the pathway to combine their efforts into moving the boulder. In this situation, an alliance is formed because the caveman cannot attain the objective through individual effort.

Sometimes an alliance might be formed even if an individual can attain an objective. An alliance will arise in this situation, because a combined effort is more effective or efficient than an individual effort. For instance, even if the caveman can move the boulder through his own effort, he might nonetheless recruit others to combine their efforts toward moving the boulder. The caveman might form this alliance because a combined effort will move the boulder more quickly, use less of the caveman’s energy, and reduce the likelihood of injury.

According to the author, the application of these general concepts is not limited to cavemen moving boulders. Rather, the principles can be applied universally to most all situations where humans combine resources toward a common goal. The unifying point is that an alliance forms only when a combined effort offers the members a perceived advantage over an individual effort. If this perceived advantage is not present, an alliance will not form. (This generalization is subject to the exception of illusory alliances, which is touched upon later.)

External & Internal Objectives
The book also identifies two categories of objectives that alliances pursue: external objectives and internal objectives. External objectives are attained by members focusing their combined resources on an outside entity or event such as a group of attacking raiders, a flood or other natural disaster, providing charity to non-members, building a common area, and so on. Through combining resources to target something external to the alliance members, the alliance is able to combat attackers, control nature, help non-members, and construct large buildings.

In contrast, internal objectives focus on the conduct of members and usually consist of a contribution of liberty (i.e., a voluntary relinquishment of the freedom to act in a certain fashion). Through the collective contribution of this liberty, a desirable objective is attained and all members benefit. A primary example of an internal objective is a “law-compelled objective,” which includes subcategories such as protection of the person, protection of property, and enforcement of promises. The underlying concept is that all members benefit if they all forego the “freedom” to kill each other, to steal or destroy others’ property, and to break promises.

Other examples of internal objectives include conservation, moral and religious practices, paternalism, leveling, and even customs. With the exception of paternalism, these internal objectives will be attained if all members of the alliance behave in a certain fashion. For instance, if all members agree to conserve the number of fish caught from a lake and do in fact adhere to the agreement, the supply of fish in the lake will be preserved and all members will have a steady supply of fish. Similarly, if all members believe that adherence to certain religious practices will appease a religious deity and therefore prevent a “Sodom & Gomorrah” destruction of the community, all members presumably will benefit if they agree to adhere to the religious practices and institute rules to insure compliance. As a result, each member foregoes the liberty to not comply with the religious practices in order to protect all members from destruction.

Paternalism, in contrast to other internal objectives, focuses upon the conduct of each member. It is based upon an agreement by all members that they are prone to certain irrational courses of conduct (e.g., gambling, narcotics, unsafe behavior) and that they will all benefit if the alliance prevents them from doing certain things (e.g., banning gambling, narcotics, and driving without a seatbelt). It should be emphasized that this version of paternalism differs from a more common example where a ruling authority decides what is best and imposes it upon others. Instead, the book’s paternalism is conditioned upon an express or implied agreement by all members to adhere to the paternalistic mandate.

As noted earlier, the book is “value neutral.” As a result, the author does not take a position on whether any of these objectives that alliances might pursue are legitimate or desirable. Instead, the author constrains the analysis to identifying certain categories of objectives that alliances tend to pursue and what rationales might underlie such pursuits. In this regard, the focus is solely upon the subjective beliefs or desires of members and how they might use alliances to further their individual interests.

Decisions to Enter Alliances
When deciding to enter an alliance, individuals mull over the perceived values offered by the alliance. In using the concept of “perceived value,” the author relies upon a rudimentary form of micro-economics, with perceived value being a rough equivalent to the micro-economic concept of “utility.”

As noted earlier, an alliance will be formed to pursue an objective only if: (i) the objective is one that an individual can attain solely through working with others, or (ii) the objective is one that can be attained more efficiently and/or effectively through working with others. With regard to the first type of objective, the individual will compare the perceived value of the resource(s) that he must contribute to the alliance, or “cost,” against the perceived value of the attained objective, or “benefit.” If the individual perceives that the benefit of the attained objective is greater than the cost of the resource contributed to the alliance, then the individual will join the alliance.

When it comes to the second type of objective, the individual will weigh the net perceived value of an individual effort (i.e., the perceived cost versus the perceived value of attaining the objective individually) against the net perceived value of an alliance effort (i.e., the perceived cost versus the perceived value of attaining the objective through a combined effort). If the alliance effort offers a greater net perceived value over that of the individual effort, then the individual will enter the alliance. If not, the individual will seek to attain the objective through a solo effort. The concept of perceived value rests upon an individual’s subjective valuation of the objective and the resources necessary to attain it. As a result, there will be different valuations among individuals and some individuals will determine that entering an alliance is not warranted while others will decide that it is warranted.

Decision-Making Processes
The book also explores decision-making processes. Many, but not all, alliances have processes to make decisions necessary for the operation of an alliance. The subject matter of the decisions can relate to certain objectives to be pursued by the alliance, the means to be used to attain an objective, or ancillary issues such as membership rules, contribution, allocation of benefits, and so on. If an alliance is short-lived and has a simple objective, a decision-making process is usually not necessary.

Decision-making processes can come in many forms. Some alliances have nebulous processes such as a group consensus. Other alliances have complex decision-making processes like membership vote, an executive decision maker, or a committee decision maker. Interwoven and tiered decision-making processes are also common in many alliances.

According to the book, kingdoms, oligarchies, democracies, republics, and even dictators are all capable of constituting alliances, at least in theory. If the four essential elements exist, then an alliance is present. The only real difference between these various types of governmental entities is in the decision-making process used. A kingdom and a dictatorship, for instance, both have a single decision maker (i.e., the “king” or the “dictator”) while a true democracy’s decision-making process is composed of all the members.

This generalization does not mean that, for instance, all kingdoms or dictators are alliances. Instead, many kingdoms and most dictators constitute tyrannies. But they often trick individuals into believing that they are members of an alliance and that the king (or dictator) is always looking out for their interests. These entities are termed “illusory alliances,” because they create the illusion of an alliance in the minds of the ostensible members. Eubank suggests that the concept of illusory alliances might explain how a tyrannical regime often finds support among many of the individuals that it subjugates.

Limitations on Decision-Making Processes
The book emphasizes that there are three categories of limitations associated with all decision-making processes. These three types of limitations can prevent the alliances from attaining their objectives and can sometimes turn alliances into tyrannies.

The first category is motivational limitations that consist of a decision maker lacking a proper desire to attain the objective. Examples might include lack of interest in performing the duties, distractions, and unsatisfactory compensation.

The second category is capability limitations that pertain to inabilities suffered by the decision maker. These inabilities can be specific to a particular decision maker such as the person or group of persons being stupid or ignorant. But some capability limitations are applicable to all decision makers. In this regard, an alliance might charge a decision maker with achieving the impossible. The book terms this the “magic wand” problem because the alliance is founded upon an assumption that the decision maker holds a magic wand that can solve all problems if properly waived. This broad assumption, of course, is unwarranted and the alliance will fail as a result.

The final category is fidelity limitations. The book subdivides this category into three sub-categories of position protection, the favoring of one interest over another, and outright corruption. Each of these situations occurs when the decision makers place their own interests ahead of the interests of the alliance, with outright corruption being the most obvious example.

Due to these limitations in the decision-making process, alliances often underperform, fail, or transform into tyrannies. Whenever an alliance is formed, the book suggests that care be taken to insure that such limitations are minimized.

Illusory Alliances & Tyrannies
The book identifies a number of principles and concepts arising out of alliance theory. For instance, one chapter is devoted to discussing “illusory issues” and focuses on how all alliances have a tendency to slide into illusory alliances. An illusory alliance is an entity that is perceived as being an alliance by its members but in fact constitutes a ruse to conceal a tyranny.

A tyranny, according to the book, is an entity that extracts resources from the individuals it subjugates and uses those resources to attain objectives desired by the tyrant (or a small alliance of individuals that operates the tyranny). Eubank suggests that few tyrants admit to being tyrants. As such, tyrants usually attempt to delude subjugated individuals (and themselves) into believing that they are members of an alliance headed by the beneficent tyrant. The propaganda of Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, or modern-day North Korea may come to mind. The book identifies various factors that might cause a transformation into an illusory alliance and these include indefinite and open objectives, objective creep, objective disguise, and the utilization of indirect attainment as a means to attain objectives. The central concept here is that these factors contribute toward members failing to recognize that their alliance is gradually mutating into a tyranny.

The book also suggests that tyrannical alliances might exist at times. These occur when the members embrace a seemingly abhorrent tyrant to rule over them (and abuse them at times) because the tyrant is perceived as the only alternative to anarchy. In one of the few references to existing works, Eubank ascribes this concept to Thomas Hobbs and his concept of a Leviathan.

Esprit de Corps and Association Glory
The concepts of esprit de corps and association glory are important topics in the book. Esprit de corps is a mood or atmosphere that might pervade through the membership and is associated with high morale, a sense of belonging, and camaraderie. Association glory is similar but is more of a pride-based emotion felt by members of an alliance and flows from a feeling of honor or esteem at being associated with the alliance.

The book suggests that these related concepts, when present, can serve to boost the performance of alliances. For instance, if members feel both esprit de corps and association glory, they might contribute more resources towards the alliance effort and undertake more efforts to see that the alliance stays healthy and does not terminate. Both phenomena can also serve to hold alliances together and make them more stable and long-lived. Eubank opines that tyrants sometimes use both esprit de corps and association glory to placate those that they subjugate.

Association glory can often hinder the performance of an alliance as it might come to be a dominant objective of an alliance, opposed to a mere side effect. In this situation, members might become so preoccupied with maintaining or augmenting the glory of their alliance that they de-emphasize or even outright ignore the underlying objectives that hold the alliance together.

The end of the book indicates that modern political parties appear to focus upon increasing their respective association glories rather than on achieving specific legislation-based objectives. In this regard, the parties’ primary concern appears to be maintaining or increasing the power of the political party. This situation seems to occur because party members appear to place more emphasis upon being associated with a powerful political party instead of implementing a certain policy through legislation. In other words, being powerful is the end result and policy objectives constitute nothing more than means to preserve or attain that power. Arguably, a modern political party is somewhat akin to a sports team that party members want to win elections so that members might bask in the glory of the victory.

Traits of Success
The book identifies traits that successful alliances tend to have. These include:
 * limited membership
 * decision-making processes suited for the objectives
 * careful usage of “majority rules”
 * checks on delegated decision makers
 * safeguards against fidelity limitations
 * decision-maker selection processes
 * decision-maker removal processes
 * effective resource contribution
 * esprit de corps
 * constraints on objectives to be pursued
 * procedures for amending the accord
 * restrictions on means to be used
 * substantial protections when liberty is contributed as a resource
 * respect for the accord
 * pursuit of a limited number of objectives
 * a willingness to form new alliances to pursue objectives not desired by the current membership
 * members who participate in the alliance’s decision-making process