We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
The immense majority of the merchants of our Republic flee, as from the plague, from whatever action that might cause them to aggregate their interests. … They refuse to join the chambers. We have heard merchants say: Why should I join, if when the chamber gains a benefit for commerce, it is for all of us, and on the other hand when the same chamber has difficulties with the government or town council its members are exposed to reprisals.
Letter from the National Mining Chamber of Chihuahua to the Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Labor, 1927Olson's Uneven Legacy
Some four decades later, Mancur Olson (1965) formalized the lament of the Chihuahua Mining Chamber into his microeconomic theory of collective action. For Olson, potential members of associations have incentives to free-ride, to let others do the work of organizing and then enjoy the benefits of, say, successful lobbying. These incentives to free-ride discourage spontaneous collective action unless the numbers involved are small or an association provides selective benefits, available to members only, that effectively compensate members for their efforts and dues. And, some three decades after Olson published his Logic of Collective Action in 1965, his theories were hegemonic in several subfields of political science. However, not all components of Olson's original book have had the same impact or have benefited from equally intense theoretical development.
One large literature inspired by Olson's Logic essentially applies and elaborates the core microeconomics of small numbers and homogeneous interests.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
