Discussion Project --
Castaways
In this exercise you are to imagine that you have been
thrown into a certain situation (one of the scenarios described below), and
then negotiate a "social contract" (an agreement about how you will
manage your affairs). In some cases I
will arbitrarily assign certain roles to various members of the group. In
both scenarios your goal should be to negotiate the best deal you can for
yourself (acting like a ‘rational economic agent’ who is pursuing his or her
self-interest) – not to be ‘nice’ or ‘fair’.
Scenario
#1
You
were all passengers on a ship that sank in a storm. Now you are in a lifeboat that has been
drifting for several days. You know that
you are in a part of the world where the few islands are uninhabited and where
ships seldom go. You do not expect to be
rescued for many years, if at all. You
have sighted an island and are paddling towards it. You have no idea what resources that island
will contain or what sorts of skills will be needed in order to make use of
those resources. You do know that some
of your group members are skilled at fishing, some at agriculture; some are
very clever with their hands, others are quite strong, others can run very
fast, and still others are very good at finding edible plants in the wild. But you don't know whether any or all of
these abilities will be useful under the circumstances you will find on the
island. One of your members has made
the following speech: "Before we
land, I think we should agree about how we will operate when we get there. Is it going to be share and share alike, or
is it going to be each person for him or herself, or what?" What agreement do you think should be
made? Why?
Scenario
#2
Your group has been shipwrecked on
an uninhabited island. You do not expect
to be rescued for many years, if at all.
The only food that you have been
able to find is some fruit and coconuts that grow on tall skinny trees with
rather smooth bark. Only two of your
group members have the strength and agility that it takes to climb the trees
and get down the fruit and coconuts. For
them, it is fairly strenuous, but not very time consuming to get a regular
supply of food ample for all of you. A
few minutes of work per day will do the job.
The only fresh water on the island
is located at some distance from the shore and from the fruit trees. So it must be carried back in coconut shells
or hollowed out logs. Firewood must also
be gathered from some distance. This work (getting water and wood) is not too
difficult for any of you, but it is tedious and time consuming. If everyone took part it would take several
hours per day. If only the people who
cannot climb the trees do this work, it will take them
most of the day.
Work out an agreement about how you
will manage your affairs. (Assume that
no one will use violence to force a different agreement than
the one people would agree to voluntarily.)