Chapter 2: What Were They Thinking?

Digression: Government from the Paleolithic to Philadelphia

Page 51: Cooperation and Trust

Groups of prehistoric people going about their day.

SIS (narrating):  Ours is an inherently — and intensely — social species.

Wolves and chimps.

WOLF 1:  Yeah, but…

WOLF 2:  …so are we!

CHIMP 1:  You homo sapiens are the only species that ever invented government.

CHIMP 2:  How come?

File of chimps walking along.

SIS (narrating):  Perhaps it all comes down to teamwork. Even our closest cousins, the chimpanzees, can’t truly function as a team.  Sure, they’re hunt and forage together, in groups of 30 or 50, but they do so as 30 or so individuals.  Any collaboration is a self-interested reaction to what they see others doing. It’s never out of any desire to help.

Humans working together to fight off a sabre-toothed cat with stones and spears.

SIS (narrating):  Humans are different:

COOPERATION is our survival skill.

It’s in our DNA! We’re hardwired to be helpful.

Even without government, even as young children, even without being told or asked, humans instinctively want to work with others.

We care how others feel, what they need, what we can do for them.

We’re so strongly motivated to cooperate, we’ll pitch in an invite others to join us, just for the sake of doing it together.

The same humans, now roasting and eating the saber-tooth cat’s meat, with its pelt hanging behind.

SIS (narrating):  As members of a team, we thrive!

PEOPLE:  Team! Team! Team!

Lone man in the snow being followed by wolves.

SIS (narrating):  Alone, on the other hand…

WOLF:  Social life is life, wouldn’t you say?

People relying on each other.

SIS (narrating):  True cooperation is impossible without a few prerequisites. One of the big ones is TRUST

FRUIT PICKERS:  I can rely on them!

FIGHTING MEN:  He’s got my back!

FORAGING WOMAN:  They’ll watch my kids!

OLDER WOMEN:  She’ll share what she finds!

Average Joe and Sis.

JOE:  And this is relevant to what the Framers thought about government…

…how?

SIS:  Well…

You could say the changes and challenges of government throughout history all boil down to people asking “who can I trust?”…

…Or you could, y’know, trust me and let me get on with it!

If you would like to learn more, here are just a few suggestions to get you started:

51. Cooperation and Trust

Articles:

Joseph Henrich and Michael Muthukrishna, “The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation,” Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 72 (2021): 207-240.

Coren L. Apicella and Joan B. Silk, “The Evolution of Human Cooperation,” Current Biology, Vol. 29 (2019): R447-R450.

Frank Krueger and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, “Toward a Model of Interpersonal Trust Drawn from Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics,” Trends in Neurosciences, Vol. 42, No. 2 (February 2019): 92-101.

Robert Kurzban, Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew, and Stuart A. West, “The Evolution of Altruism in Humans,” Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 66 (January 2015): 575-599.

R. I. M. Dunbar, “Bridging the Bonding Gap: The Transition from Primates to Humans,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Vol. 367 (2012): 1837-1846.

Michael Tomasello, Alicia P. Melis, Claudio Tennie, Emily Wyman, and Esther Herrmann, “Two Key Steps in the Evolution of Human Cooperation: The Interdependence Hypothesis,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. 6 (December 2012): 673-692.

Kevin A. Pelphrey and James P. Morris, “Brain Mechanisms for Interpreting the Actions of Others from Biological-Motion Cues,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 15, No. 3 (June 2006): 136-140.

Mojdeh Mohtashemi and Lik Mui, “Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Social Information: The Role of Trust and Reputation in Evolution of Altruism,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 223, No. 4 (August 2003): 523-531.

Feel free to offer more suggestions in the comments!