The lack of public-mindedness can cause problems in the social order of people’s daily lives, such as the tragedy of the commons and the problem of free riders. Some scholars such as Habermas assert that communicative rationality is the solution, expecting that individuals will communicate with each other to reach a consensus without being bounded by aspects of social background. Other scholars advocate the revitalization of traditional community culture. These arguments, however, are not based on reality. By using the case of communal land formation in rural Thailand, the author shows that collective action is neither a revival of tradition nor a result of communication free from social constraints. Rather, cooperation emerges because the people rationally respond to their present needs and have built, through daily social interactions, taken-for-granted knowledge about how they should behave for cooperation.
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Paper provided by Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO) in its series IDE Discussion Papers with number
108.
Length: Date of creation: Jun 2007 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in IDE Discussion Paper. No. 108. 2007.6 Handle: RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper108
Find related papers by JEL classification: O18 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Regional, Urban, and Rural Analyses Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
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