Thinking about it now I'm surprised that Mancur Olsen doesn't get mentioned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action
as his theory is precisely about how when collective action is difficult people don't do it.
I'm reminded of the nixon quote: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
n=256 undergraduates playing “The Ultimatum Game.”
The headline (“fairness is what the powerful can get away with”) is a tad lofty given the methodology of the study.
So this is just Thrasymachus - "Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger"?
Isn't the flip-side of this "The powerful do not do what they will be held accountable for"?
Yes, everyone does what they can get away with in a mixed-incentive game.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
-- George Orwell, Animal Farm
Surely this will replicate...
you are also powerful compared to the homeless guy on the street, does this study also evaluate this?
I feel like fairness is what anyone can get away with and powerful people just tend to get away with more. Even the article seems to land on this conclusion.
I'd like to see add on study on 'Banality of Evil'.
Here "The willingness of those in power to act fairly depends on how easily others can collectively push back against unfair treatment, psychologists have found."
What about all the the middle managers that enable the powerful.
The more the middle layer of population supports the powerful, the less the 'masses' can revolt to enforce fairness.
All revolutions are actually started by the middle class which gets upset. The true lower class masses never have the resources to get off the ground.
"Fa(ir|re) is what you pay to ride a bus"--LT Nicholson.
"Results suggest that the ease of collective action induces more egalitarian behavior by individuals in a position of power and makes those without power less willing to accept unfairness."
This is why capitalists dislike unions so much, becasue they know this. Together we are stronger.
Interesting crossover in how Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind highlighted fairness as being the primary moral axis for conservatives, as opposed to caring and harm reduction for liberals. If that fairness is ultimately defined and measured in terms of raw social power then, well ... hmm.
[dead]
[dead]
[dead]
Just in time for the Epstein Kompromat op to go full Streisand Effect.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/12/politics/trump-epstein-re...
I almost ignored this due to the sloganized, hard-to-understand title and the unreliability of the site. But the study actually seems pretty good, and the paper is well-written and open-access [1].
[1] https://spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/spb/article/view/11607