Boyer & Petersen (B&P) provide a helpful discussion about the political ramifications of folk-economic beliefs. Given the current state of populism around the world, exhibiting primarily xenophobic and protectionist beliefs, it is impossible not to see the urgency and relevance of these issues to current political crises, although the authors are careful to situate the origins of these beliefs in more ancient evolutionary origins. A great deal of robust experimental evidence in both psychology and behavioral economic (Akerlof & Shiller Reference Akerlof and Shiller2010; Camerer et al. Reference Camerer, Loewenstein and Rabin2011) has demonstrated that extant normative models of classical economic theory are not grounded in any meaningful description of human psychological architecture, so B&P's approach provides a useful paradigm for locating the origins of economic exchange in broader patterns of social cooperation.
B&P's perspective could be elaborated in a productive manner by specifying some of the ways in which in-group social and economic exchange and cooperation overlap with, but remain distinct from, processes of coalitional cooperation that evolved to gain advantage in war and combat (Wrangham Reference Wrangham1999; McAuliffe et al. Reference McAuliffe, Wrangham, Glowacki and Russell2015) against predators and out-groups. Although the domains of application to in-group and out-group clearly diverge, the importance of cooperation for competitive success remain similar. In addition, the organization of collective violence the authors specify under their domain-specific inference systems, suggests that a specific input format, such as threat, triggers automatic activation of specific psychological mechanisms which are designed for protection and defense. These inputs not only share specific inference rules, such as who constitutes an ally or enemy, and unconscious computation, but also produce an intuitive output, such as the attempted annihilation and elimination of threats. This cooperation to achieve collective defense through coordinated destruction may be organized around a different goal than economic exchange, but the underlying psychological mechanisms of cooperation likely share some important overlaps that deserve more systematic consideration; the specific input format likely offers the greatest potential for distinguishing the systems.
B&P address some of the out-group implications of their model in their discussion of international trade as coalitionary rivalry. The activation of this coalitional psychology, which they correctly characterize as a zero-sum interaction, is key to the important distinction between social in-group cooperation and antagonistic out-group conflict as I have just described. As they rightly note, “we argue that the zero-sum assumption is part of the design of coalitional reasoning. The resulting motivations are part of the architecture of this system. To maintain stable and efficient coalitions, humans in many different contexts must have assumed that other groups' advantage was a potential loss” (sect. 5.1, para. 2; emphasis theirs). Yet this is important not just in trade, as B&P outline, but also in other conflictual situations involving non-economic factors, such as dispute over territory or population control. B&P note that their model allows for some novel testable hypotheses and predictions in this regard; such possibilities can be expanded well beyond the realm of economics into violent coalitional conflicts as well.
Particular alignments of political and social beliefs may join those espousing particular economic and military beliefs. B&P argue that the folk-economic beliefs they identify hold across various dimensions of political ideology. This may indeed be the case within economically restricted views, such as those between laziness, deservingness, and welfare benefits, as Petersen has shown in other work, but the alignment between specific economic and defense attitudes are not as random (Hatemi & McDermott Reference Hatemi and McDermott2012). Further investigation and specification of the ways in which such attitudes and beliefs align may further help illuminate the origins and nature of how human social cooperation emerged and manifests, and help identify the scope conditions of its limitations – economically, socially, and politically. Humans are likely to have folk-defense beliefs that are similar to, but diverge in important ways from, their folk-economic beliefs. For example, attacks activate a desire for revenge and motivate actions designed for deterrence (McDermott et al. Reference McDermott, Lopez and Hatemi2017); such behaviors can rupture existing alliances or trade agreements. In this way, some folk-economic- and folk-defense-related beliefs may operate in concert with each other, but others likely motivate contrasting behavior. When such beliefs come into conflict, those which privilege defense-related concerns are likely to take precedence.
After all, while economic exchange constitutes the basis of much human cooperation, it certainly does not comprise the entirety of such cooperation. Even critical forms of cooperation, such as human mating, which incorporate an economic element, are not solely financial in promoting shared interests. The veritable ubiquity of human social cooperation in general makes it one of the most important reasons we became different from, and were able to dominate, other species. However, one of the most valuable aspects of cooperation within groups derives from how effectively it can potentiate the annihilation of out-groups. Thus, although the activation of coalitional rivalry may hurt the “imagined” nation (Anderson Reference Anderson2006) in some areas such as trade, it likely benefits the survival of that community in situations of militarized conflict. In this way, while coalitional rivalry may hurt particular countries in trade, such losses are clearly heavily outweighed by how much more benefit derives to countries which can activate strong coalitionary rivalry under conditions of war and combat.
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Boyer & Petersen (B&P) provide a helpful discussion about the political ramifications of folk-economic beliefs. Given the current state of populism around the world, exhibiting primarily xenophobic and protectionist beliefs, it is impossible not to see the urgency and relevance of these issues to current political crises, although the authors are careful to situate the origins of these beliefs in more ancient evolutionary origins. A great deal of robust experimental evidence in both psychology and behavioral economic (Akerlof & Shiller Reference Akerlof and Shiller2010; Camerer et al. Reference Camerer, Loewenstein and Rabin2011) has demonstrated that extant normative models of classical economic theory are not grounded in any meaningful description of human psychological architecture, so B&P's approach provides a useful paradigm for locating the origins of economic exchange in broader patterns of social cooperation.
B&P's perspective could be elaborated in a productive manner by specifying some of the ways in which in-group social and economic exchange and cooperation overlap with, but remain distinct from, processes of coalitional cooperation that evolved to gain advantage in war and combat (Wrangham Reference Wrangham1999; McAuliffe et al. Reference McAuliffe, Wrangham, Glowacki and Russell2015) against predators and out-groups. Although the domains of application to in-group and out-group clearly diverge, the importance of cooperation for competitive success remain similar. In addition, the organization of collective violence the authors specify under their domain-specific inference systems, suggests that a specific input format, such as threat, triggers automatic activation of specific psychological mechanisms which are designed for protection and defense. These inputs not only share specific inference rules, such as who constitutes an ally or enemy, and unconscious computation, but also produce an intuitive output, such as the attempted annihilation and elimination of threats. This cooperation to achieve collective defense through coordinated destruction may be organized around a different goal than economic exchange, but the underlying psychological mechanisms of cooperation likely share some important overlaps that deserve more systematic consideration; the specific input format likely offers the greatest potential for distinguishing the systems.
B&P address some of the out-group implications of their model in their discussion of international trade as coalitionary rivalry. The activation of this coalitional psychology, which they correctly characterize as a zero-sum interaction, is key to the important distinction between social in-group cooperation and antagonistic out-group conflict as I have just described. As they rightly note, “we argue that the zero-sum assumption is part of the design of coalitional reasoning. The resulting motivations are part of the architecture of this system. To maintain stable and efficient coalitions, humans in many different contexts must have assumed that other groups' advantage was a potential loss” (sect. 5.1, para. 2; emphasis theirs). Yet this is important not just in trade, as B&P outline, but also in other conflictual situations involving non-economic factors, such as dispute over territory or population control. B&P note that their model allows for some novel testable hypotheses and predictions in this regard; such possibilities can be expanded well beyond the realm of economics into violent coalitional conflicts as well.
Particular alignments of political and social beliefs may join those espousing particular economic and military beliefs. B&P argue that the folk-economic beliefs they identify hold across various dimensions of political ideology. This may indeed be the case within economically restricted views, such as those between laziness, deservingness, and welfare benefits, as Petersen has shown in other work, but the alignment between specific economic and defense attitudes are not as random (Hatemi & McDermott Reference Hatemi and McDermott2012). Further investigation and specification of the ways in which such attitudes and beliefs align may further help illuminate the origins and nature of how human social cooperation emerged and manifests, and help identify the scope conditions of its limitations – economically, socially, and politically. Humans are likely to have folk-defense beliefs that are similar to, but diverge in important ways from, their folk-economic beliefs. For example, attacks activate a desire for revenge and motivate actions designed for deterrence (McDermott et al. Reference McDermott, Lopez and Hatemi2017); such behaviors can rupture existing alliances or trade agreements. In this way, some folk-economic- and folk-defense-related beliefs may operate in concert with each other, but others likely motivate contrasting behavior. When such beliefs come into conflict, those which privilege defense-related concerns are likely to take precedence.
After all, while economic exchange constitutes the basis of much human cooperation, it certainly does not comprise the entirety of such cooperation. Even critical forms of cooperation, such as human mating, which incorporate an economic element, are not solely financial in promoting shared interests. The veritable ubiquity of human social cooperation in general makes it one of the most important reasons we became different from, and were able to dominate, other species. However, one of the most valuable aspects of cooperation within groups derives from how effectively it can potentiate the annihilation of out-groups. Thus, although the activation of coalitional rivalry may hurt the “imagined” nation (Anderson Reference Anderson2006) in some areas such as trade, it likely benefits the survival of that community in situations of militarized conflict. In this way, while coalitional rivalry may hurt particular countries in trade, such losses are clearly heavily outweighed by how much more benefit derives to countries which can activate strong coalitionary rivalry under conditions of war and combat.