Public good free rider problem12/13/2023 ![]() ![]() Moderate groups are always a suboptimal choice for rational, utility maximizing agents within the original representative agent model. While it elegantly accounts for the success of strict sectarian religious groups in recruiting members and maintaining commitment, it is less satisfactory when attempting to account for groups requiring neither extreme nor zero sacrifice. There is a counterintuitive gap in the club theory of religion. If intolerance is a form of unfair free-riding, then basic social norms provide motivation and language for criticizing and correcting intolerance. The conceptual schema developed here illuminates certain normative implications. The pool of acceptable expressions, therefore, generates an incentive structure reminiscent of Garrett Hardin's " tragedy of the commons, " leading us to predict over-restriction of free speech. Analyzing the choice calculus of this trade-off reveals that the individual bears only a fraction, or none, of the cost of improving the agreeableness of his or her expressive environment, while the benefit of doing so is far more concentrated. ![]() Problematically, on the individual level, this trade-off is inadequately appreciated. To increase the agreeableness of one's expressive environment may require a reduction in the overall expressive freedom of one's society. To increase expressive freedom requires the toleration of disagreeable expressions, made by individuals who are diverse with respect to beliefs, values, or norms. This paper examines the trade-off between two goods: expressive freedom and expressive agreeableness, that is, the congeniality of the expressions in one's environment. Most individuals enjoy the right to express themselves freely, while at the same time resenting certain expressions of others. This phenomenon is ominous yet foreseeable. Allied with identity groups, elitists claim authority to filter public discourse, while populist movements seek to dismantle the protections that have allowed them to attain public support. One of liberalism's most notable political achievements, the right to free expression, now finds itself caught in a political crossfire. ![]()
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