Mancur Lloyd Olson, Jr. (pronounced /ˈmæŋsɜr/; January 22, 1932–February 19, 1998) was a leading American economist and social scientist who, at the time of his death, worked at the University of Maryland, College Park. Among other areas, he made contributions to institutional economics on the role of private property, taxation, public goods, collective action and contract rights in economic development. Olson focused on the logical basis of interest group membership and participation. The reigning political theories of his day granted groups an almost primordial status. Some appealed to a natural human instinct for herding, others ascribed the formation of groups that are rooted in kinship to the process of modernization. Olson offered a radically different account of the logical basis of organized collective action.
In his first book, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, he theorized that “only a separate and ‘selective’ incentive will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-oriented way”; that is, only a benefit reserved strictly for group members will motivate one to join and contribute to the group. This means that individuals will act collectively to provide private goods, but not to provide public goods.
In 1982, he expanded the scope of his earlier work in an attempt to explain The Rise and Decline of Nations. The idea is that small distributional coalitions tend to form over time in countries. Groups like cotton-farmers, steel-producers, and labor unions will have the incentives to form lobby groups and influence policies in their favor. These policies will tend to be protectionist and anti-technology, and will therefore hurt economic growth; but since the benefits of these policies are selective incentives concentrated amongst the few coalitions members, while the costs are diffused throughout the whole population, the "Logic" dictates that there will be little public resistance to them. Hence as time goes on, and these distributional coalitions accumulate in greater and greater numbers, the nation burdened by them will fall into economic decline. Olson's idea is cited as an influence behind the Calmfors-Driffill hypothesis of collective bargaining.
In his final book, Power and Prosperity, Olson distinguished between the economic effects of different types of government, in particular, tyranny, anarchy and democracy. Olson argued that a "roving bandit" (under anarchy) has an incentive only to steal and destroy, whilst a "stationary bandit" (a tyrant) has an incentive to encourage a degree of economic success, since he will expect to be in power long enough to take a share of it. The stationary bandit thereby takes on the primordial function of government - protection of his citizens and property against roving bandits. Olson saw in the move from roving bandits to stationary bandits the seeds of civilization, paving the way for democracy, which improves incentives for good government by more closely aligning it with the wishes of the population
The years since World War II have seen rapid shifts in the relative positions of different countries and regions. Leading political economist Mancur Olson offers a new and compelling theory to explain these shifts in fortune and then tests his theory against evidence from many periods of history and many parts of the world.
“[T]his elegant, readable book. . . sets out to explain why economies succumb to the ‘British disease,’ the kind of stagnation and demoralization that is now sweeping Europe and North America. . . . A convincing book that could make a big difference in the way we think about modern economic problems.”—Peter Passell, The New York Times Book Review
“Schumpeter and Keynes would have hailed the insights Olson gives into the sicknesses of the modern mixed economy.”—Paul A. Samuelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“One of the really important books in social science of the past half-century.”—Scott Gordon, The Canadian Journal of Economics
“The thesis of this brilliant book is that the longer a society enjoys political stability, the more likely it is to develop powerful special-interest lobbies that in turn make it less efficient economically.”—Charles Peters, The Washington Monthly
“Remarkable. The fundamental ideas are simple, yet they provide insight into a wide array of social and historical issues. . . . The Rise and Decline of Nations promises to be a subject of productive interdisciplinary argument for years to come.”—Robert O. Keohane, Journal of Economic Literature
“I urgently recommend it to all economists and to a great many non-economists.”—Gordon Tullock, Public Choice
“Olson’s theory is illuminating and there is no doubt that The Rise and Decline of Nations will exert much influence on ideas and politics for many decades to come.”—Pierre Lemieux, Reason
Co-winner of the 1983 American Political Science Association’s Gladys M. Kammerer Award for the best book on U.S. national policy
在所有的经济政策选择以外,本书从另一角度,解答了国家兴衰历史的个中缘由,也为现在的中国问题,提供了另外一种深刻的思路。中国问题是农民问题,更是分利集团的问题。 本书论述的观点,基于上述前提假设,如果凯恩斯倡导的重商主义理论以扩大内需,推动消费来治理滞涨为否...
评分 评分为什么触动利益比触及灵魂还难? ——读奥尔森《国家兴衰探源》有感 2013年3月17日,十二届全国人大一次会议闭幕后后,李克强总理答记者问上,说出了这样的话“改革进入了深水区,也可以说是攻坚期,的确是因为它要触动原有的利益格局。现在触动利益往往比触及灵魂还难。”一...
评分本文链接:http://www.aisixiang.com/data/38365.html 文章来源:《北方法学》2009年第2期 摘要:国家起源理论中的契约理论只是对某种国家形态及功能的事后正当化论说,无法成为一种对国家起源的解释性理论。在奥尔森的理论中,国家是由固定下来的匪帮转化来的,专制国家权力的...
阚凯力教授推荐的
评分奥氏自己运用集体行动理论分析政治经济问题的著作。自信完美解释英国从增长走向停滞、美国南北经济发展速度差异、战后西方各主要资本主义经济体的经济增长和停滞,对其他地区情况则由于资料不足而着墨不多。民主政治、固定疆界和繁复法律有时候是福祸相依;战争和动乱若能消灭分利集团根基,事后在稳定政权下反能创造高速增长,似符合中国。后人多称颂其分利集团从事集体行动以游说保护特殊利益之精美论述,但奥氏野心其实更大:他试图以此论为基础介入当代宏观经济学中凯恩斯与货币主义/理性预期均衡理论的大辩论,力陈分利集团集体行动其实是导致凯恩斯未解释的工资/价格粘性的来源,甚至由于分利集团在政府不行政干预的情况下仍然存在,亦足以使货币主义者构建理论时的经济出清、无政府干预、自动均衡等假设无效。最后期盼相当激烈:消灭利益集团!
评分奥氏自己运用集体行动理论分析政治经济问题的著作。自信完美解释英国从增长走向停滞、美国南北经济发展速度差异、战后西方各主要资本主义经济体的经济增长和停滞,对其他地区情况则由于资料不足而着墨不多。民主政治、固定疆界和繁复法律有时候是福祸相依;战争和动乱若能消灭分利集团根基,事后在稳定政权下反能创造高速增长,似符合中国。后人多称颂其分利集团从事集体行动以游说保护特殊利益之精美论述,但奥氏野心其实更大:他试图以此论为基础介入当代宏观经济学中凯恩斯与货币主义/理性预期均衡理论的大辩论,力陈分利集团集体行动其实是导致凯恩斯未解释的工资/价格粘性的来源,甚至由于分利集团在政府不行政干预的情况下仍然存在,亦足以使货币主义者构建理论时的经济出清、无政府干预、自动均衡等假设无效。最后期盼相当激烈:消灭利益集团!
评分chapter 3, implications. once continued stability and accumulate more distributional coalitions, adverse influence on the eco growth.
评分阚凯力教授推荐的
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