1. Bootleggers and Baptists: A Winning Coalition

Bootleggers & Baptists: How Economic Forces and Moral Persuasion Interact to Shape Regulatory Politics

Adam Smith and Bruce Yandle

Last annotated on Thursday September 7, 2017

67 Highlight(s) | 67 Note(s)

Yellow highlight | Location: 178

1. Bootleggers and Baptists: A Winning Coalition
Note:1@@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 179

“Baptists question Amazon porn sales, oppose tax break.”
Note:I MORALISTI CONTRO L INSEDIAMENTO FISCALMENTE AGEVOLATO DI AMAZON IN SUD CAROLINA

Yellow highlight | Location: 184

Baptist leaders rallied in opposition to the tax break—and to Amazon’s presence—spurred by moral concerns about unrated videos sold by the website,
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 195

These seemingly disparate forces—Baptist leaders; major retailers Walmart, Best Buy, and Target; and small Main Street retailers—worked in tandem to vehemently oppose the tax exemption.
Note:IMPROBABILE ALLEANZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 214

The Bootlegger/Baptist label is now applied to a wide variety of regulatory episodes where the term “Bootlegger” no longer implies illegal action but rather applies to political action in pursuit of narrow economic gains.
Note:L ORIGINE DELLA DIADE: IL PROIBIZIONISMO SUPPORTATI SIA DAI MOTALISTI CHE DAI CONTRABBANDIERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 230

The Bootlegger/Baptist Dynamic
Note:tttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 232

The theory describes how special interest groups acquire gains through the political process,
Note:L ALLEANZA IDEOLOGIA INTERESSE

Yellow highlight | Location: 234

Bootlegger/Baptist theory tells a story of how public interest justification greases the rails for purely private pursuits.
Note:RETORICA DELL INTERESSE PUBBLICO

Yellow highlight | Location: 236

clothed in public interest garb
Note:TRAVESTIMENTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 248

situations where businesspersons were joined by clergy and others who wrapped the political enterprise in an attractive moral cloak,
Note:SOTTO LA TONACA

Yellow highlight | Location: 258

London weavers exploited a stricture contained in the Magna Carta to gain an advantage over foreign competition
Note:IL CASO DEI TESSITORI

Yellow highlight | Location: 260

“Great Charter” established uniform measures of ale, grain, cloth, and other goods to facilitate trade—a classic case of consumer protection
Note:ccccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 264

London weavers paid a bribe to local enforcement agents to avoid having the standard enforced on themselves but demanded that it be scrupulously applied to traveling merchants
Note:APPLICAZIONE DOSOMOGENEA

Yellow highlight | Location: 274

Bootlegger firms may covertly advance Baptist arguments, as when film studios advocate for more stringent copyright protection by invoking either the moral claims of artists to remuneration or the promise of increased creativity and innovation
Note:INDUSTRIA CINEMATOGRAFICA

Yellow highlight | Location: 286

Bootleggers fund Baptists to bolster support for the political outcome both desire.
Note:FINANZIAMENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 298

The Rising Tide of Social Regulation
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 304

FEDERAL REGISTER PAGES PER REAL GDP DOLLAR
Note:MISURA DELLA MASSA DI REGOLE... ESPLOSIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 319

Old-style regulation focused on single industries, yielding a natural constituency of regulated firms that sought to influence outcomes. Social regulation affected all industries.
Note:REGOLE ECONOMICHE OLD STYLE E REGOLE SOCIALI

Yellow highlight | Location: 331

Throttling GDP Growth
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 333

some call “regulatory capitalism,” what others might call crony capitalism,
Note:CAPITALISMO SELVAGGIO CAPITALISMO MAFIOSO

Yellow highlight | Location: 342

scholarship on the matter leaves no doubt that regulation has taken a toll on the economy.
Note:PEDAGGIO PER LA CRESCITA

Yellow highlight | Location: 343

Regulating the Regulators
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 355

Very few scholars in the early 1970s and 1980s saw federal regulation as a way to serve private interests. Adam Smith’s warning was not heeded.
Note:LA TOPICA DEGLI STUDIOSI

Yellow highlight | Location: 358

Four Modes of Bootlegger/Baptist Interaction
Note:tttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 362

Covert Strategy
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 365

Restrictions on trade, for instance, tend to protect domestic producers from foreign competition at the expense of consumers—but saying so overtly is a poor way to win political support for such measures.
Note:CERTE CAUSE NN POSSONO ESSERE RESE PUBBLICHE

Yellow highlight | Location: 369

The items, he said, “[were] made of very inferior materials and are manufactured in a manner calculated to deceive rather than serve the consumer” (Yafa 2005, 107).
Note:LOTTA CONTRO IL COTONE NDIANO... INTERESSE PUBBLICO E PROFITTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 389

Baptist arguments were to be found on both sides. Supporters of the law condemned overseas file lockers for enriching themselves at the expense of American artists,
Note:LEGGE ANTINAPSTER... ARGOMENTO MORALISTA CHE COPRE INTERESSI

Yellow highlight | Location: 403

Noncooperative Strategy
Note:tttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 405

often the shifting sands of economic interests bring Bootleggers in as latecomers to long-standing moral crusades, thereby providing Baptists with the decisive boost they need to achieve their aims.
Note:LA SPINTARELLA INCONFESSABILE DATA AI MORALISTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 406

Howard Marvel
Note:ggggg

Yellow highlight | Location: 407

England’s Factory Act of 1833,
Note:UNALEGGE NEL SETTORE TESSILE

Yellow highlight | Location: 409

banned the use of child workers under 9 years of age, and restricted hours and work conditions for those under 18.
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 410

Prominent members of England’s landed aristocracy had long sought to bring cotton mills under the protective wing of government, without success.
Note:FALLIMENTO QUANTO LA LEGGE ERA CHIESTA DAI LATIFONDISTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 414

new manufacturing plants was being driven by steam engines rather than by water wheels. The newer steam-driven plants required less labor
Note:TESSITURE MECCANIZZATE E NO

Yellow highlight | Location: 416

The older plants were thus seen as abusive
Note:LOTTA X LA DICHIARAZIONE DI ABUSIVISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 417

the factory districts supported the new Factory Act,
Note:L IMPEGNO DELLE TESSITURE MECCANIZZATE

Yellow highlight | Location: 432

Booth’s newly organized Salvation Army was working to improve the lives and save the souls of the city’s downtrodden (Hattersley 1999). This time, instead of Bootleggers and Baptists, Methodists and brewers formed the coalition opposing Booth’s efforts.
Note:COALIZIONE CONTRO L ESERCITO DELLE SALVEZZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 438

more traditional churches felt threatened by this new competition from Booth and his unconventional methods,
Note:LE MOTIVAZIONI DEI METODISTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 447

Methodist bishops and other religious leaders struggled to shut down the army’s successful efforts to attract members and funds for its growing enterprise.
Note:COMPETIZIONE RELIGIOSA

Yellow highlight | Location: 467

Salvation Army preachers were jailed for disturbing the peace with their sermons and music,
Note:TURBAMENTO ORDINE PUBBLICO

Yellow highlight | Location: 472

In spite of the opposition, Booth’s strategy gained momentum—and eventually the support of wealthy philanthropists.
Note:LOTTA X I FONDI DEI FILANTROPI

Yellow highlight | Location: 476

Efforts to regulate the Salvation Army,
Note:TACITARE CN LE REGOLE... BIRRAI E METODISTI... ALLEANZA NN DICHIARABILE

Yellow highlight | Location: 482

Cooperative Strategy
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 490

Walmart was a crucial supporter of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which requires the mega-retailer’s competitors to pony up health benefits as well.
Note:ALLEANZA WALMART OBAMA... PER COSTRINGERE I COMPETITOR AD UNIFORMARSI AGLI ALTI STANDARD

Yellow highlight | Location: 498

Like Walmart, the union was interested in raising the costs of its competitor—nonunion labor.
Note:I SINDACATI SI ACCODANO

Yellow highlight | Location: 531

forming their own Baptist groups or merely funding Baptist efforts already under way, Bootleggers
Note:STRATEGIA COOPERATIVA

Yellow highlight | Location: 541

Chesapeake Corporation is one of the nation’s most innovative and successful natural gas producers. It, too, would like to see coal displaced by gas. Chesapeake made a $26 million donation to the Sierra Club to help fund an attack on coal directed to the EPA, with Sierra leading the charge (Martosko 2012).
Note:LA GURRA CARBONE E GAS

Yellow highlight | Location: 553

Coordinated Strategy
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 553

The fourth and final category of Bootlegger/Baptist interactions involves political actors—often presidents—taking the initiative to yoke together interest groups
Note:COORDINAZIONE POLITICA

Yellow highlight | Location: 556

The 2008 credit-market meltdown brought with it the collapse and taxpayer bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;
Note:LA CRISI FINANZIARE... NECESSITÀ DI ESPANDERE GLI AFFARI

Yellow highlight | Location: 559

In 1995, a new interest group emerged, dedicated to expanding government efforts to help Americans purchase homes: the NHS, which we mentioned in our last section as an example of a Baptist group
Note:NHS COME ASSOCIAZIONE MORALISTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 565

The NHS coalition was not a winning one, however, because it had no true Baptists. But this oversight was addressed as quickly as one could say “homeownership.”
Note:IL DIRITTO ALLA CASA

Yellow highlight | Location: 568

With strong private-sector support, President William J. Clinton called on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to reduce their lending standards and greatly expand mortgage lending for families,
Note:LE RICHIESTE DI CLINTON

Yellow highlight | Location: 593

even as regulators warned that “subprime lenders were saddling borrowers with mortgages they could not afford, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) helped fuel more of that risky lending” (Leonnig 2008).
Note:PRESTARE PRESTARE PRESTARE Clinton e le pressioni della politica come origine della crisi finanziaria del 2007

Yellow highlight | Location: 655

Final Thoughts
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 658

the extraordinary 1970–80 regulatory period, when the new social regulatory agencies were first emerging,
Note:periodo straordinario di crescita a valanga della regolamentazione

Yellow highlight | Location: 660

The goals of social regulation were, more often than not, the goals of interest groups that included civic and religious organizations
Note:il ruolo delle lobby nell 'esplosione delle regole no. Lobby che comprendono anche organizzazioni religiose eccetera

Yellow highlight | Location: 674

“Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may consider (and discuss qualitatively) values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts” (White House 2011).
un esempio di direttiva vaga che lascia campo libero alla burocrazia

Chapter 8 The Gods of Cooperation and Competition

Chapter 8 The Gods of Cooperation and Competition
Note:8@@@@@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,778

For all its virtues in binding strangers together, religious cooperation is born out of competition and conflict between groups. It is therefore expected that religious cooperation in turn fuels the very conflicts, real or imagined, that are perceived to threaten it. (This is the topic of the next chapter.) This dynamic helps us understand and resolve the seeming paradox that it is the handmaiden both of cooperation within the group and of conflict between groups.
Note:LA RELIGIONE FA COOPERARE IL GRUPPO E LO FA CONFLIGGERE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,783

groups that happen to have members who acquire traits favoring self-sacrifice and subordinate self-interest for group interests—that is, groups with stronger social solidarity—will tend to win out.
Note:SACRIFICIO DI SÈ

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,796

Religion returns to center stage, not as a theological explanation of purpose or order, but as itself a product of evolution that enables groups to function as adaptive units—at least to a degree.
Note:SLOAN WILSON... LA RELIGIONE COME PRODOTTO EVOLUTIVO

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,799

In an ambitious cross-cultural investigation spanning 33 nation-states, Michele Gelfand and her colleagues measured something related to social solidarity. They looked at the degree to which nations are “tight”—that is, do they have strict social norms that apply to many situations? How important is conformity to these norms? How much deviation from norms is tolerated and do people get punished for violating these norms?
Note:GELFAND: ALTRUISMO E GUERRA

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,806

they found that, all else being equal, conflict a hundred years ago increased the odds of strict norm-enforcement today. Tighter nations were also more religious—and that makes sense too if world religions are a group-mobilizing force.
Note:IL NUMERO DI GUERRE PREGRESSE PREVEDE LA RELIGIOSITÀ... LA RELIGIOSITÀ INCREMENTA CON IL PERICOLO

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,812

as any observer of team sports fans can see, the “cooperate to compete” instinct is particularly strong among that segment of the population that likes war: young men.
Note:FANATICI E ALTRUISTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,821

Richard Sosis and his colleagues looked at this issue from a different angle.
Note:SOSIS... PIÙ GUERRA PIÙ RITUALI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,823

they found that the greater the participation in warfare, the more likely there are costly rites for males.
Note:ccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,828

Sosis sees these painful rites as costly behaviors that signal group commitment. He points out that ritual scarification and violence create male solidarity, which keeps freeriding during warfare under control.
Note:cccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,838

As Scott Atran explains, seemingly irrational tendencies make for stronger groups that can outdo their more rational, self-interested rivals:
Note:RITI IRRAZIONALI... RITI COSTOSI IMPEGNO PIÙ GARANTITO

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,845

Seen in this light, it is not surprising that prosocial religions have been a major force shaping human history. When intergroup rivalries are strong, prosocial religious groups, with their Big Gods and loyalty practices that promote social solidarity, could have a competitive edge over rival groups.
Note:MONOTEISMO... GRUPPI PIÙ ESTESI E POTENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,849

Building Moral Communities of Strangers
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,853

As Jonathan Haidt shows, much of morality is rooted in social intuitions in the service of gluing individuals together to form “sacred” communities.
Note:MORALITÀ E COESIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,862

As Haidt recognizes, not all moral systems are religious, and not all religions are moral systems, but some religious systems—those that have prosocial consequences—have been moral systems throughout time.
Note:RELIGIONE E MORALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,868

They found that the stronger an individual expressed religious belief and reported high levels of religious participation, the more likely he or she condemned moral transgressions.
Note:QUENTIN ATKINSON... RELIGIOSITÀ E TRASGRESSIONE MORALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,871

These findings complement results by Shariff and Rhemtulla discussed earlier, who found, all else being equal, lower crime rates in nations with stronger belief in hell than heaven.
Note:CRIMINE E RELIGIOSITÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,874

Morality without God
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,874

This does not mean, of course, that religion is necessary for morality. No doubt core human moral instincts evolved long before religions spread in human groups.
Note:LA MORALITÀ PRECEDE LA RELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,877

Kiley Hamlin, Karen Wynn, and Paul Bloom have found that moral-like judgments can be found even in preverbal babies: by six months of age, they show a preference for an individual who helps and an aversion to an individual who obstructs someone else’s goal.
Note:BAMBINI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,882

Even our primate cousins have vestiges of moral instincts. A long line of research by primatologist Frans de Waal and his colleagues shows capacities for emotional contagion, consolation, and grief in chimpanzees.
Note:MORALITÀ E SCIMMIE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,893

We do not need religion to be moral beings. But moral communities of strangers may not have evolved as readily without religions with Big Gods.
Note:IL PROBLEMA DELLO STRANIERO... COME LO AFRONTA LA RELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,894

Intergroup Competition and Warfare
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,898

There is no shortage of evidence in the historical and ethnographic record showing that violent and nonviolent conflict has been endemic to human existence.18 In fact, one driver of large group size in cultural evolution is the intensity of between-group competition for resources and habitats. For example, in the 186 societies of the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (discussed earlier), prevalence of conflict among societies, resource-rich environments, group size, and Big Gods all go together. In places with rich natural resources, there is more intergroup conflict, larger groups, and watchful gods.
Note:CONFLITTI GRANDI GRUPPI E BIG GOD SONO CORRELATI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,903

one possibility is that conflict over resources led to competition and political expansion of victorious groups, which in turn festered more conflict at the peripheries of these expanding empires. One argument is that these were precisely the antecedent conditions that gave rise to politically centralized states. As Charles Tilly puts it, war made states, and states made war.
Note:TILLIS SULLA GUERRA COME ORIGINE DELLO STATO...

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,906

Peter Turchin, who has pioneered the scientific study of historical dynamics, emphasizes that the scaling up of social groups happened predominantly in frontiers of states and empires. He calculated that over 90 percent of preindustrial age mega-empires—defined as unified states covering greater than 1 million square kilometers (or 386,100 square miles)—arose in frontier regions, such as the Eurasian steppes.
Note:TURCHIN E LE FRONTIERE CONFLITUALI COME ORIGINE DELLE RELIGIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,918

this is the old adage that the best way to compete with rivals is to cooperate with allies. Medieval Arab philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldûn, who was a keen observer of the rise and fall of Islamic dynasties in fourteenth-century North Africa, saw social solidarity, which he called asabiya,
Note:VECCHI ADAGI CONFERMATI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,928

How Prosocial Religions Won in the Game of Intergroup Cultural Competition
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,930

This observation brings us to the idea that prosocial religions, with their group-beneficial norms that suppress selfishness and increase social cohesion, outcompeted their rivals. There are good reasons to think that this process has been driven by cultural—rather than genetic—evolution.
Note:L ALTRUISMO DELLE RELIGIONI È VINCENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,940

Scott Atran and Joseph Henrich summarize the idea this way: Religious beliefs and practices, like group beneficial norms, can spread by competition among social groups in several ways, including warfare, economic production, and demographic expansion. Such cultural representations can also spread through more benign interactions, as when members of one group preferentially acquire behaviors, beliefs, and values from more successful groups. Over historical time, demographic and cultural patterns have favored prosocial religious groups.
Note:ESPANSIONISMO CULTURALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,952

Cultural Group Stability
Note:tttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,953

when all is said and done, what matters, in cultural terms, is how well a group weathers storms that might lead to its collapse. World history is littered with the corpses of vast, but short-lived, empires, such as the Assyrian and Mongol conquests that unified large parts of the Middle East and Eurasia, respectively.
Note:IMPORTANZA DELLA STABILITÀ... ESEMPIO DI IMPERI BREVI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,958

Returning to this study of the group longevity of religious and secular communes in nineteenth-century America, Richard Sosis looked at an ideal case study because these communes operated under difficult conditions, facing various internal and external threats to group stability. Communes that were unable to solve “collective action problems”—overcoming internal disputes, preventing members from defecting to rival groups, surviving droughts, and so on, could not prosper. Indeed, some communes were dissolved soon after they were founded, whereas others flourished. For every year considered in a 110-year span, religious communes were found to outlast secular ones by an average factor of four.
Note:UNA ROBUSTA RELIGIONE STABILIZZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,966

The evidence just discussed leads to two key conclusions: (1) differential rates of group survival favor prosocial religious groups; and (2) the combination of belief in supernatural watchers, extravagant displays, and other commitment devices explains the cultural survival advantage of these groups—precisely what would be expected if prosocial religions were “packaged” by cultural evolutionary processes.
Note:CONCLUSIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,971

Neither could genetic group selection easily explain these effects, given the very short time frames (just over a 110 year span) and the fact that variation in nineteenth-century American commune membership is unlikely to be of genetic origin.
Note:I TEMPI DELLA GENETICA NN SPIEGANO ALCUNI FENOMENI... SI RICORRA ALLA SELEZIONE CULTURALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,977

Attracting Religious Converts
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,980

In her study of the spread of Islam into Africa, Ensminger argues that Islamic beliefs, supported by powerful displays of faith such as abstaining from alcohol, avoiding pre- and extramarital sex, not consuming pork, and ritual fasting—permitted greater trust, shared rules of exchange, and the use of credit institutions among converted Muslims.26 The spread of Islam in turn facilitated more trade and greater economic success.
Note:ISLAM: FORZA E COMPETIZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,988

This might come as a surprise to many, but Americans have not been as religious as they are today. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark emphasize the role of religious competition in the dramatic expansion of religiosity in America since 1776.27 Those familiar with American religious movements today know that competition among religious institutions for membership has been a long-time feature of American life.
Note:AMERICA E COMPETIZIONE RELIGIOSA

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,997

Religious Fertility
Note:ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 2,998

To survive and prosper, religious groups attract followers, induce adherents to reproduce at rates greater than replacement levels, or, as the demographic expansion of the Mormon Church shows, ideally, do both.
Note:LA PROSPERITÀ DEMOGRAFICA APPORTATA DALLARELIGIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,000

The Mormon Church grew, in a time span of just 170 years, from a small group of a few hundred to 15 million followers worldwide. Likewise, Christianity itself grew by leaps and bounds in the Roman Empire, and a once obscure offshoot of Judaism became the state religion of the empire in less than 300 years.
Note:MORMONI ED EBREI

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,005

The cultural success of prosocial religious groups is therefore aided in no small part by their reproductive success,
Note:FERTILITÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,007

Sociologist Eric Kauffman remarks with irony that, in the culture wars between the religious and secular, arguments fly back and forth, yet neither side seems to have noticed the most important trend that may really settle the dispute. He notes: Religious fundamentalists are on course to take over the world through demography. We have embarked on a particular phase of history in which the frailty of secular liberalism will become even more apparent. In contrast to the situation today, the upsurge of fundamentalism will be felt more keenly in the secular West than in developing regions. This is because we are witnessing the historic conjunction of religious fundamentalism and demographic revolution.
Note:KAUFFMAN: L'ARGOMENTO RELIGIOSO È ESSENZIALMENTE DEMOGRAFICO

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,020

A study comparing the fertility rates of European Jews found that the atheists had the lowest birthrate, averaging around 1.5 children per woman (again, below replacement), whereas the religious Jews averaged nearly three, with the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel averaging six to eight children per woman.
Note:EBREI

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,033

Michael Blume explains: Although we looked hard at all available data and case studies back to early Greece and India, we still have not been able to identify a single case of any non-religious population retaining more than two births per woman for just a century. Wherever religious communities dissolved, demographic decline followed suit.
Note:ATEI SENZA FIGLI DA SEMPRE

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,043

It is no accident that religious conservative attitudes on women’s rights, contraception, abortion, and sexual orientation are conducive to maintaining high fertility levels.
Note:RELIGIONE E DIRITTI DELLA DONNA

Yellow highlight | Location: 3,060

it is possible that religious fertility is shaped by a process called gene-culture coevolution.35 Just as the lactose-tolerance allele spread in less than 10,000 years in groups that adopted milk-producing cows, goats, and camels, it is conceivable that prosocial religious beliefs and practices adopted by some groups but not others might have exerted selection pressures on the human gene pool of these groups. This provocative idea is just starting to receive attention.
COEVOLUZIONE CULTURA E GENETICA... IL MIGNOLO DI HENRICH

CHAPTER 16 WHY US? The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter Joseph Henrich

CHAPTER 16 WHY US? The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

Joseph Henrich

Note:16 @@@@@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,716

The first thing to realize is that our species is probably not the only one whose brains and bodies have been shaped by the importance of social learning.
Note:NN SIAMO GLI UNICI A PUNTARE SUL SOCIALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,727

In no other living species has this process sparked substantial cumulative cultural evolution
Note:LA NOSTRA UNICITÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,728

The reason why other species haven’t experienced this may lie in a kind of start-up problem.
Note:START UP PROBLEM... X GLI ALTRI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,754

if we can somehow expand the size and complexity of a species’ cultural repertoire without altering its brain size, then there will be more good adaptive stuff in the world to learn from others.
Note:PRIMO CANALE COEVIL... UN CERVELLO MINUTO RISPETTO AL SAPERE POTENZIALE VALORZZA LO SCAMBIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,756

we can somehow lower the costs of bigger brains. These costs are in part actually incurred by the mother, since she has to supply longer periods of care
Note:SECODO CANALE... LA SOCIALITÁ DEVE COMPENSARE LE LUNGHE CURE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,764

Large, Ground-Dwelling Primates Produce Bigger Cultural Accumulations
Note:tttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,765

Primates evolved hands for eating and hanging around in trees as well as for traveling. But when they descend from the trees to the ground, the possibilities created by having hands open up. For some primates, spending time on the ground—terrestriality—fosters the development of more tool types and more-complex tools, and a greater spread of those skills by social learning.
Note:PIÙ ATTREZZI GIÙ DAGLI ALBERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,790

a move out of the trees and onto the ground was well underway by 5 million years ago.
Note:TEMPI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,803

Predation Favors Larger Groups, Which Favor Greater Cultural Accumulations
Note:BANDE DI CACCIATORI E SOCIALITÁ

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,812

Faced with increased predation, mammals often respond behaviorally by forming larger groups, since there’s safety in numbers.
Note:ASSICURARSI DAGLI ALTRI PREDATORI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,816

As a by-product of this defensive strategy, larger groups might have caused an increase in the size and complexity of toolkits, skills, and learned bodies of know-how, as larger groups generated, spread, and preserved more innovations and ideas—
Note:cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,824

Shifting Environmental Conditions Favor More Social Learning
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,826

Mathematical models of evolutionary processes show that a greater reliance on social learning over individual learning is favored when environments destabilize
Note:AMBIENTI PRECARI RENDONO LA SOCIALITÀ PIÙ CONVENIENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,833

The Sociality-Care Pathway
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,835

To create bigger-brained primates, moms need to invest more time
Note:IL PROBLEMA PER SUPERARE LA SOGLIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,839

Chimpanzee moms have to nurse for 5 years, and so have 5 to 6 years between births. The problem is that species who push this too far are more likely to go extinct
Note:ESEMPIO DELLA SCIMMIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,849

Pair-Bonding, Social Learning, and Families
Note:tttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,850

Increasing group size and social learning about local resources may favor pair-bonding strategies
Note:COME NASCE LA COPPIA? SE TUTTI GLI INDIVIDUI SONO UGUALI IL COMUNISMO DEI FIGLI E' LA REGOLA. LE DIFFERENZE FANNO NASCERE LA NECESSITA' DI RICONOSCERE PER INVESTIRE. DUE POSSIBILI DIFFERENZE: 1) FORZA/VIOLENZA 2) CULTURA - QUANDO LA FORZA E' DIFFERENTE: 1) NEI GRUPPI PICCOLI DOMINA IL MASCHIO ALFA 2) NEI GRUPPI GRANDI (TROPPO RISCHIO PER IL DOMINANTE) LO SCAMBIO E' PIù CONVENIENTE E SI VA' VERSO LE COPPIE.... MA GRUPPI GRANDI SIGNIFICA ANCHE PIU' NECESSITA' DI SOCIAL LEARNING E CULTURA... ULTERIORE SPINTA ALLA DIFFERENZIAZIONE E QUINDI ALLA COPPIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,853

as the density of males increases in a group, the payoffs from using dominance go down, since males have to fight off more competitors and keep track of more females.
Note:LA VIOLENZA NN PAGA NELLA COMPETIZIONE SESSUALE DEI GRANDI MASCHI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,856

in using pair-bonding strategies, males seek to develop ongoing dyadic relationships with females by offering things like meat, protection for her and her offspring, and potentially care for her offspring. In exchange, he gets preferred sexual access
Note:STRATEGIA PAIR BONDING... LA VIOLENZA È USATA X DONARE ALLA FEMMINA ANZICHÈ CONTRO GLI ALTRI MASCHI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,860

Ngogo chimpanzee
Note:STUDIATI PER IL PASSAGGIO AL PAIR

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,869

Social learning means that males may come with a kind of cultural inheritance that may be of value to females.
Note:OLTRE ALLA FORZA CONTA LA CULTURA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,874

males have something to offer—local knowledge.
Note:NELLE SCIMMIE SI VA A CASA DEL MASCHIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,876

in a large ape group in which females are immigrants, females will benefit from pair-bonding by getting access to local knowledge (along with the usual protection, food, etc.), and males will benefit from pair-bonding by mitigating fierce male-male competition.
Note:CONCLUSIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,882

Pair-bonding in large primate groups will increase the recognition of blood relatives—particularly siblings, half-siblings, fathers, and perhaps fathers’ brothers (uncles).
Note:IL PAIR BONDING FACILITA IL RICONOSCIMENTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,904

At some point in all this, females began to evolve what researchers call concealed ovulation, or ovulatory crypsis. In many primates, such as chimpanzees, female bodies unmistakably signal when they are sexually receptive and capable of getting pregnant, sometimes using shiny buttock swellings. This means that once a male has hung around a female long enough, he’ll know her cycle, and thus know when it’s safe to head off to find some more receptive females or build alliances among males.
Note:OVULAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,915

If mom expresses kindness toward dad and grooms him, then our young learner feels more positive toward this male as well. If nothing else, daughters may copy mom’s practices of “hanging around dad,” which will put her in contact with her brothers.
Note:COME SI RINFORZA IL PAIR BONDING

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,923

Expanding one’s recognized network of kin also means that learners will now have more opportunities for social learning (arrow T).
Note:PARENTELA E SOCIAL LEARNING

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,929

Help for Mother and the Division of Information
Note:ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,934

Detailed studies of alloparental care in eight small-scale societies show that mothers do only about half of the direct child care.
Note:CURE DELLA MAMMA NELLA FAMIGLIA ALLARGATA... PIÙ AIUTO PIÙ POSSIBILITÀ DI INVESTIRE TEMPO... LA PARENTELA CERTA AIUTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,936

By contrast, other ape mothers do nearly 100% of the direct care.
Note:SCIMMIE A PARENTELA NON RICONOSCIBILE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,938

Pair-bonding means that many relatives who previously would have had little or no recognition of their relatedness can now identify and build relationships with each other.
Note:VANTAGGIO DEL SISTEMA A COPPIE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,944

Greater social learning also means that young parents and alloparents can rapidly tap into the know-how of prior generations
Note:GREATER SOCIAL LEARNING

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,946

Moreover, sophisticated social learning means that various females have incentives to help mom with her offspring
Note:AIUTO ALLA MAMMA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,961

later in human evolution, alloparenting would have become increasingly influenced by social norms. For example, among Hadza hunter-gatherers, the evolutionary anthropologist Alyssa Crittenden tells of a young girl who was repeatedly scolded because she refused to assist a mother with her baby.
Note:EVOLUZIONE CULTURALE DELL ALLOPARENTING

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,970

those species with more intensive alloparenting are more proactive in helping their group mates.
Note:L ALLOPARENTING RENDRE PIÙ PRO SOCIAL

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,995

The Beginning of Tribes
Note:tttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,996

Pair-bonds can also socially connect different groups, thereby opening the flow of cultural information and increasing the size and complexity of toolkits by expanding the collective brain
Note:LA COPPIA ALL ORIGINE DELLA TRIBÙ

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,009

Later, once our ancestors began acquiring packages of social norms that prescribe, extend, and reinforce behavioral patterns, pair-bonds transform into marriages, and fathers into dads (see chapter 9
Note:NASCITA DEL MATRIMONIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,028

Why Living Apes Haven’t Crossed the Rubicon
Note:ttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,031

Gorillas, for example, do pair-bond but live in single-family groups with only one male and several females. These groups are too small for cumulative cultural evolution.
Note:L HAREM DEI GORILLA... GRUPPI PICCOLI

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,032

orangutans are rather solitary and don’t pair bond, which means that young orangutans often grow up with only their mother to learn from. With little access to others for social learning,
Note:ORANGHI SENZA PARENTELA

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,034

Chimpanzees are more group oriented but have a fission-fusion form of social organization that still means that young chimps mostly hang around their moms.
Note:SCIMPANZÉ... COPPIE ELASTICHE

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,036

chimpanzees really only have access to mom as a model (90% of the time),
Note:ccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,037

narrow evolutionary bridge across the Rubicon I’ve constructed begins with a large ground-dwelling ape who is forced to live in larger groups (by predation) in which at least some members of both sexes have evolutionary incentives to pair-bond.
Note:UNICITÀ DELL UOMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 6,040

bigger brains calibrated to rely on learning from others can’t pay for themselves unless there is already a lot to learn out there in the minds of others.
QUANDO AVERE CERVELLO NPAGA... L ACCESSO ALL ESPERIENZA ALTRUI GRAZIE ALLA PARENTELA

Apologia della frusta

Meglio un anno in prigione o tre brutali frustate?

Da parte mia nessun dubbio: opto senza esitare per le frustate… e poi a casa di corsa a dormire nel mio letto.

Un mesetto di cure e medicazioni, l’attesa che si riformi la nuova cute, un paio di notti insonni col culo come una bistecca violacea non mi farebbero certo desistere.

E, se permettete, non mi fermo alla mia personale preferenza, ho la presunzione di affermare che la maggior parte degli interpellati mi seguirebbe sulla medesima strada.

E’ davvero una “pazza idea”? Non credo. Sta di fatto che un’ introspezione di tal fatta è alla base di ogni difesa accettabile della pena corporale.

Chi nel 2017 tenta un’apologia delle frustate lo fa solo perché desidera solo un sistema punitivo meno crudele.

Cosa c’è che non va’ in questo anelito?

Andateci voi in galera a convivere con criminali  irredimibili, a ricevere le loro proposte “indeclinabili”, a subire violenze sessuali ripetute.

Sottoponetevi voi a questo distacco fatale dalla vita lavorativa. Anzi, dalla vita normale in genere.

In posti del genere se entrate malandrini, uscirete criminali. Se entrate criminali, uscirete criminali incalliti.

E chi una volta fuori da quel girone infernale si ritrova barbone di strada, deve accendere un cero alla Madonna e baciarsi i gomiti.

La soluzione carceraria è un fallimento: voluta in luogo delle punizioni dai fautori della deterrenza e della rieducazione, non rieduca e non produce deterrenza, è solo una costosissima tortura prolungata che ha effetti benefici sul crimine solo quando sequestra in massa la popolazione a rischio, che è quasi 1/3 della popolazione tutta (vedi USA).

Possiamo considerarla una soluzione eugenetica più che sociale.

I riformatori, con le loro proposte di “mitigazione” vengono sbeffeggiati dal fiero conservatore. Chi puo’ dargli torto?: lo spettacolo di chi s’indigna per un condono e poi plaude un’amnistia è rivoltante. Mancano le basi per uno scambio fruttuoso.

Scommetto però che anche il conservatore più crudele sarebbe solleticato all’idea di una “mitigazione” fondata sulla frustata. La frustata, in altri termini, getta un solido ponte tra posizioni distanti. La frustata è portatrice di dialogo.

Se la frustata è un sensato atto di pietà, chi delinque dovrebbe perlomeno avere il diritto di sceglierla come pena alternativa.

Allo stesso tempo la frustata non lede il nostro senso di giustizia. Anzi, anche il più accanito colpevolista che assiste all’esecuzione di una pena corporale se ne torna a casa appagato nello spirito.

Prendiamo un caso spinoso della contemporaneità: l’immigrazione clandestina. Come difendere in modo efficace la causa a me cara del clandestino? Solo garantendo punizioni immediate e ben visibili a chi sgarra, sappiamo bene che i clandestini hanno un’ inclinazione a delinquere spropositata. Ecco, in casi del genere le frustate sono come il cacio sui maccheroni: carceri decongestionate e senso di giustizia appagato, compreso quello leghista.

Meglio frustati che in carcere. Ma nel caso dei clandestini c’è di più: meglio frustati che in carcere,  annegati o rinchiusi in un campo libico.

***

Qui non scendo in particolari burocratici ma ciascuno vede fin da subito che occorre un filtro all’accesso: alcuni criminali non possono essere rilasciati poiché rappresenterebbero un pericolo, penso ai malati mentali.

Ecco allora un altro effetto collaterale positivo: basta con tutte quelle ipocrite e fastidiose richieste d’ “incapacità”  per l’imputato, la tendenza s’invertirebbe nel segno di una responsabilizzazione dei singoli.

C’è forse chi pensa che una frustata sia troppo poco? Bene, discutiamone. Ma discutiamo però del numero, non del metodo.

A chi resta orripilato s’insista invece nel dire che trattasi di trattamento opzionale: la libera scelta si pone a fondamento del sistema riformato.

Lo si faccia presente soprattutto a quei “sensibiloni” che in nome della libera scelta accettano di tutto, anche l’eutanasia.

Immediatezza, proporzionalità, trasparenza, convenienza economica… le frustate sembrano avere tutte le carte in regola per proporsi come alternativa alla prigione, cosa impedisce un loro ritorno?

Tre cose.

1. Il fatto che le carceri siano un cospicuo business per molti insider che non mollano facilmente il posto alla mangiatoia.

2. Poi:  l’uomo secolarizzato e prosciugato da ogni  spiritualità, fa dell’ incolumità fisica il suo ultimo dio  (e quindi del dolore fisico il suo ultimo demonio). Sentire anche solo evocato il suo personale Satana lo disturba e lo atterrisce. Tremebondo smette di ragionare nel merito e cerca con tutte le sue forze di esorcizzare ogni azione riformatrice  ripristinando il tabù. Una diffusa cultura effeminata si oppone a prescindere alla frustata.

3. Ultima ragione: la mentalità progressista non puo’ ammettere che un miglioramento possa venire dal ripristino di “barbarie” passate opportunamente rivedute e corrette. Andare avanti per migliorare l’esistente è sentito come un dogma senza alternative, e questo a prescindere dal vicolo cieco in cui ci si è infilati.

Purtroppo, contro interessi consolidati, tabù e dogmi la lotta è impari.

ch 15 CHAPTER 15 WHEN WE CROSSED THE RUBICON

CHAPTER 15 WHEN WE CROSSED THE RUBICON - our Kindle Notes For:

The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

Joseph Henrich

Note:15@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,440

crossing the threshold into a regime of cumulative cultural evolution, which has driven human genetic evolution ever since.
Note:LA SOGLIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,442

tools of sufficient complexity that no single individual could have invented
Note:INVENZIONI DEL CERVELLO CUMULATIVO

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,459

Genetic evidence indicates that our lineage split from the line leading to chimpanzees between 5 and 10 million years ago.
Note:SPLIT DALLA SCIMMIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,464

After about 4 million years ago, the bones tell us that an ape that walked on two legs with a brain somewhat larger than a chimpanzee appeared in Africa.
Note:LA SCIMMIA BIPEDE

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,480

About 3.4 million years ago in Ethiopia, somebody was using stone tools to cut and scrape the meat off a cow-sized ungulate (like a horse or zebra) and a goat-sized bovid (think baby antelope).
Note:PRIMI STRUMENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,503

By 2.6 million years ago, the first stone tools appear in the paleoarcheological record. Known as Oldowan tools (after Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania),
Note:STRUMENTI SOFISTICATI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,524

By around 2.4 million years ago, a bigger-brained (about 630 cm3) bipedal ape appeared in Africa. These apes, and there may have been more than one species, are typically considered the first members of our genus, Homo, so I’ll refer to them collectively as Early Homo.
Note:CERVELLO INGRANDITO... NASCE HOMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,589

In Africa and then rapidly across Eurasia, a new species of the genus Homo was on the move with bigger brains (800 cm3); a much more modern physique, including a narrower pelvis and longer legs; and often fancier stone tools. For simplicity, I will refer to all varieties of this guys—whether in Asia, Africa, or Europe—as Homo erectus.
Note:HOMO ERECTUS... BIGGER BRAIN

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,631

Things accelerated from 1.6 to 1 million years ago, as new techniques and materials increasingly appeared among the remains of erectus societies. Hand axes, including those from the same site, go from mostly worked on one side (unifacial) to being worked on both sides (bifacial).
Note:NUOVI ATTREZZI

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,687

Of course, this is not to imply that these ancient humans were like us, but merely that they had crossed the Rubicon and embarked on a genetic evolutionary trajectory that was primarily driven by culture and its products.
Note:COEVOLUTION... IL RUBICONE... IL CORPIO CAMBIA IN RELAZIONE AD ATTREZZI CHE SONO UN PORTATO DELLA CULTIRA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,691

Homo erectus changed sufficiently, including a brain expansion to 1200 cm3, to justify a new species name, Homo heidelbergensis. This period revealed the first evidence of projectile weapons,
Note:UN NUOVO ERECTUS

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,700

The upshot of all this is that, based on current evidence, Australopiths probably began to aggregate cultural information more intensively than any other living ape
Note:AUSTROLOPITECO

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,704

Early Homo, expanding his brain and reducing his teeth and jaws. By 1.8 million years ago, however, the threshold had probably been crossed, and cumulative cultural evolutionary products were driving the genetic evolution
Note:1.8... PIÙ CERVELLO MENO DENTI... LA FRONTIERA È SUPERATA

Yellow highlight | Location: 5,707

By 750,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, there’s little doubt that we are dealing with a cultural species who hunts large game, catches big fish, maintains hearths, cooks, manufactures complex tools, cooperates in moving giant slabs, and gathers and processes diverse plants.
COSA FACEVAMO 750000