Keltner bases his claim that tit-for-tat involved cost-benefit reversal on three observations:

• When cooperation is the default setting, tit-for-tat favours mutually beneficial cooperation.
• Tit-for-tat is not envious – the strategy doesn’t change as a partner’s benefits mount.
• Tit-for-tat is a forgiving strategy – cooperation is resumed following the first cooperative action of a defector.

It seems to me, however, that none of these features of tit-for-tat necessarily involves prioritizing the gains of others over those of the self. It is possible for a tit-for-tat strategy to be adopted purely out of self interest. Robert Axelrod recognised this in “The Evolution of Cooperation” (p 173-4) , in his discussion of the experiments that Keltner uses as the basis for his discussion of tit-for-tat.

A tit-for-tat strategy based on self-interest provides a plausible explanation for the emergence of cooperation among strangers who have no reason to trust each other. For example, consider a situation where strangers are considering the initiation of trade in the absence of third party (e.g. government) protection against opportunistic use of force and fraud. From the perspective of each party the possible outcomes would be: a) a potential gain from trade; b) a potential loss resulting from opportunism by the other party – i.e. theft of the goods offered for trade; c) a potential gain from opportunism – theft of goods offered for trade by the other party; d) a stand-off.

If trade occurs in this situation, is it likely to be because one party places higher priority on the potential gains to the other party than on the potential gains to the self? I think it is more likely to occur because both parties consider that, in view of the likely responses of each other, they have more to gain from a series of mutually beneficial exchanges that they would gain from attempting to steal from each other.

If both parties adopt a consistent tit-for-tat strategy, then trade is likely to continue and they may come to trust each other. It is possible to envisage that the relationship could even develop to a point where they each gain some satisfaction from the benefit that they bestow upon each other through the exchange of goods. But this trust and affection is the outgrowth of mutually beneficial cooperation rather than a pre-condition for it.

I don’t understand why Dacher Keltner seeks to denigrate those who see self interest as a motivating force (see: How high was Adam Smith’s jen ratio?) and seeks to eliminate self-interest from the evolution of social cooperation. Perhaps he identifies the self-interest motive with opportunism, greed and selfishness to such an extent that he cannot see that it is good to desire to avoid being a burden on others, to help family members and other loved ones, and to accumulate the means to contribute generously to worthwhile causes. Perhaps he is uncomfortable with the idea that an invisible hand involved in voluntary exchange processes could enable people to benefit from cooperation with each other without actually intending to benefit each other.

A glance at the most noticeable trouble spots around the globe in 2008 (suicidal bombers in Iraq; genocidal warriors in Africa; military despots in Myanmar) reminds us that even the most gruesome lessons in history are soon forgotten. What lessons did the last century teach us about the laws of economics? Will they, like other lessons of history, be wasted on future generations?

Here, in no particular order, are my Top Four Lessons of twentieth-century economic history:

• Planned economies (the ex-Soviet Union and the continuing disaster called Cuba) don’t work and can’t make people happy.
• Societies that suppress freedom of religion don’t work and can’t last (same as above: Fidel doesn’t have enough relatives to freeze a nation in time forever).
• Economic growth does not in itself eliminate poverty or make people happy (as the overloaded welfare system in the United States proves).
• Modern economic science has absolutely no answer for the question, what makes life worth living?

People can pretend to ignore one or more of these four lessons of recent economic history; indeed, every trouble spot in the world today is the result of someone insisting that one of these four things isn’t so.

A Wrong Image of Man and His Reality

There is good news on the horizon: an increasing number of economists are fed up with the limitations that mainstream economic theory imposes on the search for solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. You haven’t seen their names in the press; they probably won’t be nominated for the Nobel Prize anytime soon. But if you listen, you can hear their voices in the wilderness.

Dr. Kamran Mofid, an Iranian-born economist and founder of the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative, is one of those calling for a return to sanity. In Mofid’s opinion, we only need to take a look at the state of the world to reach an obvious conclusion: economics has failed to provide a roadmap for modern society because it has failed to take into account humanity’s deepest need of all—our need of a meaningful spiritual life.

Mofid examines the roots of economics to discover why it has gone so wrong. As Mofid points out, economics was divorced from theology at the end of the eighteenth century; it was freed from political theory in the nineteenth century; finally, in the last several decades of the twentieth century, economics was turned into the abstract science that confounds people today.

Mofid’s mission is to make economics work for the good of all people on earth by reuniting economics and theology. “We need to recreate economic theory based on an understanding of what a human being really is and what makes him happy,” he explains. “As long as economics is based on a partial or wrong image of man and his reality, it will not produce the results we need.”

The First Economist

Kamran Mofid is to the 21st-century what John Ruskin was to the nineteenth. Ruskin opposed the laissez-faire economists whose thoughts provided both philosophical and practical justification for the sprawling slums left in the wake of Britain’s Industrial Revolution.

In Ruskin’s view, society was betrayed by economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, who advocated the benefits of enlightened self-interest. As Ruskin told an audience at the Bradford Town Hall in 1864, “Friends, our great Master said not so.” With an ear to Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, Ruskin concluded, “Indeed, to do the best for others, is finally to do the best for ourselves.”

“Economics must once again find its heart and soul,” says Mofid, echoing the call to sanity voiced by Ruskin in Victorian England and—if we are serious about wanting to get to the root—by King Solomon of Israel. After all, economics is simply about wants being satisfied, and in that sense the author of Ecclesiastes was the first economist.

Since the end of the eighteenth century, economists have written elaborate prescriptions for the regeneration of society. Solomon knew better. “People are always writing books, and too much study will make you tired,” he advised 3,000 years ago. Ruskin suffered incapacitating mental attacks the last twenty years of his life; he spent his last decade as an invalid at his estate in England’s Lake District.

In Small Is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher wrote, “It is hardly likely that twentieth-century man is called upon to discover truth that has never been discovered before.” Schumacher was right, of course; we won’t discover anything new by opening the pages of a 3,000-year-old book. But it will take us to the real root of economics, and it is there that we can begin to understand what went wrong.

I’ll take a look at King Solomon’s economic theory one week from today. Once we understand the source of the problem, we’ll have an opportunity to be part of the solution.