Is scarcity really a determinant of collective action? We could make argument for and against such a statement. What contexts of scarcity may generate collective action, and what may demobilise collectives?
Selfish behaviour develops in a state of deficiency. It is necessary to ‘have’ something for which ‘being’ is sustained. So channelling one’s desire to have enough to sustain needs is the primary criterion. One cannot think of extending oneself and including others in such a state, thus supporting the argument that poverty has a depressing effect on collective action. The counter argument holds true when scarcity crosses the threshold level and becomes a threat to one’s survival. Scarcity may generate collective action in the context when this threat goes beyond one’s capacity.
Scarcity is one of the determinants of collective action. Take the example of a village where water is scare. There exists a conflict between upstream and downstream farmers. The water available to downstream farmers depends upon the usage of upstream farmers. If upstream farmers are not sensitive to this issue and try to protect only their self-interest, it may lead to conflict and crop loss of downstream farmers thus leading to decrease in the overall crop production of the village. Here, there is a need for a collective action- formation of a resource allocation group which ensures judicious water allocation.
Scarcity can obviously be considered as a determinant of collective action. Let us take an example where there is one single grazing field in a village then everyone would come together and use the field for their cattle. On the other hand if there is a case where a member cannot suffice his or her own needs, then in that context how can we expect him or her to cut down on his own requirements to help others.
Scarcity is one of the determinant of collective action. A person indulges himself in an activity when he feels the scarcity of some resource and hopes to gain by getting into collective action. Scarcity can also demobilise collective action when people feel that the scarce resource cannot increase by regeneration and they start competing for the scarce resource.
In absence of abundant resources scarcity may lead to selfishness and then it becomes difficult to convince people to cooperate,and work for collective good.Because then in this situation one person's gain will lead to loss for other.
A real example,which I came across during my field work segment made me realise that scarcity generates collective action.I came to know about an women SHG in Bidupur village, Vaishali district of Bihar. Initially,The members of the SHG were deprived of basic resources like land, livestock etc.Out of scarcity and deprivation they tend to make a group and take collective action to prepare sanitary napkins for regular income generation.The group was assisted by Mahila Vikas Nigam later and now their annual transactions are in crores.I feel that if the members would not have felt scarcity, such a huge collective action would not have taken this shape.
scarcity push to think for collective action. E.g. in the village where I did fieldwork people came together for constructing the canal. The canal was constructed from the reservoir as there was scarcity of water for irrigating the fields. People's Self interest also leads to collective action. In a village when the land of a person scattered in various parcels,he would be interested to generate collective action to manage the resources. The individual interest of the villagers shall be harmonised with this self interest of a particular or some of the persons.
I think that in an institutional setting group action may take place due to scarcity or after a crisis because they are organised and rule driven but if people find it easy to utilize the resource all by themselves then they may not be so willing to go for group action. For eg. restriction on usage of water by lower castes from the well by higher castes. As this is easily applicable in the context of existing caste stratification, the higher caste people may not fell like sharing the resource.
As sir said "necessity is the mother of invention and father of co-opreration" ,scarcity leads to the coperation among the people who are in need.People in the tribal area used to collect NTFP from the jungle and sell it to the middleman.The people who collceted small amount of NTFP were reluctant to take it to the market because it was far away from their village.So people felt the need of co-operation and formed a co-opeartive where they could sell the Collected NTFP in the market.Hence it would give them more bargaining power and they would get more profit from the collective action.But in the above case some rational people may get drived by their self motive to maximise the benefit and sell NTFP to the middle man.In that case the collective action will fail.
Scarcity of the resources may create two kind of situation. one, the people out of their selfishness start competing for the resources. In this situation social stratification and economic power come into role. Those people who belong to upper caste and are wealthy have more access to resources.Poor people suffer.In another situation,People voluntarily involve themselves for initiating collective action for proper allocation of resources so that most of the people get benefit out of it.
scarcity may demobilise collectives..people may try to get more for themselves and may not care about others.relating it to my fieldwork experience, we went to a social gathering, where food was served, but it was scarce.till the time we reached there, food was finished.
Scarcity may at times compel people to come together when they perceive that collectives would ensure greater resources for them. But on the contrary people may also start competing for the resources where they think that the only way out of the situation is to get the maximum benefit for the self and other person’s gain may lead to their loss. This may result into demobilising any collective that could have taken place in the situation. Thus scarcity is definitely a determinant of collective action but only when the benefits from it are perceived in a positive way by people.
In my opinion an individual wishes to lead a peaceful life and scarcity is a source of conflicts. This motivates people to come together and benefit as a collective working within a formal/informal institutional framework can reduce conflicts. Although scarcity alone cannot lead to collective action as power dynamics in the community also play a vital role. For example if in a village an agreement cannot be reached if only a small number of families disagree then collective action is dependent on those few families which can then prefer their self interest over mutual benefits.
Scarcity enables collective action. There is a tendency in human to desire for the resources in scarcity leaving behind others. Scarcity of portable water is one such example where one needs to co-operate with one's neighbors in order to sustain oneself. The threat of lowering of water table insists people to protect the available water sources and use efficiently. Though collective action has some constraints with regard to human behavior and perceptions, it acts as a supporting pillar to use the resource effectively for betterment of the community.
Scarcity may not necessarily become a reason for collective action. If the resources are limited, the human nature generally does not follow the principle of abundance and inclusion creating a perception for him that limited is enough. The pre-dominant nature of humans is to save their boat instead of helping to save the neighbor’s and in a place where there is differentiation in the society, scarcity is one big factor of hindering the process of collectives as societal differentiation leads to differentiation in thinking and outlook of individuals towards coming together for some purpose of common benefit.
Scarcity is a source of collective action when people are made to see things from a macro level rather than micro and when they get direct and tangible results.For instance in state of dire poverty where people’s time and energy are limited, people would come together for the construction work of a canal if they feel that would enable them to improve their income levels but would not actively involve themselves in controlling air pollution by planting trees because they would direct their scarce energy and time towards other things that would help them earn more tangible returns.
When does scarcity demobilize collective action? Often when there is scarcity we see poverty and deprivation. We see extreme inequality in distribution of resources. How will collective action work in this environment? The institutional design needs to take into account the formal and informal power centres that are created. Not only should there be equitable distribution of benefits but also legitimization of this resource distribution. Lastly, there is a need to imbibe a futuristic vision in the people so that they can see the benefits of co-operation.
scarcity in terms of poverty, where the individual is not even able to fulfill his basic needs, hampers collective action. Individual will selfishly try to fulfill basic needs rather than to think about collective goods. But again, only in scarcity, collective action can and should flourish.Lack of individual resources restricts individuals to perform big activity or do business. Collective action in such circumstances, provides oppportunity, to bring together, meagre resources of all and to perform big activity.Individual sustenance of rich is insured by his wealth, but poors can rely only on collective action for sustainable sustenance.
Scarcity of something, say a resource, generally leads to people acting in a collective manner to preserve and conserve the resource. The individuals realize that acting selfish at a point of time will lead to low benefits and more problems. However if there is a huge gap difference in power or economic distribution, then the individuals with more power and money may act selfish and discourage collective action.
Sometime scarcity forces the common people to take collective action. An example of a woman SHG in Bidupur village, Vaishali district of Bihar signifies this fact. Initially, the members of this SHG were deprived of basic resources like land, livestock etc.Out of scarcity and deprivation they tend to make a group and take collective action to prepare sanitary napkins for regular income generation. The group was assisted by Mahila Vikas Nigam and now their annual transactions are in crores.I feel that if the members would not have felt scarcity, such a huge collective action would not have taken this shape.
Scarcity is one of the determinants of collective action. When a resource is scarce a community can either try for maximization of individual benefit or can think about the benefit of the community instead of their own benefit. The course that the community chooses is entirely dependent on the individuals who make up that community.
Scarcity leads to collective action when almost everyone faces the threat posed by scarcity and the benefits attained by getting into collective action supersede individual benefits. In present scenario, every nation faces an environmental crisis and efforts by few nations alone are not enough to bring about a change,hence arises the need for collective action.
When the distribution of resource is biased in favor of some, while others face crisis, the possibility of collective action is deterred by the former group since collective action involves resource sharing. Also in extreme scarcity, the costs of collective action supersede the benefits. This can be one the reasons attributed to failure of agricultural produce cooperatives in times of severe crop failure.
When the distribution of resource is biased in favor of some, while others face crisis, the possibility of collective action is deterred by the former group since collective action involves resource sharing. Also in extreme scarcity, the costs of collective action supersede the benefits. This can be one the reasons attributed to failure of agricultural produce cooperatives in times of severe crop failure.
Scarcity of resources can be a very compelling argument in favour of collective action. Collectively pooling scarce resources can benefit the entire group at large. This would also spread the risk amongst all involved. However, it may also be true that selfish motives may take priority over collective motives when faced with acute scarcity and this is detrimental to collective action.
Scarcity leads to increased urge to have something. In absence of the desired the desperation increases and transforms into greed. But talking on the level of collectives when all are have not’s then the threat to sustain becomes larger and in that case collective action is the way out of the situation. Everyone can share the risk and contribute more to earn greater benefits. The ultimate goal of the collective should be clear to all else it may lead to more deprivation if focus is on individual gain.
Scarcity forces people to strive for acquiring the basic necessities for survival. Economic scarcity i.e. poverty, restricts people to conduct social occasions. This leads to low level of cooperation or informal ties among poor people. This happens when people think about their individual goals. But scarcity of resources is a factor leading to collective action where individuals identify the shared discontent and understand the benefits of working collectively to solve the problems rather than competing among themselves.
One of the main reasons behind forming cooperative is to reduce transaction cost and in some cases we need to eradicate middle man, hence scarcity helps in building a cooperative. But, at the same time if there are people who feel that though they are part of cooperative but they still are not able to get much benefit from at and the efforts that they are putting here might earn them higher returns somewhere else then this would go against the cooperative.
Scarcity and abundance go together and determine the course of collective action.When the resources are scarce people tend to move to its judicious use and allign their individual interests for a greater purpose.The classic eg of grazing in Hardin's 'Tragedy of Commons'tells how the resource now in abundance can deplete rapidly if collective effort is not shown for sustainable use. Stephen Covey in his book '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' talks about scarcity mentality and abundance mentality of individuals.This bent of mind results in successful cooperation and collective action and places interst of group above self interest.
31 comments:
Selfish behaviour develops in a state of deficiency. It is necessary to ‘have’ something for which ‘being’ is sustained. So channelling one’s desire to have enough to sustain needs is the primary criterion. One cannot think of extending oneself and including others in such a state, thus supporting the argument that poverty has a depressing effect on collective action. The counter argument holds true when scarcity crosses the threshold level and becomes a threat to one’s survival. Scarcity may generate collective action in the context when this threat goes beyond one’s capacity.
Scarcity is one of the determinants of collective action. Take the example of a village where water is scare. There exists a conflict between upstream and downstream farmers. The water available to downstream farmers depends upon the usage of upstream farmers. If upstream farmers are not sensitive to this issue and try to protect only their self-interest, it may lead to conflict and crop loss of downstream farmers thus leading to decrease in the overall crop production of the village. Here, there is a need for a collective action- formation of a resource allocation group which ensures judicious water allocation.
Scarcity can obviously be considered as a determinant of collective action. Let us take an example where there is one single grazing field in a village then everyone would come together and use the field for their cattle. On the other hand if there is a case where a member cannot suffice his or her own needs, then in that context how can we expect him or her to cut down on his own requirements to help others.
Scarcity is one of the determinant of collective action. A person indulges himself in an activity when he feels the scarcity of some resource and hopes to gain by getting into collective action. Scarcity can also demobilise collective action when people feel that the scarce resource cannot increase by regeneration and they start competing for the scarce resource.
In absence of abundant resources scarcity may lead to selfishness and then it becomes difficult to convince people to cooperate,and work for collective good.Because then in this situation one person's gain will lead to loss for other.
A real example,which I came across during my field work segment made me realise that scarcity generates collective action.I came to know about an women SHG in Bidupur village, Vaishali district of Bihar. Initially,The members of the SHG were deprived of basic resources like land, livestock etc.Out of scarcity and deprivation they tend to make a group and take collective action to prepare sanitary napkins for regular income generation.The group was assisted by Mahila Vikas Nigam later and now their annual transactions are in crores.I feel that if the members would not have felt scarcity, such a huge collective action would not have taken this shape.
scarcity push to think for collective action. E.g. in the village where I did fieldwork people came together for constructing the canal. The canal was constructed from the reservoir as there was scarcity of water for irrigating the fields.
People's Self interest also leads to collective action. In a village when the land of a person scattered in various parcels,he would be interested to generate collective action to manage the resources. The individual interest of the villagers shall be harmonised with this self interest of a particular or some of the persons.
I think that in an institutional setting group action may take place due to scarcity or after a crisis because they are organised and rule driven but if people find it easy to utilize the resource all by themselves then they may not be so willing to go for group action. For eg. restriction on usage of water by lower castes from the well by higher castes. As this is easily applicable in the context of existing caste stratification, the higher caste people may not fell like sharing the resource.
As sir said "necessity is the mother of invention and father of co-opreration" ,scarcity leads to the coperation among the people who are in need.People in the tribal area used to collect NTFP from the jungle and sell it to the middleman.The people who collceted small amount of NTFP were reluctant to take it to the market because it was far away from their village.So people felt the need of co-operation and formed a co-opeartive where they could sell the Collected NTFP in the market.Hence it would give them more bargaining power and they would get more profit from the collective action.But in the above case some rational people may get drived by their self motive to maximise the benefit and sell NTFP to the middle man.In that case the collective action will fail.
Scarcity of the resources may create two kind of situation. one, the people out of their selfishness start competing for the resources. In this situation social stratification and economic power come into role. Those people who belong to upper caste and are wealthy have more access to resources.Poor people suffer.In another situation,People voluntarily involve themselves for initiating collective action for proper allocation of resources so that most of the people get benefit out of it.
scarcity may demobilise collectives..people may try to get more for themselves and may not care about others.relating it to my fieldwork experience, we went to a social gathering, where food was served, but it was scarce.till the time we reached there, food was finished.
Scarcity may at times compel people to come together when they perceive that collectives would ensure greater resources for them. But on the contrary people may also start competing for the resources where they think that the only way out of the situation is to get the maximum benefit for the self and other person’s gain may lead to their loss. This may result into demobilising any collective that could have taken place in the situation. Thus scarcity is definitely a determinant of collective action but only when the benefits from it are perceived in a positive way by people.
In my opinion an individual wishes to lead a peaceful life and scarcity is a source of conflicts. This motivates people to come together and benefit as a collective working within a formal/informal institutional framework can reduce conflicts. Although scarcity alone cannot lead to collective action as power dynamics in the community also play a vital role. For example if in a village an agreement cannot be reached if only a small number of families disagree then collective action is dependent on those few families which can then prefer their self interest over mutual benefits.
Scarcity enables collective action. There is a tendency in human to desire for the resources in scarcity leaving behind others. Scarcity of portable water is one such example where one needs to co-operate with one's neighbors in order to sustain oneself. The threat of lowering of water table insists people to protect the available water sources and use efficiently. Though collective action has some constraints with regard to human behavior and perceptions, it acts as a supporting pillar to use the resource effectively for betterment of the community.
Scarcity may not necessarily become a reason for collective action. If the resources are limited, the human nature generally does not follow the principle of abundance and inclusion creating a perception for him that limited is enough. The pre-dominant nature of humans is to save their boat instead of helping to save the neighbor’s and in a place where there is differentiation in the society, scarcity is one big factor of hindering the process of collectives as societal differentiation leads to differentiation in thinking and outlook of individuals towards coming together for some purpose of common benefit.
Scarcity is a source of collective action when people are made to see things from a macro level rather than micro and when they get direct and tangible results.For instance in state of dire poverty where people’s time and energy are limited, people would come together for the construction work of a canal if they feel that would enable them to improve their income levels but would not actively involve themselves in controlling air pollution by planting trees because they would direct their scarce energy and time towards other things that would help them earn more tangible returns.
When does scarcity demobilize collective action?
Often when there is scarcity we see poverty and deprivation. We see extreme inequality in distribution of resources. How will collective action work in this environment?
The institutional design needs to take into account the formal and informal power centres that are created. Not only should there be equitable distribution of benefits but also legitimization of this resource distribution. Lastly, there is a need to imbibe a futuristic vision in the people so that they can see the benefits of co-operation.
scarcity in terms of poverty, where the individual is not even able to fulfill his basic needs, hampers collective action. Individual will selfishly try to fulfill basic needs rather than to think about collective goods.
But again, only in scarcity, collective action can and should flourish.Lack of individual resources restricts individuals to perform big activity or do business. Collective action in such circumstances, provides oppportunity, to bring together, meagre resources of all and to perform big activity.Individual sustenance of rich is insured by his wealth, but poors can rely only on collective action for sustainable sustenance.
Scarcity of something, say a resource, generally leads to people acting in a collective manner to preserve and conserve the resource. The individuals realize that acting selfish at a point of time will lead to low benefits and more problems. However if there is a huge gap difference in power or economic distribution, then the individuals with more power and money may act selfish and discourage collective action.
Sometime scarcity forces the common people to take collective action. An example of a woman SHG in Bidupur village, Vaishali district of Bihar signifies this fact. Initially, the members of this SHG were deprived of basic resources like land, livestock etc.Out of scarcity and deprivation they tend to make a group and take collective action to prepare sanitary napkins for regular income generation. The group was assisted by Mahila Vikas Nigam and now their annual transactions are in crores.I feel that if the members would not have felt scarcity, such a huge collective action would not have taken this shape.
Scarcity is one of the determinants of collective action. When a resource is scarce a community can either try for maximization of individual benefit or can think about the benefit of the community instead of their own benefit. The course that the community chooses is entirely dependent on the individuals who make up that community.
Scarcity leads to collective action when almost everyone faces the threat posed by scarcity and the benefits attained by getting into collective action supersede individual benefits. In present scenario, every nation faces an environmental crisis and efforts by few nations alone are not enough to bring about a change,hence arises the need for collective action.
When the distribution of resource is biased in favor of some, while others face crisis, the possibility of collective action is deterred by the former group since collective action involves resource sharing. Also in extreme scarcity, the costs of collective action supersede the benefits. This can be one the reasons attributed to failure of agricultural produce cooperatives in times of severe crop failure.
When the distribution of resource is biased in favor of some, while others face crisis, the possibility of collective action is deterred by the former group since collective action involves resource sharing. Also in extreme scarcity, the costs of collective action supersede the benefits. This can be one the reasons attributed to failure of agricultural produce cooperatives in times of severe crop failure.
Scarcity of resources can be a very compelling argument in favour of collective action. Collectively pooling scarce resources can benefit the entire group at large. This would also spread the risk amongst all involved. However, it may also be true that selfish motives may take priority over collective motives when faced with acute scarcity and this is detrimental to collective action.
Scarcity leads to increased urge to have something. In absence of the desired the desperation increases and transforms into greed. But talking on the level of collectives when all are have not’s then the threat to sustain becomes larger and in that case collective action is the way out of the situation. Everyone can share the risk and contribute more to earn greater benefits. The ultimate goal of the collective should be clear to all else it may lead to more deprivation if focus is on individual gain.
Scarcity forces people to strive for acquiring the basic necessities for survival. Economic scarcity i.e. poverty, restricts people to conduct social occasions. This leads to low level of cooperation or informal ties among poor people. This happens when people think about their individual goals. But scarcity of resources is a factor leading to collective action where individuals identify the shared discontent and understand the benefits of working collectively to solve the problems rather than competing among themselves.
One of the main reasons behind forming cooperative is to reduce transaction cost and in some cases we need to eradicate middle man, hence scarcity helps in building a cooperative. But, at the same time if there are people who feel that though they are part of cooperative but they still are not able to get much benefit from at and the efforts that they are putting here might earn them higher returns somewhere else then this would go against the cooperative.
Scarcity and abundance go together and determine the course of collective action.When the resources are scarce people tend to move to its judicious use and allign their individual interests for a greater purpose.The classic eg of grazing in Hardin's 'Tragedy of Commons'tells how the resource now in abundance can deplete rapidly if collective effort is not shown for sustainable use.
Stephen Covey in his book '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' talks about scarcity mentality and abundance mentality of individuals.This bent of mind results in successful cooperation and collective action and places interst of group above self interest.
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