Punish

Going back to the local political drama, the obvious question is: What next ?

In fact, it is a classical scenario in the study of game theory: the "one-side defect" for cooperation of repeated game with heavy reputation effect .

The idea is simple: Cooperation leads to a tension between what is best for the individual and what is best for the group. A group does better if everyone cooperates, but each individual is tempted to defect.

What about costly punishment (i.e. paying a cost for another individual to incur a cost) ?

You may not believe it, but there has been well conducted experiments on this area. The result ? In short, the option of costly punishment increases the amount of cooperation but not the average payoff of the group. Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between total payoff and use of costly punishment. Those people who gain the highest total payoff tend not to use costly punishment.

In other words, winners don’t punish; losers punish and perish.

Go read Anna Dreber. Winners don't punish. Nature 2008; 452: 348.