Synopses & Reviews
The main emphasis of this new book from Luigino Bruni is a praise of heterogeneity, arguing that society works when different people are able to cooperate in many different ways. The author engages in a novel approach to reciprocity looking at its different forms in society, from cautious or contractual interactions, to the reciprocity of friendship to unconditional behaviour.
Bruni'ss historical-methodological analysis of reciprocity is a way of examining the interface between political economy and the issue of sociality, generally characterized by 'two hundred years of solitude' of the homo economicus. This historical analysis exposes an absence and this book looks at the reasons why among the many forms of reciprocity present in the civil life economics has chosen to deal just with the simplest ones (contracts and repeated self-interested interactions). The second part of the book is an analysis (with repeated and evolutionary games) of the interactions of the three forms of reciprocity faced with a forth strategy; the non-reciprocity.
Synopsis
Reciprocity is a term used in a number of conexts, from the ethic of reciprocity as expressed by philosophers such as Confucius and Jesus Christ via social psychology, international relations and cultural anthropology. This book is the first to examine it from an economics perspective. Luigino Bruni examines three forms of reciprocity: reciprocity without benevolence; philia-reciprocity; and unconditional reciprocity. Going back through the writings of thinkers such as Aristotle, Hume as well as modern neoclassical economists, the book represents a challenge to the way contemporary social sciences consider reciprocity. Furthermore, making use of simple evolutionary game theory the author challenges the contraposition between the market reciprocity based on contracts or repeated games and the genuine reciprocity typical of non-market relation based, instead, on gift and other-oriented behavior.