Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats - including elected officials - all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

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@pluralistic For those who like academic treatments, Mancur Olson developed the economic theory of collective action in the 1960s, with an essay and later book, "The Logic of Collective Action":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

Book at the Internet Archive / Open Library: https://archive.org/details/logicofcollectiv00olso

Who of course are fighting their own collective action battle against copyright absolutists:

https://blog.archive.org/tag/controlled-digital-lending/

#MancurOlson#CollectiveAction#InternetArchive#CDL #ControlledDigitalLending#Copyright#CopyrightAbsolutists