Mancur Olson is an American professor of economics and political science. He is often cited for three major works in political science.
The logic of collective action: public and group theory (1965).
In a small group, each member tries to motivate the others to pursue the common goal. When a group becomes wide enough, everyone's contribution becomes insignificant, individuals must be forced to cooperate. Individuals must have a special motive to sustain their contribution to a common cause otherwise they let others take care of the general interest.
While a group of five people will require everyone to contribute to achieving the goal that the group has given itself, in a country of several million voters, no one will read an 800 page legislative bill to check that it is for the common good.
This explains that special interests are more motivated to defend their domain and that no one defends the general interest.
The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982).
Olson shows how special interests such as cotton or steel producers, then unions of certain industries, obtain protectionist policies through successive negotiations and advantageous regulations for group members.
During long periods of stability, profits and union perks accumulate. Out-groups are excluded. The beneficiaries devote more and more time and resources to ensure that they win the redistributive battle, and less and less to produce something.
We thus see the resources of the company employed for a zero-sum game (redistribution, status, rent search) rather than for a positive-sum game, as to increase the amount of property produced.
The elite is traditionally defined as the winning group of the zero-sum game of the quest for social dominance. It is defined by exclusion. What has been new since the advent of the Industrial Revolution and mass democracy is that we see more popular groups such as unions and retirees win this game of redistribution and extract rent, while some workers remain excluded. The egalitarian discourse hides a fight to maintain privilege.
Power and prosperity (2000).
The autocrat is described as a stationary bandit. To maximize his income, he has an interest in his country's development. Anarchy sees different warlords competing for income. These are in a situation of a roving bandit: one who plunders, takes what he can, and burns the rest down.
Tyranny allows economic progress. According to Olson, an improvement towards democracy and ultimately a government more suited to the aspirations of the population.
This work depicts the evolution towards democracy in the context of the transition from the eastern countries of communism. The terms "stationary bandit" and "roving bandit" are attributed to Mancur Olson.
Conclusion
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The first work is seminal. The second follows the words of Frederic Bastiat in the 19th century and the remarks of Ashoka Modi on the search for political rent in Europe.
The third work echoes the distinctions on protection rent made by Frederic C Lane in 1950. The vocabulary used in the third work implies what Charles Tilly would criticize as a teleological direction, a historical progress of human institutions until perfection is reached. This would be the end of history and the current American democracy.
The vocabulary used to present different regimes is biased to legitimize the government that pays the scholar. The classic name for a sovereign is the "prince" (princeps) while the author uses the derogatory "tyranny". The American Constitution provides for a Republic which protects certain rights from the tyranny of the majority. According to criticism by Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, populism led to a clientelist democracy in 1828 which led to instability and two centuries of conscription wars.
It always seems socially desirable to present current institutions as the most perfect. Two centuries ago, Hegel exclaimed that the Germanic Protestant world was the ultimate political form at the end of history,
Mancur Olson main contribution is the theory of collective action. His first work is more theoretical and applies to all epochs, while his following two works are specific to the contemporary political situation.