This is a previously unpublished paper written at various times
since 1990.
THE SOCIAL INVENTIONS GAME
1.INTRODUCTION.
Every year home gardeners probably through away several
tons of perfectly good surplus vegetables which other, relatively
poor, people would have happily consumed. There are clear
economic reasons why this might occur such as prohibitive costs
of transfer to, and location of, a suitable donor. If a scheme
was set up to centrally collect and redistribute such produce it
might prove cost effective. In terms of the language of
economists this is a standard case of responding to market
failure. But what do we call institutions such as that involved
in the above example? There are a number of people
(overwhelmingly non-economists) involved in the practical
development of such institutions who refer to them as 'social
inventions'. This paper considers the topic of social invention
which is currently gaining some ground in Britain under the
auspices of the Institute for Social Inventions which has
recently published The Book of Visions edited by Nicholas Albery.
A social invention is,broadly speaking, some kind of attempt to
change people's behaviour such as,for example, a park and ride
scheme to ease inner city congestion. The Institute strives to
promote the flow of inventions through offering prizes. It has
also garnered publicity through regular features in the Guardian
newspaper. As yet, this activity has not attracted the attention
of professsional social scientists. Granted, some of the social
inventors are, themselves, professional social scientists but
their contribution has been limited to supplying ideas on
particular subjects. They have not provided a critical overview
of the whole movement.
There are a number of issues which the
social scientist may be able to illuminate. These are:
(i) the definition of a social invention
(ii) is a social invention a conceptual category hitherto
unrecognised in social analysis?
(iii) if the answer to the previous question is no, is the
notion of a social invention a useful umbrella under which to
gather previously disparate activities?
(iv) how does a drive to promote social inventions fit into the
analysis of the relationship between government and voluntary
sector provision of goods prone to market failure?
Below, I seek to attempt to answer some of these
questions. There will be limitations of, and a certain slant to,
this because it is written from the standpoint of an economist.
There is clearly room for subsequent contributions from other
disciplines. The question of precise definition is left until the
underlying rationale for social inventions has been explored.
2. THE RATIONALE FOR SOCIAL INVENTIONS.
Social scientists are, in many cases, not particularly
receptive to new ideas. This is especially true when the ideas
relate to everyday matters of practice or policy. The role of the
social scientist is often to nit-pick and show why things 'won't
work'. Within the sphere of economics this is shown by the
classification of certain unconventional monetary doctrines, in
the 1930's and before, as the work of 'heretics' [see
Keynes(1936),Ch.23; modern equivalents are in Albery(1992) Ch.5.
'New Money Systems']. In more recent times the notion of a wage
inflation tax has found it difficult to establish a place in the
mainstream of economic policy discussion despite its having some
support from conventional theory. If we turn to another
discipline, a quick perusal of the leading sociology journals
would reveal very little in the way of concrete attempts to make
the world a better place. Given this, it is perhaps not
surprising that social scientists have shown little inclination
to exhume the work of 'social inventors' for appraisal. By
default we must draw the conclusion either that it is seen to be
the work of cranks or that it is simply of no interest. As we
shall see below the latter conclusion is, in some instances,
justified because some so called social inventions are more
appropriately designated under other well established categories
of social behaviour.
The rationale behind social inventions, in economic terms,
is that they are Pareto improvements i.e. at least one person
will be made better off without anyone ultimately being made
worse off. According to mainstream economics there would be
little need to promote social inventions as rational individuals
will already have adopted them if there is a potential Pareto
improvement. Supposing that 'great ideas' exist then rational
individuals will take them up and others will follow by the
demonstration effect of publicity. There should be no need to
pump up the flow of social inventions artificially by making
their creation into a game replete with prizes. A game with
prizes would seem to be an apposite description of the efforts
of the British 'Institute for Social Inventions' founded by the
idealistically minded 'Body Shop' corporation. They provide a
monetary prize for the best social inventions and the book
summarising their activities [Albery(ed.) 1992] clearly shows
that there is a small number of individuals dedicated to
promulgation of inventions both at the ideas and practical
levels.
An example of the complacency of rational choice economics
to the adoption of social improvements can be found in the pages
of the Journal of Economic Perspectives the 'popular' organ of
the world's leading body of economists the American Economics
Association . In 1988 Joseph Farrell asked if anyone could come up
with suggestions for Pareto improvements that had not already
been taken up. Interest in the search seems to have vanished
after the Summer 1989 issue as there are no more submissions in
subsequent issues of the journal. Nalebuff (19899.172) reports
the proposal of Curt Anderson that we should allow left turns as
well as right turns on red lights [this is an American example],
when traffic is clear, to save waiting time. The worry about this
is that it might erode the convention of respect for red lights
so that they become effectively the same as green lights. The
comment which Anderson offers on this shows, perhaps, how
economists paint themselves into a corner and leads us
conveniently on to our next point. He says: "Is a policy change
which offers a Pareto improvement only if everyone obeys the
rules associated with the policy still considered a Pareto
improvement?" [ibid.p.172].
Let us now elaborate on the issue of obeying the rules of
the game. One might argue that social dilemmas [see Wit &
Wilke(1992)] such as the well known 'prisoner's dilemma' scenario
may impede the adoption of desirable inventions; after all this
may be a problem even where individuals are altruistically
inclined rather than purely selfish [Collard (1978)]. Take the
case of excess length meetings. All participants may feel that
they would like a guillotine because meetings are inadequately
(if at all) chaired because of ostensibly equal status members.
Everyone may be sitting on,in sufferance, because of a fear of
losing face by a private decision to quit which will be viewed as
a lack of commitment. Hence the occurence of elaborate excuse
making when someone does quit; who would ever walk out and say
'I'm bored and I'm leaving because this is a complete waste of
time' even if they were fairly sure everyone else agreed with
them? There is a clear prisoner's dilemma here as all
individuals could be potentially better off with shorter meetings
but are locked into a stable equilibrium of longer ones.
Here, of course, we are assuming that the excessive length
is genuinely socially unproductive or counter-productive. There
might obviously be cases where a group invention would
disadvantage people outside the group if the agreed reduction of
output is a form of shirking. This could happen where there is
strongly asymmetric information e.g. a group of examiners could
agree to decide results without engaging in marking or even worse
take bribes. These acts would presumably be seen as anti-social
inventions because some groups are conspiring to transfer wealth
from others through the illicit exploitation of information and
position.
The prisoner's dilemma could be overcome if there is a
sufficient quantity of trust, viz. an individual could confess
the above whilst saying that they are fairly sure everyone else
feels the same. In such a case the mere admission of a problem
creates its solution. There is no need for intervention via a
social invention . However, if mechanisms were set up to promote
trust and confession [such as designated frank exchange of
opinion sessions] these could be considered to be social
inventions. In the excess length meeting case some kind of price
mechanism could be used, for example:
(i) individuals could be given a finite supply of votes or
vouchers (which could be made tradeable if we wish to 'mimic the
market') so that they have to ration their contributions to the
discussion thereby eliminating excess length.
(ii) a sealed bid auction could be enacted where the agenda
defines the items 'for sale' ; individuals could submit a bid for
what they consider a length appropriate to the agenda and some
weighting of the outcomes could then be used to set a guillotine.
(iii) the environment could be altered as a rationing device;
e.g. the heat could be progressively reduced or windows opened or
the lighting progressively changed in an undesirable way.
Why should we put ourselves through such games or charades?
They would be superfluous if we had sufficient self control
and/or trust. Such institutions may be a voluntary agreement to
police trust. They may also be a means of using other people for
one's own, as opposed to social, ends i.e a commitment to
comply with conventions agreed with other people may make them
into a 'willpower deputy'. Such beings police one's potential for
lapses in the short run from an optimal long run path of
behaviour [for examples of the economic literature on willpower/
self control [Thaler & Schefrin (1981), Schelling(1984),
McCain(1990), Cooter(1991)]. For example, an individual may wish
to diet, believing that this is beneficial to health and chances
of success in other areas of life, but be subject to constant
failure in private attempts. Joining some kind of weight
watching club, with its ritualistic weigh-ins and reward
structures (slimmer of the month etc.) is a form of using the
(dis)approval of others as a disciplinary mechanism.
This is not to claim that weight watching clubs are
necessarily a social invention. On the contrary they may provide
only private benefits despite their 'social' nature. Where only
private benefits arise we are dealing with what is really a
'club' good. The market does not supply self control mechanisms
hence people with similar needs for self control band together to
benefit from economies of scale in hiring a willpower deputy.
Given that the willpower deputy may, in fact, be a group, the
principle behind success will be the same whether the intent is
to bring social or purely private gains. The major principle may
be the promotion of group feeling as:
"Social identity theory suggests that whether individuals act in
the group interest rather than in their self interest depends on
whether they consider themselves as members of a group rather
than as single individuals." [Wit and Wilke(1992) p.136]
The main function of the social invention could be promotion of
the ethos of group solidarity as a means of generating behaviour
change. In this case, thee specific instrumentalities deployed
such as price type mechanisms may be fairly irrelevant i.e. what
really counts is their existence rather than their form. Their
introduction has a symbolic value as an indication that "at least
something is being done".
3. DEFINITION OF A SOCIAL INVENTION.
Having considered the rationale for social inventions we
are now in a position to attempt a more precise definition. The
word invention brings to mind initially the idea of something
'new'being involved. Less generally the notion of usefulness
might be evoked. Affixing the prefix social brings the notion of
usefulness more to the fore. We can distinguish a purely
scientific invention, from a social one, by defining it as a
means of changing some aspect of the material world. This may
have drastic social consequences, for example the ability to
control fertility, but this does NOT make it a social invention.
There may be some interest in a (currently) irrelevant scientific
invention but there would appear to be little in an equivalent
social invention. On this ground we would be able to exclude
avant garde/experimental music as a social invention. If it was
found that listening to it made biscuit packers more productive
then it might be a different story!
Although a social invention is not the same as a scientific
or technical invention there will be inevitable feedbacks
between the two categories. A social invention may be
facilitated by a technical invention e.g. a clock is a technical
invention which facilitates timetabling which is a social
invention which contributes greatly to productive efficiency. A
social invention which made international conferences more
effective could raise the rate of scientific inventiveness by
making scientists more productive. The development of personal
computers is a rich harbinger of social inventions; Albery
(1992,p.46) details an attempt to find a computer program which
will "help divorcing couples reach agreement on financial relief
without the distortions, expense and complications intrduced by
using lawyers".
The Pareto improvement criterion gives us a working notion
of usefulness. For something to be considered a social invention
it must bring benefits other than those accruing solely to an
individual participant i.e there must be a positive externality
or some reduction of a negative one. It must also have
sufficiently low implementation costs relative to the gains which
follow e.g. there is no point in a worthy scheme to fund people
to sort their rubbish into various categories to facilitate
recycling if the amounts needed are prohibitive. This is
recognised in the discussion [Albery(1992)p.184] 'Incentives to
reduce rubbish' which proposes weighing rubbish to get volume
based rates. Such a scheme could obviously have negative results
if the weighing is too costly.
Many Pareto improvements can take place without any element
of social inventiveness e.g. if you have all the eggs and I have
all the milk then a beneficial trade can take place. But this
takes us back to the essential basic economic theory proposition
of section 2. In equilibrium all such trades will have been
enacted unless there are barriers to trade. If neither of us had
ever heard of omelettes and there was something preventing us
from doing so then a scheme to provide this information might
qualify as a social invention. A 'rational expectations' argument
would tell us that, if avant garde music speeded up biscuit
packing firms would seize on profit opportunities by introducing
avant garde music to the workplace. There would be no need to set
up a 'Society for the promotion of playing avant garde music to
biscuit packers'.
On a semantic note there seems to be a confusion between
social innovation and social invention. Much of what has been
described as invention [the 'Institute for Social Inventions'
book has 'An Encyclopaedia of Social Inventions' blazoned above
its formal title] is better described as innovation in that,
rather than proposing novel ideas, it applies well established
ideas to a hitherto unexplored area. For example, one of the
items in the Albery book is a 'Green Questionnaire' which gives
marks to the respondent according to whether they use aerosol
sprays etc. Surely no one could find any element of invention in
this?
We thus propose that we have the following definitions:
Social Invention: the application of some technique or other for
the promotion of socially beneficial behaviour change.
Social Innovation: the application of an existing technique for
promoting socially beneficial behaviour change to a previously
untapped area
So far I have examined the subject from an economist's
point of view. It seems appropriate that I should now consider
what the social inventors themselves think they are doing. The
prophets of the social invention movement are somewhat vague on
the definition of a social invention. According to Conger "A
social invention is a new law, organisation or procedure that
changes the way in which people relate to themselves or to each
other, either individually or collectively" [Albery(1992),p.3]
This is so vague that it seems to include almost anything new
that ever happens. The poll tax, the window tax, the Nazi party,
roads, television are all social inventions according to this
criterion. Given the vagueness of definition offered, the next
section seeks further illumination through a typology of the
categories of proposed and actual social inventions.
4. THE CATEGORIES OF SOCIAL INVENTIONS.
Here is a broad typology, accompanied by some critical
comments, of what is to be found in 'The Book of Visions':
(i) The ideas/work of pressure groups such as the British
Organisation of Non-Parents (BON) which has no innovative aspects
as such . It exists to:
"eliminate the cultural and media bias against non-parents and
challenge the social tendency to glorify and romanticise
parenthood" [Albery p.14].
From an analytical view this is not unlike a trade union or an
association to plead for tariff protection on behalf of farmers.
It is merely rent-seeking to use the term voguish in conventional
public choice theory. Granted it does not seek to effect a
transfer of resources toward the pressure group (although this
may happen through lobbying for more equitable tax treatment
etc.). The main thrust is to change (other people's) attitudes.
If BON is a social invention then presumably so are such things
as feminism and the labour party. The question raised here is
what is the difference between a social movement and a social
invention.
(ii) Applications of straightforward social science ideas e.g. an
economist would advocate taxes as controls on undesirable
activities. Examples of this abound in the Albery book but there
are some omissions such as the wage inlfation tax and the idea of
a no-strike strike.
(iii) Advocacy of social institutions especially 'languages' of
various sorts. The chapter on health advocates a language whereby
those with a stroke can communicate more effectively with would
be samaritans. One should pause here to consider whether
'politically correct' language belongs in this heading or is more
properly part of (i).
(iv) Support groups/ groups to disseminate information.
Alcoholics anonymous is an example of the former whilst the
foundation for the study of infant death is an example of the
latter.
(v) Changes in the law.
I shall give two examples from the 'Book of Visions'
Albery [ibid. p.113] advocates that commercial trade in
cannabis should remain illegal but the provision of a caanabis
syrup or seeds for home cultivation should be legal. The basis of
this proposal is that cannabis can have harmful effects which
will be pushed to the limit by capitalist exploitation through
advertising. It is not clear to me how keeping it as a cottage
industry limits any harmful effects and Albery does not elaborate
on this point.
Nicholas Saunders (p.62) proposes that the value of a
pound sterling be locked to the value of a kilowatt hour of
electricity as the monetary standard in order to cure inflation.
To conclude this section it is worth noting that any an idea
simply has to be floated to be called a social invention. There
is no need for it ever to have been implemented. For example,
Saunders says he had the above idea in 1978 but there has been no
work done on its applicability. Related to this point the social
inventions movement takes no interest in why inventions fail or
are never adopted in the first place. The focus is rather on
collective brainstorming on the 'some mud must stick to the wall'
principle. The literature on social change [Argyle(1967]
indicates that ideas are taken up because they meet some
psychological need. There is no automatic correspondence between
group psychological needs and what is socially beneficial. For
example there might be an unjustified fear of crime in society
which might engender the adoption of palliatives such as
neighbourhood watch which appear, as one would have suspected, to
be ineffective.
5. POLICY IMPLICATIONS.
As section 2 makes clear the social invention fits into the
analysis of market failure. It has become traditional to talk of
the 'third sector' of the economy, consisting of the private
sector, the government sector and a voluntary non-profit
sector.[Annals of Public and Co-operative Economy (1991)
special issue on the voluntary sector]. The latter two sectors
serve to 'correct' for failures in the private market. The social
invention game could be characterised as a fourth sector which
serves to supply ideas to the second and third sectors [see
Knapp & Kendall(1991) on the size and content of the fourth
sector].
In the Albery book there is a (not so) hidden agenda. Its
basic message is that the world could be a better place if people
opened their minds to new ways of doing things and took the
chance of putting them into practice. The strength of the
message is that social reform can be achieved without the need
for drastic political changes or limp appeals to changing one's
own behaviour from within through an altered consciousness. Nor
are appeals needed to making sacrifices for the public good. This
is illustrated by the description of the work of George
Fairweather [Albery(1992) p.2] ".. who argued that not only was
our survival on earth threatened as never before, but also that
revolution and non-violent protest were unlikely to bring about
the social transformations required. In his view there needed to
be organisations that could deal with problems before they became
crises, and that could set up, test, compare and evaluate
small-scale innovative solutions before applying them more
widely." The high quality social invention will illuminate to the
individual the ultimate gains to themselves thus ensuring
compliance. Reform is grounded in practicality and works from the
micro to the macro.
It is noteworthy that Fairweather concentrated on global
issues of potential consensus e.g. pollution might ruin the
planet if solutions are not found. Problems of conflict arise
where the ideas embraced shade over into question of 'social
engineering'. Let us not forget that social darwinism in the
early part of this century was extremely influential thanks to
respectable scientists such as Karl Pearson(1937). Many
establishment scientists and social scientists took very
seriously the possibility of implementing eugenic policies. Now
on any objective value-free criteria such activities must surely
count as social inventions? Continuing in this vein,
there could clearly be 'social inventions' to restrict the
rights to abortion or homosexuality, for example the idea of
quarantine for AIDS carrying homosexuals has recently been
considered in the California legislature. This would be offensive
to some but then so are the aims of BON. The John Stuart Mill
type idea of carving out an enclave somewhere away from everybody
else to try a small scale experiment to see if the idea works
ignores the political and value dimensions of social innovation.
Take policitcally 'correct' lanaguage as an example. This would
seem to fit into all that has been said above about political
inventions. Its advocates would contend that it has to be imposed
on the whole of society as rapidly as possible; a little
experiment in an isolated community is an irrelevancy and even an
impossibility.
The last example brings up the fact that many items classed
as social inventions are predicated on the notion of correcting
false consciousness on the part of those at whom the invention
will be targetted. Society is not a laboratory and this is where
the invention analogy breaks down. A social invention is an
attempt to change people's behaviour and this invariably involves
matters of relative values and politics. It would appear that
the term social invention is a largely redundant category in a
purely logical,taxonomic sense. However, the movement has
achieved a level of momentum as an umbrella for pressure groups
and policy advocacy which come from a fairly similar range of the
political spectrum. The terms innovation and invention are, in
this context, to a large extent pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
It is important that social inventions be questioned and the
values behind them made explicit.
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