Exhibit 1161 ยท Academic book (primary theory text)
The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
Indeed, unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.
States that rational, self-interested members of a large group will not voluntarily act for the group interest absent coercion or selective incentives, and that small groups with concentrated stakes organize more easily and can shift burdens onto larger members. Chapter I sorts groups into privileged, intermediate and latent. Text read in a 20th-printing scan (copyright 1965 and 1971 editions) on an Internet Archive user upload; the publisher record is the DOI.
- Source
- Mancur Olson, Harvard University Press (Harvard Economic Studies vol. 124)
- Date
- 1965
- Quoted from
- Introduction, p. 2 (20th printing, 2002). Same book, ch. I section D, p. 36: "the larger the group, the less it will further its common interests."
- Grade
- Peer-reviewed
- Document
- https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674041660
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit
- Note
- Standing note: robust as logic, contested as a predictor. Olson himself limits it to groups without selective incentives; Baumgartner et al. 2009 (exhibit baumgartner-2009-lobbying-policy-change) found organized interests often fail, so cite Olson for who organizes and not for who wins. Quote was OCR text; one OCR artifact (ra'tional) corrected.