Ch 5 Alignment: Common Knowledge, Commitment, and Coordination
The fifth chapter describes the mechanics of implementation of policy decisions without a central authority. Such coordination requires informed leaders, common knowledge and believable commitment in advance. For example, a rational man will enlist to defend his country only if he believes enough of his fellows will, as well -- simplified by public oath rituals. It helps to know that those who don't keep their word will be punished. Athens made monuments inscribed with the names of miscreants in order to make them memorable. The invading force will then have to decide whether their cost-benefit ratio is rational in the face of a known, potential, concerted defense force.
There is still need for someone to put forth suggestions. In the non-centralized authority pattern, various men will be viewed as having knowledge in essential areas based on their behavior. Their friends and fellow tribesmen will know and evaluate them. Democratic mob voting will work to select those men who have the best ideas.
Ch. 6 Codification: Access, Impartiality, and Transaction Costs
In the sixth chapter Ober enumerates more of the cost-benefit analysis that has been an underlying theme throughout. The dominant example is the market procedure for determining the legitimacy of coinage. A slave was in charge. Should he be found guilty of corruption, he would be flogged; otherwise, he would receive pay. If a coin was brought that the slave coin-judger, in his expert wisdom gained from untold years at the task, judged to be fraudulent (i.e., not all silver), he confiscated and cut it. If he judged a coin to be good, the merchant was required to accept it. There was also a middle ground with specified behaviors for dealing with non-Athens minted imitation coins that were solid silver. The only people who pay undue costs in this process are deliberate cheaters or the very naive. The polis of Athens pays a modest cost to maintain the slave judge. Were Athens to have required all coins be standard issue, it would have paid a higher cost in melting and reminting. A citizen judge couldn't be coerced (flogged) as easily as a slave, so the cost there was lower, as well.
Conclusions: Government by the People
Ober says that Athens outperformed its rivals because of its ability to "make use of dispersed knowledge." Athens faced high costs for its participatory process that included elite and non-elite, but the cost was countered by the benefit of the shared knowledge to the government. Policies were more adaptable than those of the major competitors. Dissent, transparency, and accountability were also important to the smooth operation of the democracy.
Ober concludes:
"Democracies, ancient and modern, have the potential to do well because rational cooperation and social flourishing emerge when each of enjoys an enhanced opportunity to fulfill our human potential. That potential prominently includes an ability to innovate and to learn. In a truly democratic community, among other things we would learn is that when each shares knowledge with others, our individual prospects expand as our society changes for the better."
