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^Choice and
(consequence
Thomas
G. Schellin
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
and
London, England
Copyright © 1984 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Schelling, d'honias C., 1921-
Choice and consequence.
Bibliography:
p.
Includes index.
— —
1. Social .sciences Addres.ses, e.ssays, lectures. 2. Economics .Ad-
—
dresses, essays, lectures. 3. Social problems .Addresses, essays, lec-
—
tures. 4. Choice (Psychology) .Addres.ses, e.ssays, lectures. I. Title.
H35.S33.‘) 1984 300 83-18332
ISBN 0-674-12770-6 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-12771-4 (paper)
To the memory of
William John Feliner
Frcftice
ONCE
RECEI\'ED an award in political economy and ex-
I
pected to be asked, What for? Instead I was asked, What is politi-
economy?
cal
I could think of two answers. They differ in emphasis. One is
economics in a context of policy, where the policy is more than ec-
onomics but the ‘‘more” cannot be separated from the economics.
Nuclear energy is an example, or foreign aid, or the military draft.
The second is working on a problem area to which an economist
can bring a little insight that, without offering solutions, helps in
finding a solution or in facing an issue, even though the problems
themselves would not usually be identified as economics. In these
days of interdisciplinary committees there is rarely a problem that
—
doesn’t appear to demand in addition to lawyers and anthropol-
—
ogists and biologists an economist. The economist is usually in-
vited because of a perception that, whatever else may be
im[)ortant, there are some important economics. The economist
who joins up usually finds the ‘‘whatever else” more engaging
than the economics; though he pays his entrance fee in econom-
ics, he gets his satisfaction from the whole problem.
have been in studies of smoking and health; the intriguing
I
issues are not the economics of tobacco farming and tobacco
taxes. have been in sym{)osia on medical ethics, like the ‘‘right to
I
die,” and was not the rising costs of hospital care that held my
it
attention. have hel[)ed with studies of biomedical technologies.
I
Vlll Preface
like selecting the sex of olfspring, and the fascination is not in ani-
mal husbandry.
Recruitment is along networks that are sometimes invisible. I
can usually deduce the connections by which I get asked to do
something on nuclear terrorism; the historical sequence may have
been almost Brownian in movement, but there is a trail to follow.
can guess how got asked by a Committee on Life Sciences and
I I
Social Policy to join in assessing in vitro fertilization. But I have
never figured out why was chosen as the economist for the Com-
I
mittee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior, or on Carbon
Dioxide and Climate Change. Planets are so called from a Greek
word meaning “wanderer,” and maybe some of us are conspicu-
ous for wandering and presumed willing to keep moving. am not
I
complaining. Still, when Arthur Rosenthal, Director of Har-
J.
vard University Press, invited me to select about fifteen essays to
be published together, I knew it would not be easy to find a title
for the book.
Actually, just as the planets did not really wander but only
appeared to, I have not wandered as much as may appear. In
my
1960 Harvard University Press published Strategy of Conflict, a
dozen essays in bargaining, conflict, and strategy. The applications
—
were international diplomacy, deterrence, arms control, foreign
—
aid but I looked for ideas in the ways people maneuvered in
traffic Jams, negotiated with children, confronted demands for
ransom, filed suit, or designed agendas for meetings. And though
for many years my principal policy concerns were with national
security, was easily attracted to other fields where similar prin-
I
ciples seemed to be at work.
In 1966 was asked to help the President’s Crime Commission
I
on the deterrence of income-tax evasion; got diverted onto a task
I
force on organized crime; the result was two of the essays in this
book.
Coercing, cajoling, or constraining another’s behavior had
seemed to me, in writing that earlier book, to have something in
common with constraining or controlling one’s own behavior.
(Devices to keep somebody else from firing a weapon in panic are
not altogether different from devices to keep oneself from firing in
panic.) After arguing that point for several years wath colleagues
on a Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior,
I
was challenged to commit my thoughts to paper; ultimately two
of these essays ap|)eared.
