Collective action problem

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The great wish of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.

Thucydides

History of the Peloponnesian War

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More information about this quote

Topic

Collective action problem

Author

Thucydides

Source

History of the Peloponnesian War

Genre

Historical literature

Language

Greek

Time

404 BC 400s BC 5th century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. c. 431 BC, bk. 1.

Current Citation

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War, translated by Martin Hammond. Oxford University Press, 2009, bk. 1.