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bnjd's avatar

“Most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

There are fewer people that operate this way than you imagine. Intuitively, you statement could not be true. Neither formal nor informal institutions have the capacity to enforce all proscriptions, so there must be a great number of norms that people follow voluntarily. Second, it has been awhile and this is very old research literature, but some results in experimental economics demonstrate that people follow norms even when they can get away with not following the norms. One that came to mind was tipping. In a questionnaire, they asked people what they would tip in a restaurant that they normally frequent compared to one where they knew they would not visit again (a big deal in the US where waiters do not work for a salary). There was no significant difference. This would be confirmed by any restaurant that serves tourists: if your statement is correct, people would just not tip if they had no plans to return.

It is true, however, that people violate norms when they don't like or don't agree with the norms. That's not always a bad thing because some norms are bad!

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