All over the world, public procurement regulations are attempting to go beyond maximising economic efficiency so that government spending with outside suppliers can be used as a lever to improve social outcomes. But the practice is new and poorly understood. Does the addition of new social requirements for suppliers reduce the economic efficiency of government buying? Promises made by suppliers in competitive tendering processes need to be followed up and validated. Data is patchy and not standardised.
Another world where social outcomes are making a debut or perhaps a comeback is in the world of business. Presenters throughout the conference shared many examples of where the private sector is partnering with government and civil society to play a role in improving social outcomes. Any claims they make to improve environmental or social outcomes need to be independently validated just as their financial accounts are. And critical decisions about what matters to society should not be delegated to a small group of unelected businesspeople in a boardroom.
But much is still to be learned about how social outcomes are understood, and how things should be done differently when they are. We would like to extend a huge thank you to all those who participated in SOC21 as speakers and delegates and made for such a rich set of discussions, and look forward to delving further into the issues, at the Social Outcomes Conference Search Submit Search.
If the rate of defection is too high then these critical functions are not being met. As Charlie Munger likes to say , the highest form a civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserving trust.
Since a healthy, thriving society requires a certain level of trust, we can attempt to nudge possible defectors into complying with the societal norms. The dilemma occurs when an individual has to make a choice between the group interest and their personal competing interest. The idea is that we can add societal pressure that can induce cooperation over selfishness in these types of situations.
Moral pressure — A lot of societal pressure comes from inside our own heads. Reputation pressure — A wholly different, and much stronger, type of pressure comes from how others respond to our actions. Institutional pressure — Institutions have rules and laws. These are norms that are codified, and whose enactment and enforcement is generally delegated. Security systems — Security systems are another form of societal pressure. This includes any security mechanism designed to induce cooperation, prevent defection, induce trust, and compel compliance.
It includes things that work to prevent defectors, like door locks and tall fences; things that interdict defectors, like alarm systems and guards; things that only work after the fact, like forensic and audit systems; and mitigation systems that help the victim recover faster and care less that the defection occurred. The book goes on to explain these concepts in greater detail as well as taking a look back at the evolution of cooperation, trust, and security.
Schneier also tackles issues like the influence of technology and what the future will bring. In all, Liars and Outliers is a fascinating look at how society enforces, evokes and elicits trustworthiness and compliance, as well as an interesting look at the role of the defector as either a catalyst for social change or the creator of risk in a healthy society.
Read Next. Culture Reading Time: 4 minutes. Roger Scruton offers a meditation on the puzzle of the human person, who understands himself as a person only in relation to another but whose moral formation comes about not as a result of chance encounters but under the guidance of a moral community. Mark Regnerus, a sociologist, discusses marriage and the family, acknowledging their variance over time as the social context changes but showing as well that the consequences of family form—for better or, now often, for worse—permeate social life in many ways.
Harvey C. James Stoner finds the dignity of politics under siege and political liberty, as a result, precarious, though the constitutional forms of American government still enable political action by those willing to embrace them. Sociologist Michael O. The university, founded originally by the medieval Church, is treated in its modern form by two separate essays. The first, by philosopher Candace Vogler, examines the multiple tasks undertaken by modern universities and the tensions among them.
The second, by scientists Sanjeev R. Kulkarni and Donald W. Landry, focuses specifically on basic research and analyzes its vulnerability to politics and the danger of bias that vulnerability presents. Finally, Michael D. The concluding set of essays is concerned with particular challenges of the present. Paul O. Society today often has an international dimension. This is certainly true for economic matters in a globalized market, but it is also true for science and for much else in universities.
Law professor Gerard V. Bradley presents a trenchant critique of the path of modern constitutional law regarding the family, noting its substitution of liberal ideas concerning an autonomous self for the traditional culture of personal and social formation, usually permeated by shared religious and moral ideas.
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