The incentives model doesn’t do well on how children learn, how hoplite phalanxes fight, how primitive communism works, how righteousness works, how conspiracies and governments and law enforcement work, and in general how there come to be the background social structures in which microeconomic incentives can play out.
Primitive communism isn’t people nobly resisting the impulse to hoard or shirk—it’s just, people doing the sensible thing, since everyone depends on the shared project, so you’d like to see it succeed, so if something needs doing, you do it.
Children don’t do as little learning as they can get away with, at least until school trains them to. They make strenuous, spontaneous, persistent efforts to learn. And not just things for calculated personal advantage—they work hard to learn the customs of their family, tribe, and nation, and how to contribute.
The incentives model doesn’t do well on how children learn, how hoplite phalanxes fight, how primitive communism works, how righteousness works, how conspiracies and governments and law enforcement work, and in general how there come to be the background social structures in which microeconomic incentives can play out.
Primitive communism isn’t people nobly resisting the impulse to hoard or shirk—it’s just, people doing the sensible thing, since everyone depends on the shared project, so you’d like to see it succeed, so if something needs doing, you do it.
Children don’t do as little learning as they can get away with, at least until school trains them to. They make strenuous, spontaneous, persistent efforts to learn. And not just things for calculated personal advantage—they work hard to learn the customs of their family, tribe, and nation, and how to contribute.
And so on.