Barges and Whips - did this happen?

[roddy]

There is a passage in the Armchair Economist on regulation and restriction of markets, and how sometimes it's in a company's interests to submit to regulation if it can be sure other companies do the same. It's illustrated with the following tale.

In early twentieth-century China, goods were transported by barges pulled by teams of six men who were rewarded heavily if they arrived at their destination on time. Because each man calculated that success depended largely on the efforts of the other five, teams were plagued by chronic shirking. If everyone else is pulling hard, the team will make it anyway, so why pull hard? If nobody else is pulling hard, the team won't make it anyway, so why pull hard? Everyone makes the same rational calculation, everyone shirks, the goods arrive late, and nobody gets paid.

Barge teams quickly evolved a mechanism for averting such unfortunate outcomes. The six team members collectively hired a seventh man to whip them.

I've asked a couple of people about this, but nobody has heard it before. "Smells apocryphal" was one response and I'm inclined to agree - I doubt barge-owners would leave it up to the pullers to decide if they should be whipped or not, for a start.

I'm still curious about the story though - has anyone heard it before? Any ideas as to its authenticity or otherwise?

[skylee]

Take a look -> http://expert.ce.cn/bbs/economist/thread.jsp?forum=227&thread=69285&postsord=1&thstart=0

1969年张五常转到西雅图的华盛顿大学任教后，1970年McManus到张五常家小住。张五常见McManus也在研究企业理论，就向他提出如下的例子：抗战期间，张五常和母亲在广西逃难，坐船沿大江上行，见到船是由岸上的多个纤夫用绳拉着行走。每个拉船的人都想着“卸责”，表面上是用大力气，实际都希望自己用力小而他人用力大。因此，为了防止他人“卸责”，有一个拿着鞭子的人，判断谁有“卸责”之意，就挥鞭打谁。张五常问：“这个挥鞭的人可能是由被鞭打的纤夫聘请的，究竟谁是雇主，谁是被雇呢？为什么他们同意雇用一个人来监督他们呢？”张五常认为，问题的关键是，即使每一个纤夫都是完全“诚实”的，度量每一个纤夫对拉船用力的大小也是成本很高的，同时选择大家都同意的不同度量方法又极其困难，以致于代理人的仲裁是必不可少的。后来McManus把这个例子纳入了他的文章，并注明是张五常说的。跟着詹森和麦克林的《企业理论：管理行为、代理成本和所有权结构》文章中再这个例子时，说是McManus用过的。10多年前，一位澳洲经济学家再用这例子，其又注明是张五常说的。

PS - I found it by googling "鞭打 縴夫"

[roddy]

Seems to have gone from "这个挥鞭的人可能是由被鞭打的纤夫聘请的" to Landsberg's more definite "The six team members collectively hired a seventh man to whip them." over time, but I didn't expect to see how clearly the story became an example in English economics books. Skylee, you're a star.

[onebir]

I read/heard exactly the same story about the workers who constructed the pyramids...

Economists love stories like this because they 'demonstrate' the relevance of economic principles in completely different cultural settings - conveniently forgetting that cultural/religious factors were the sole reason for the pyramids the slaves were building.

And anyway, even if it occurred at the pyramids and barge pulling - what about stonehenge, easter island, the great barrow mounds 等等??? There's no evidence that in other historically/culturally different situations the solution predicted by rational agent theory arose - rational agent theory is omitting factors important enough to banjax its conclusions, even in the arena of economist's apocryphal tales...

[skylee]

A video clip I took in 2004 on 縴夫 pulling a boat ->