Paper by Hiroshi Shibuya,Professor of Economics at Otaru University of Commerce. The altruists ofus had great interest in this paper, which answers the question, are we useful to society?
Most social scientists, especially economists, believe that altruists do
not exist because they cannot survive exploitation by egoists. An agentbasedmodel demonstrates, however, that altruists can survive naturalselection if society comprises four types of individuals: altruists, reciprocalaltruists, egoists and reciprocal egoists. These individuals are characterizedby different combinations of two phenotypes: general trust and socialintelligence. In a society of four types of individuals, coevolution of generaltrust and social intelligence will emerge. Coevolution constitutes a newmechanism of the emergence of cooperation. If coevolution is strong, altruistswill be able to survive and help society evolve into a high-trust and highgrowthsociety. Without altruists, coevolution does not work and society failsto grow. Thus society needs altruists.
Download the paper:
http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/07eu8pjc
Keywords: coevolution, altruism, cooperation, general trust, social intelligence,natural selection, agent-based model, simulation, social dilemma, open society,strong and weak reciprocity.
The Board Director Training Institute (BDTI) is a "public interest" nonprofit in Japan dedicated to training about directorship, corporate governance, and related management techniques. It is certified by the Japanese government to conduct these activities as a regulated nonprofit. Read a summary about BDTI here, and see a menu of its services for both corporations and investors here.