kaal:claim:3782193-031

Honesty would be the wrong strategy for an agent if the contract were anonymous and its resolution did not affect future contracts, because that situation is a single-stage zero-sum game in which stealing all the entrusted wealth is optimal.

Source quote, verbatim

Honesty would be a bad strategy for the agent if the contract was anonymous and the resolution didn't affect future contracts.

From

Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Historical Sketches of Centralization vs. Decentralization (2021), Maghribi traders’ solution, p. 26
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782193 · source PDF

Cite as

Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Historical Sketches of Centralization vs. Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782193

Holds when

anonymous contracting
no effect of the outcome on future business

Classification

failuresupport: arguedfailure: One-shot anonymous defectionfamily: collective-action-and-coordination-failureeconomicsai-and-agentscorporate-governancereputation

Related claims

extended_by kaal:claim:3782214-001 Reputation changes the incentive structure of a decentralized organization from a single stage, zero sum game ...
extended_by kaal:claim:3782210-005 Reputation converts a transaction from a single-stage zero-sum game into a repeated positive-sum game by holdi...
extended_by kaal:claim:3782203-024 If the decentralized economy is constructed as a zero-sum game, cooperation becomes impossible because the onl...
generalizes kaal:claim:3782210-042 Self-executing, self-regulating smart contracts between anonymous parties in an open system create a near perf...

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Positions extending this scholarly claim