# kaal:claim:3782193-031

**Claim.** 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.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- anonymous contracting
- no effect of the outcome on future business

**Source quote.**

> 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, page 26

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

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `74df9cc9a19a098bdacd0424a4174795f6e184f7a31c8ee7541195186701ebd2` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20and%20Kaal%20-%202021%20-%20Historical%20Sketches%20of%20Centralization%20vs.%20Decentralization.pdf

**Failure mode.** One-shot anonymous defection  (family: collective-action-and-coordination-failure)

**Topics.** economics, ai-and-agents, corporate-governance, reputation

**Keywords.** game-theory, anonymity, principal-agent-problem, reputation, zero-sum-game

**Related claims.**

- extended_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782214-001
- extended_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782210-005
- extended_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782203-024
- generalizes: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782210-042

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.