The boss and the foot soldier do not want the same thing
Show why an individual-level explanation or solution is incomplete, identify the surrounding incentives or interactions, and trace how they generate the observed outcome.
Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner · 111 weeksThe boss and the foot soldier do not want the same thing
SHORT SOURCE EXCERPT“different incentives”
After explaining low street-level pay, the chapter asks why people would accept the job and connects entry to a small number of highly visible prizes and limited alternatives. It then shows why a foot soldier could pursue a violent reputation that damages the boss’s business.
The apparent contradiction becomes a consequence of interacting positions. The explanation advances beyond the opening wage puzzle to account for conflict inside the hierarchy.
The source in context.
A question about the gap between a lucrative image and poor street-level earnings leads to Venkatesh’s fieldwork and the gang’s financial records. Pay, promotion, competition and violence become an account of a hierarchy whose members do not all benefit from the same actions.
Open this chapterWhat this example supports
The apparent contradiction becomes a consequence of interacting positions. The explanation advances beyond the opening wage puzzle to account for conflict inside the hierarchy.
Its limit
The account concerns the authors’ interpretation of a particular gang’s records and fieldwork. A legible incentive mechanism is not proof of a complete causal explanation.
Source & edition
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics; supplied revised and expanded edition, copyright 2005 and 2006; Adobe Digital Edition September 2009, ISBN 9780061792809.
Supplied text, lines 1246–1290. The short quotation is checked against the source.
The completed whole-source AI synthesis supplied candidate observations and the broad argument map. This Codex editorial pass checked original source headings, section boundaries, openings and selected argumentative contexts; inspected every retained example; checked the existing pattern dictionary and base examples; and rewrote or rejected nominations. It is a source-checked editorial pass, not a new independently adjudicated whole-book reading.
supplied revised and expanded edition, copyright 2005 and 2006; Adobe Digital Edition September 2009, ISBN 9780061792809