Yet there are reactions to the renewed dominance of individualistic maximising norms,
ranging from developments in economic theory to the growth of NGOs, and including
emphasis on more COOP norms even within the private sector. These reactions are occurring
partly because there are efficiency costs arising from reduced levels of trust, in addition to
the adverse social and environmental consequences. More COOP modes are needed for
efficiency as well as equity. This paper has argued that only a shift in the macro-paradigm
will permit these modes to become dominant. The critical question that then arises is how
such a shift can be brought about - indeed whether it can happen in the context of global
competition, which continuously push for modes of behaviour which will maximise short-
term competitiveness.21 Continuing to advance the market model in most areas, while
simultaneously arguing for more social capital and more social safety nets - the present stance
of most prominent development institutions such as the World Bank and major aid donors,
for example - will not bring about any such shift since the advance of the market in most
areas will ensure that the dominant paradigm for group behaviour remains M.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, popular struggles combined with democratic
structures permitted governments to gain some control over capitalist forces, and guide
society in a more COOP and welfarist direction. The same sort of struggle is needed (and to
some extent is happening) both within countries and at a global level if another shift of norms
is to be achieved in the twenty-first century. Group behaviour itself will contribute to this
struggle, with groups which challenge the dominant norms weighed against those that are
influenced by and sustain them.
21 Marx raised the same question in the nineteenth century: “Modern bourgeois society
has conjured up such gigantic means of production and exchange it is like a sorcerer who is
no longer able to control the powers of the underworld that he has called up by his spells”
(Marx and Engels, 1968 [1948], p66-7)
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