TOME RAIDER: Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Micromotives and Macrobehavior” is essentially a textbook on behavior. It often reads like one, too.

Thomas C. Schelling, a 2005 Nobel-prize-winning economist and distinguished university professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, wrote “Micromotives” in the late seventies to explain collective human behavior. The book, comparable to Malcolm Gladwell’s recent work “The Tipping Point,” was revolutionary at the time and was praised accordingly.

While “Micromotives,” republished this year, is certainly a worthwhile read, it is rather limited in scope. Schelling—the former Littauer professor of political economy at the Kennedy School of Government—clearly explains many forms of collective behavior; however, because he does not directly address the social implications of that behavior, the book is not as interesting as it could have been.

Unfortunately, the organization of the book does not allow for such philosophizing. The first half of the book outlines general forms of human behavior within an economic context, while the second half of the book applies those concepts to real-life behavior. While the examples Schelling provides—such as racial organization in a neighborhood—clearly illustrate the concepts, they do not feel as relevant as they did in the late seventies. It is true that such events are important, but they are no longer attention-grabbing front page news. An in-depth discussion of nuclear proliferation, the topic of Schelling’s Nobel Prize lecture (included in the new edition), would have been more entertaining.

Schelling offers many examples of human behavior in the first half of the book and discusses critical mass, or the idea that people base their actions, among other things, on the number of people who will take part in the action. Anyone interested in the nitty-gritty of such processes should pick up the book. The author’s point, though, can be summarized in less than the 150 or so pages that make up the first half of the book: people’s behavior depends on other people’s behavior and that, unfortunately, does not always lead to an equitable solution.

The second half of the book is more purely illustrative than instructive. It seems as though a separate book should be written for the three issues he discusses, namely neighborhood racial tensions, social interaction, and gene selection. The social interaction section especially, is more math-heavy; while it is nothing more complicated than basic arithmetic and algebra, its sheer volume is overwhelming. What’s more, there is no final chapter that ties the first two halves of the book together, binding theory and commentary. Had Schelling done that, the book would have been more memorable.

In short, the book is informative, but just not very enjoyable. Schelling makes several attempts at humor, some of them hysterical, and some of them atrocious (“winnings and losings add to zero [less than what one must pay for sandwiches]”). At least the blame can partially be placed on the editors, who failed to take out several of the author’s outdated or nonsensical jokes. Perhaps in an attempt to liven up the book, Schelling provides too many examples for concepts that only require one or two. At one point, he even tries to make the book more interactive, coaxing the reader to toss coins in order to better understand how a neighborhood might be spread out racially.

At least Schelling recognizes some of his missteps. A humble tone peaks out in several non-didactic portions of the book. He even acknowledges that the final chapter of “Micromotives” is dense. Indeed, it is filled with many graphs that require some careful inspection, but Schelling does generously provide his readers with a summary of his key points at the end of the chapter. In the preface, he goes so far as to state that “Micromotives” was not written as a book, but rather a set of individual ideas that “seemed to fit together.” Unfortunately, Schelling was wrong; they don’t.

The author’s Nobel Prize lecture, which discusses the worth of nuclear weapons, suggests that the strength of nuclear weapons comes from their storage, and not their use. North Korea, for example, can gain more from stockpiling its arsenal than it can from bombing a peaceful country. Countries with nuclear weapons should ideally use them to put pressure on other countries rather than explode them and run the risk of retaliation, writes Schelling. He also wonders how America’s changing view of nuclear weapons will affect its use of them. It would have been nice to see such an engrossing topic in the second half of the book.

Instead, closing the book is no different from closing a textbook. The memories are still there, but the impression is hardly left at all.

Micromotives and Macrobehavior
By Thomas C. Schelling
W.W. Norton
Out Now