Opportunism

I have an identical twin brother. The two of us have attended the same schools and for the most part, had identical schedules. Our understanding of each course's content had also, in all practicality, overlapped. Even within niches, economics (my own) and biology/anatomy (his), knowledge of the other's respective specialties were not lacking; it was more of a matter of which brother was able to recall and translate information faster and sometimes, with more detail or the speed with which he recognized the nature of a question or transfer elements to another topic. His understanding of economic models or the structure of a nerve cell did not differ. From our extracurricular activities to our athletic ability, we were close to exact substitutes for most any tasks either of us received.

Not surprisingly, we have always been asked things such as "Do you take each other's tests?" or "Do you ever copy each other's homework?" and I could proudly say that, despite the numerous chances presented every year, we never took advantage of our circumstances in such a way. To this day, the strongest motivation as to why was an overwhelming sense of pride and integrity when it comes to work. Overwhelming in the sense that should the name of a strongly dishonest peer be mentioned around our friends or household, there were odds one of us may lapse into a remorseless critique of their habits, work ethic, trustworthiness, motives, and personality, invoking his/her past transgressions and skeptical practices. That tends to be an extreme reaction, a merciless tirade reserved for the most repulsive classmates, however, as we often opt for snarky one-liners of slight disapproval. So whether our sense of justice is extreme or whether we are simply blunt and socially inept, I often confuse myself. Whatever the case, we prided ourselves on this integrity because it distinguished ourselves even further from the general populace, whether they were aware of it or not.

Another reason for not taking advantage of our twin status was a firm belief that doing our own share of work was for our own good and critical to enduring understanding of subject material. We knew, should we lose out on practice by passing off homework or unit tests, it would come further down the line, as cumulative knowledge or in a final exam. A practical reason for not engaging in opportunism was maintaining a zone of neutrality between the two of us— to what extent would one brother lean on the other? There would almost certainly be an imbalance in the amount of work one brother does for the other, and should one of us fall into the habit of relying on the other for a course, having to do any amount of extra work could serve as friction during times of stress.

I don't believe these reasons amount to the same thing. They may stem from the same feelings of justice and integrity, but the reasons for which one acts upon those feelings may be different. Some people may take altruistic pleasure from acting the "good citizen" for that reason and that reason alone. Others believe luck and opportunity to be karmic, and this is in its own sense, self-serving—  there is altruistic pleasure derived in the present and belief that materialistic pleasure is due their way. In the case of my brother and I, the reasons for acting upon our sense of morality were self-serving, but in a still different sense. We did not expect our habits to qualify us for future encounters with luck, nor did we (for the most part) hold ourselves as upstanding citizens nor as benefactors of justice. Chiefly, we behaved this way so that we may fuel our vicious arrogance, taking from it all a twisted pleasure in not only sweeping academic scores and displaying unflagging dedication in athletics, but doing so in a manner that could not be denied or countered. Our sense of integrity is largely a social reaction to our peers— we saw dishonesty as weaknesses in others, a handicap they allow themselves to keep up with competition. In this, we derived confidence and for having refrained from such activities, viewed ourselves as superior as we, in spite of handicaps, remained forerunners in several degrees of measure. Separate from those feelings, there was also a practical and realistic reason for not engaging in opportunism, being that between two hypothetical cheaters collaborating, who would bear the higher cost? For the two of us, this would become problematic extremely quickly. And at a crossroad between practicality and morality, there was fear that engaging in opportunism would hinder us in the future. This sounds entirely a practical reason, but from our point of view, we generally attributed most of our learning to textbooks, lectures, and notes, more so than homework and tests. However, we put our faith into our instructors that these were critical components to learning, and so, felt morally obligated to meet the objectives laid out by our teachers, with the practical goal of learning for the future in mind.

Organizational Structure in a High School Track Team

My experience with organizations manifests itself mostly as extracurricular activities in high school. Primarily, my school's track & field team, which I had been a member of for three straight years, serves as the bulk of that experience. Compared to other activities around the school, we were one of the largest, generally sporting between 75 to 100 registered members and three or four coaches. The team itself, however, was composed of three divisions, generally: short distance sprinters, medium/long distance endurance runners, and strong armed fielders (shotput and discus), each managed by separate coaches during practice and meets. A fourth division, comprised of members from some or all of the previous divisions, would assemble, at the discretion of the coaches, to work on field events such as the high jump, long jump, and triple jump, or to practice hurdle sprints. Sometimes, some boys would find an affinity for two divisions and undertake a hectic schedule moving between the two, attempting to balance important practices and recovery days that may or may not be concurrent between both divisions, and sometimes, members would make full transitions to a different division, even after two years with another. However, for most of the team, members only mingled, on a daily basis, with 20-25 other boys from his single division, and said division's coach.

Naturally, authority within the organization rest with the coaches. At our school, the distance coach, who also happened to coach hurdles, was the team's head coach. However, the boys answered primarily to their division's specific coach, and would only need to see the head coach in regards to event placement for meets or long term issues regarding attendance, grade eligibility, or deficiencies regarding motivation and effort in practice.

Further moving down the hierarchy, each division's coaches delegated leadership to select upperclassmen; depending on the batch of boys, it was often two boys who led the rest, sometimes four or five. These select leaders were usually identified by the coach's judgement on their capacity to lead, by spirit or by example, and generally bridged by that member's initiative, as leadership was extended as optional hours after practice to learn the training that is to be led by these upperclassmen and introduced to the rest of the team at a later time. When the divisions came together during practice or meets, it was the student leaders' responsibility to lead stretches, call for warm-up laps, and organize team chants for the 4x400m relay.

Unfortunately, even within the small branches of the boys, incentives often clashed. The objectives of the leaders often coincided with that of the coaches, and that is to generate winning performances at meets through rigorous training of the entire team. Although the coaches are still very active and present during practices, taking times, signalling when to move to the next exercise, offering criticism, and cracking down on shirkers, a noticeable amount of responsibility is transferred upon the leaders, who are expected to identify the appropriate times to be serious and to be lazy, generally trying to keep the other boys in line before the coach points it out. A very powerful source of motivation, as upperclassmen, stems from the "ticking hourglass" that signals the leaders' graduation from both the school and the team. A saying that our head coach has always passed around was "to leave everything on the track," meaning to walk away from high school track & field without having to ever regret the time and sweat that was or wasn't invested. With each passing year, this sentiment becomes ever more important to the upperclassmen, who wish to see their final year go out in a series of wins and record setting. The abrupt grounding of reality to upperclassmen directly clashes with the freshmen and sophomores, many of whom carry lofty ambitions of making it big on the track or in another sport, banking on some sort of "untapped potential," to only realize that the time for their potential to blossom had been squandered away once they themselves attain the leadership position in the following years.

It should be noted that the transaction costs of having to repeatedly monitor and enforce attendance and honest commitment to practice could be observed in many organizations around the school. I dare say that I am so confident as to say if it were not for these costs of time, we had the capabilities of entering more than a few runners or a handful of clubs to state level competitions, and winning.

About Joan Robinson

Joan Robinson (1903-1983)

Joan Robinson was a distinguished economist, academic, and teacher of the 20th century, and was responsible for her contributions to microeconomics models, price theory, monetary policy, and Keynesian economics. One of her earliest books, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Robinson was noted to have been the first to coin the term "monopsony" in print, and the text, in conjunction with Edward Chamberlain's Theory of Monopolistic Competition, sparked discussion of imperfect competition, its implications for the market, firms, and equilibrium, as well as eliciting a focus on firms as opposed to markets. Her time as a Cambridge professor acquainted her with the prominent economist John Maynard Keynes, and in the decades following, she became a leading interpreter of Keynesian theories while simultaneously pushing for his analysis to be extended outside of its original scope. Late into her career, she would further observe, analyze, and expound the socialist economies of North Korea and most notably, China, following up on her experiences during WWII where she would visit the Soviet Union as part of her work with the British wartime government and her notable essay on Marxian economics in 1942, which had, at that time, renewed debate over his ideas.

Before taking this course, I had never heard of Robinson, being unfamiliar with Keynesian theories and completely unaware of her significant contributions to the contemporary microeconomics models taught in high school. I think her work with imperfect competition, especially monopsonies, and the resulting focus on the firm as opposed to the market will very much be relevant for this course's discussion of organizations and the extrinsic incentives that shape the relationships among employees and employers within an organization.

References
"Joan Robinson." Econ Wikis-MBorg. 2010. Econwikis-mborg.wikispaces.com. 4 Sep. 2015 <http://econwikis-mborg.wikispaces.com/>.
"Joan Robinson." New World Encyclopedia. 2008. NewWorldEncyclopedia.org. 4 Sep. 2015 <www.newworldencyclopedia.org>.
"Joan Robinson." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014. Britannica.com. 4 Sep. 2015 <http://www.britannica.com/>.
"Joan Violet Maurice Robinson." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 4 Sep. 2015 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.