"Because of the repeated situations involved in most organized processes, individuals can use contingent strategies in which cooperation will have a greater chance of evolving and surviving. Individuals frequently are willing to forgo immediate returns in order to gain larger joint benefits when they observe many others following the same strategy." (Ostrom)

Despite the myth of self-sufficiency, humans are social creatures. We follow social norms because we a) have faith in a reward, and b) want to avoid social shame. The other day I was reflecting on how to get people to sacrifice their immediate gratification in exchange for a bigger, future reward. Social norms and behaviours—especially public ones—play a role here.

Every kid understands the social power of waiting in a line. And every kid knows the social shame that comes from cutting (or, 'butting' as we used to call it). Even when there is a risk of the reward at the end of the line running out, a free-for-all would be chaos and set a precedent that would erode trust for future lines. Without shared trust in the line system, those who were the strongest or pushiest would always get there first.

Now, its very worth noting that the strongest and the pushiest do usually get there first in life. They bully or buy their way to the front and manipulate things so they get more than their fair share, leaving next to nothing for those at the end. I guess my point is that we've let trust in the system erode and we might need to figure out how to re-normalize the social shaming of "no cutsies" at a macro level.