145. What Do Skating Rinks, Ultimate Frisbee, and the World Have in Common?

[0] Hey, podcast listeners, a few episodes ago, we asked for your help.

[1] We asked you to go to Freakonomics .com, hit the donate button, and send us some money so that we could keep making this public radio podcast and keep distributing it for free.

[2] And guess what?

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[6] Hi, I'm Dan Klein.

[7] I'm a professor of economics at George Mason University.

[8] I got into economics very much from a policy or, if you like, political point of view.

[9] I got interested in free market economics in high school.

[10] Which made you very popular as a kid or no?

[11] Didn't make me popular with girls.

[12] It made me popular with some friends that I still have and cherish.

[13] Now, Dan, the reason that we're not.

[14] we are talking today really is because of an essay you wrote called Rinkonomics, that I would like you, since we're not going to sit here and read it to listeners, I'd like you to describe.

[15] Okay.

[16] If you try to imagine never having seen skating, never having been to a roller rink, maybe back in time before it was invented, and you heard someone propose the idea, like a friend came up and proposed, I have a great idea for a business, I'm going to build this huge arena with a hard wooden floor and around the perimeter a naked iron handrail and invite people of all ages and all abilities to come down and strap wheels on their feet and skate around and try to, you know, enjoy themselves.

[17] We're not going to like make sure they qualify in their abilities.

[18] We're not going to put helmets on them or shoulder pads.

[19] And we're not going to give them really any instruction.

[20] Now, you might think that'd be pure chaos.

[21] wouldn't you?

[22] Sure.

[23] That's what you might think.

[24] You'd expect it result in catastrophe and collision.

[25] How are 100 people making their moment -by -moment decisions going to sort of make their own pattern of skating such that all 100 patterns do not collide and intersect?

[26] It's a very complex problem, but as it turns out, it goes quite swimmingly, as we know, And so if you had to sort of pitch this idea to someone investing in it, you'd have to explain how you think this is going to work.

[27] And it's in that explanation that I think we can enhance our understanding of how things work in society generally.

[28] I think the main thing to understand is that people are, you know, looking out for themselves.

[29] I'm not saying they're selfish, but they're basically looking out for themselves.

[30] And most importantly, they don't want to get hurt by colliding with anybody.

[31] Now, one of the important things about collision is that it's very mutual.

[32] So, you know, if I collide with you, you collide with me. And in promoting my interest to avoid collision with you, I simultaneously promote your interest in avoiding collision with me. So there's this basic coincidence of interest there, which really is at the micro structure of how this whole thing works out.

[33] When he talks about how this whole thing works out, Dan Klein is talking about the skating rink on a micro level, but on a macro level, he's talking about, well, the world.

[34] He's talking about an idea known in economics as spontaneous order.

[35] That is, the idea that people can be quite good at organizing and policing themselves, even when there's no one imposing order from above.

[36] Now, isn't that a wonderful, idea?

[37] If, that is, it actually works.

[38] So in today's program, we'll ask, does it work?

[39] If so, when and how?

[40] And with what caveats?

[41] We'll take our question to the field of sport.

[42] Hey, coming down, zero.

[43] Three, two, one.

[44] Nice hit.

[45] Oh, we'll hear about the role of government, like this viewpoint.

[46] I think that there's a very fundamental role that government plays, which is to make sure that people are protected.

[47] And then after that, probably the less government does the better.

[48] And this viewpoint.

[49] These people, these Tea Party people, say, we do not need government.

[50] Well, let's, you know, go down the list.

[51] There's water.

[52] There's transportation.

[53] There's the Federal Drug Administration.

[54] We want pharmaceutical companies deciding.

[55] And then we go all Goldilocks on you.

[56] We ask this question.

[57] When it comes to oversight, how much is just right?

[58] Well, if I had a simple answer to that question, we wouldn't have argued about it for 250 years.

[59] From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything.

[60] Here's your host, Stephen Dupner.

[61] Okay.

[62] Hey, it's coming in on zero.

[63] Three, two, one, so on.

[64] Two, three, three.

[65] Four.

[66] Five.

[67] Today's show begins outdoors on a beautiful athletic field with my friend Jody Avergan.

[68] All right, so Jody, good morning.

[69] Where are we?

[70] We are on Randall's Island, which is off of Manhattan, but it's a big practice facility, lots of fields out here.

[71] And it is where the club team, the New York men's club team, which goes by the name of Pony, which stands for Pride of New York.

[72] It's where the team practices every weekend.

[73] The sport he's talking about is Ultimate Frisbee, or as real Ultimate Frisbee, people call it, simply Ultimate.

[74] Jody Avergan has a day job producing the Brian Lairer show right here at WNNIC, but he is an ultimate lifer.

[75] And I can just tell you that I take it way too seriously.

[76] He played in college, then on high -level club teams like Pony, which he captained for a few years.

[77] Now he plays for the New York Rumble, a team in a new professional league called Major League Ultimate.

[78] If you were watching ESPN back in June, you might have caught him on SportsC

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