CHAPTER 24Selfish Leaders End Up with Selfish Followers
Human beings are social beings who have the potential and capacity for cooperation—working together for mutual benefit—even if the people involved are strangers to one another. In the animal kingdom, this occurs only among genetically related animals. Human beings can do better. It's vital, though, for someone to set a good example.
When I talk about the value of cooperation and present my own research on this topic, I like to begin with an old Chinese parable that illustrates what cooperation is all about. The parable goes like this:
A man and a women wanted to marry. They didn't have much money, but they still thought that a lot of people should be invited to their wedding. A joy that's shared is a joy made double, they reckoned. They decided to have a huge wedding feast with many guests. To make it possible, they asked all the guests to bring a bottle of wine. There will be a big barrel at the entrance into which all the guests would pour their wine. This way, everybody will drink each other's gift, and everybody will be joyous together and celebrate. When the party began, the waiters ran up to the big barrel and scooped cups of the wine. Everybody was horrified as it turned out that the barrel was filled with water. They sat there and stood around petrified when they realized what had happened: every individual guest had thought, I'll pour in a bottle of water, nobody will notice the difference or taste it: And now ...