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Associations often say that all staffers are responsible for great customer service, but what about sales? No? Too late-the revolution within the "new sales economy" is already hitting associations, says bestselling author Dan Pink. The question is, what will we do about it?

Human cooperation is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike other creatures, people frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people they will never meet again, and when reputation gains are small or absent. These patterns of cooperation cannot be explained by the nepotistic motives associated with the evolutionary theory of kin selection and the selfish motives associated with signalling theory or the theory of reciprocal altruism. Here we show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation. Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We show that cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out. The evidence indicates that negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment. These results suggest that future study of the evolution of human cooperation should include a strong focus on explaining altruistic punishment.

Recommended by David Watkins re the Parable of the Tribes.  Dave says: Pitirim Sorokin was no stranger to the abuses of power. He was imprisoned in his native Russia by the Czarists. Later he was sentenced to death by the Communists. Unlike many of his colleagues he survived his death sentence and in exile came to the U.S. He founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard and became President of the American Sociological Association. He directed the Harvard Research Centre in Creative Altruism. In 1937, in conflict with the then current view, he predicted WW2. In 1941 Sorokin wrote The Crisis of Our Age. In 1945 the book went to the best seller list. A sociology book on the best seller lists suggests that his ideas must have resonated with the time.