Collective Action under the Articles of Confederation

Abstract

Collective Action under the Articles of Confederation reminds us of the divide that frequently separates historian from social scientist. According to Keith L. Dougherty, formulas such as the one above help us understand why some states continued to support the Confederation Congress while others did not. Drawing upon Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action (1965), Dougherty develops a theory of joint product, that states would not pay their requisitions to the Congress unless they saw, jointly, an immediate, private benefit. Dougherty's formulas also led him to an understanding that reform of the Articles of Confederation was doomed to failure. While his theory of joint product suggested that minor changes might be plausible, the structure of the articles prevented easy change and played into the hands of the consolidationists—the Federalists—by bringing about a new instrument of government. Any text that requires a glossary to recalibrate the common meaning of technical terms places a large burden upon readers. Public debt means that which public entities owe private individuals, not all of their obligations; bill of exchange, a specie draft drawn on foreign loans, not a three-party instrument transferring value; public goods, nonexcludable, nonrival goods. The variant definitions occasionally impose hidden presumptions. Dougherty argues that the wholesale replacement of the articles occurred because efficiency, “(loosely), the ability to satisfy mutual interests or mutual demands,” explained why the Constitution came to be. Plausible, small reforms might have resolved the problems of the Confederation Congress but were not passed because the Virginia Plan more easily accomplished the goals of efficiency. The problem with this explanation, of course, is that it overlooks the central paradox upon which the Antifederalists' position rested: their belief that satisfying their mutual interests rested upon preventing the rise of a consolidationist government.