jueves, 3 de julio de 2008

Futuro Agrario Argentino, ¿Oda a los Ganados y las Mieses?

Sweet dreams are made of this.
Who am I to disagree?
Sweet dreams (are made of this)
Eurythmics

En nuestra Sociedad existe un consenso general sobre la “oportunidad” que tiene por delante la Argentina.

Una especie de “retorno” al País del Centenario, cantado por Lugones; por el que sienten nostalgia justificada Conservadores y Liberales, pero es inadmisible en quienes se consideran Populares, sean urbanos o agrarios.

El proletariado gringo, trabajador manual o arrendatario, vivía amenazado por la Ley de Residencia; y el criollo era asimilable al negro del apartheid.

Las famosas “papeletas” para no ser considerado un “vago y mal entretenido”, que eran emitidas por un “comesario” o un “patrón”.

No tenerlas implicaba ser detenido, y puesto a “disposición” de un propietario para darle “utilidad” a su existencia.

Como recordaba Jauretche, el extranjero tenia la “ventaja” del cónsul para defenderse de las arbitrariedades de los Poderosos, mientras que el nativo estaba indefenso.

Volviendo a la “oportunidad”, ¿de que estamos hablando?

El valor de las materias primas se ha disparado, en especial los alimentos, el “Mercado” exige volúmenes crecientes.

Y ya sabemos que cuando la “mano invisible” actúa busca la “racionalidad” productiva.

En el Capitalismo Globalizado esto significa “escala”, a mayor tamaño menos costos y mayor margen.

El “chiquitaje” es un “costo” que debe ser eliminado, no es mas que un pasivo intolerable, su presencia introduce “distorsiones” a la homogeneidad necesaria para “administrar” eficientemente los recursos escasos; en este caso la tierra.

Un par de miles de grandes emprendimientos son mas deseables que varios cientos de miles de sospechosos D’ Angelis.

Entonces, ¿estamos condenados a ser “eficientes” productores de porotos, mediatizados por gigantescos emprendimientos agro financieros?

Travel the world and the seven seas.
Everybody's looking for something.

Una de mis frases predilectas es “No, necesariamente”.

Veamos, desde hace ½ siglo se considera correcta la tesis Prebisch-Singer, popularmente conocida como deterioro de los términos de intercambio.

Hoy la realidad parece contradecirla, ¿esta equivocada?; “No, necesariamente”. =)

Un poco de historia para entender de qué hablamos.

Para que se cumpla la Iron law of wages de Ricardo, sin llegar a la Guerra Social y/o Revolucionaria, se deben obtener alimentos “baratos”.

En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, los Manchesterianos con su "Anti-Corn Law League", promovieron el libre comercio de granos como herramienta para mejorar la subsistencia del proletariado SIN aumentar los salarios.

Es una amarga ironía que ¿nuestros? Industrialistas en el fondo sean manchesterianos.

En 1918 el II Reich estaba a punto de ganar la Guerra cuando colapso su Frente Interno, el hambre de los civiles le arrebato la Victoria Militar inminente.

Como Inglaterra y Francia también estaban al borde del Colapso, la autarquía alimentaria a cualquier costo, se convirtió en una Política de Estado a partir de ese momento.

La pitanza de las Masas es demasiado importante como para dejarla al arbitrio de la “mano invisible”.

Los Países Serios con Economía de Mercado; USA, CEE, Japón; subsidian a sus agricultores y ganaderos sin importarles el costo de este Gasto Político en el Presupuesto del Estado.

En un post anterior recordaba una lectura de los años 70, El Circo Humano, donde se comparaban las productividades del farmer americano y el coolíe chino.

La producción por hectárea/capita demostraba una leve superioridad del farmer, pero en el consumo de energía/capita los coolíes aventajaban al occidental de manera asombrosa.

La proteína con la metodología oriental “solo” necesitaba un 10% de la energía de la occidental.

Claro el Petróleo no superaba los U$S 5 por barril a principios de los años 70, antes de la 1ª Crisis.

No sabría decir si la falla de la tesis Prebisch-Singer esta en la perdida de valor del Dólar, o en la escasez inevitable del Oro Negro; dejo el tema en manos de los Economistas Teóricos.

Pero los datos empíricos nos muestran una Crisis generalizada de la Agricultura Occidental.

Mecanización, Abonos, Plaguicidas, Fletes; todos ellos están basados en energía de bajo costo.

No importa la escala o los subsidios políticos, una producción basada en un alto consumo de energía es inviable en el mediano plazo.

Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to get used by you.
Some of them want to abuse you.
Some of them want to be abused.

Quienes me leen regularmente saben que no finjo inocencia ni neutralidad política, así que lo siguiente tiene carga ideológica y solo reconozco el derecho a la impugnación mediante argumentos comprobables. =(

Hay autores que hablan de la “Gran Divergencia” entre Occidente y Oriente en el siglo XVIII.

Mientras que en Inglaterra comenzaba la Revolución Industrial, orientada al ahorro de mano de obra y por lo tanto de alto consumo de energía y materias primas.

En Oriente, la escasez de estas últimas los llevo a movilizar los recursos humanos, una Revolución Industriosa, según Sugihara.

http://www.anuarioasiapacifico.es/anuario2005/pdf/032Giovani_Arrighi.pdf

http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=Y5kPdFvct0EC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=de+Vries+(Revoluci%C3%B3n+industriosa)&source=web&ots=GXNszFLSDp&sig=DekaHqN8EpzLJfU178FKF9X_t3U&hl=es&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA125,M1

Traducido, Henry Ford vs Taiichi Ohno, o Fordismo vs Toyotismo.

En un post anterior recordaba los reparos justificados del MITI ante la insistencia de desarrollar una industria automotriz nacional.

Se cansaron de explicarles a estos fabricantes de telares que era imposible competir con Detroit, no se tenían materias primas, ni escala de mercado y menos aun respaldo financiero.

Solo se contaba con mano de obra educada.

Resumiendo, no se tenían ventajas comparativas, solo existía un resultado posible, el fracaso.

Ohno pensó que, dada la situación del mercado japonés en ese momento de la posguerra, debería ser posible fabricar múltiples modelos de coches con bajo volumen de demanda.

Para ello lo primero que tuvo que resolver el propio Ohno, fue "el caso de las prensas" que consistía en poder cambiar la matriz de las grandes prensas que se utilizaban para realizar las carrocerías de los coches en tan solo unos minutos.

Usando su capacidad de análisis e involucrando a los operarios que trabajaban en las mismas prensas, consiguieron reducir el tiempo de cambio de modelo de 24 horas a apenas 3 horas, todo ello sin realizar inversiones significativas.

Ello permitió a Toyota cumplir con las entregas de los modelos de coches que les demandaban sus clientes, requiriendo para ello menos inventario en sus almacenes.

El éxito es conocido por todos, aunque se olvida la Crisis de los años 80, que impugnaba los fundamentos de la Revolución Industriosa.

Parecía que el Fordismo ganaba la partida.

En el Japón milagroso de los 60 comenzaba el Toyotismo de Taiichi Ohno, la expansión de la industria automotriz se encontraba con una restricción del MITI.

En Europa, Alemania cubría su necesidad de mano de obra con los “trabajadores invitados”; españoles, italianos, yugoeslavos y turcos.

El gobierno japonés no estaba dispuesto a crearse problemas raciales.

La inmigración de coreanos, taiwaneses y filipinos era posible, pero deprimirían los salarios, alterando la paz social.

El MITI comprendía la necesidad de las empresas, estaba dispuesto a ayudar a resolver los problemas, pero sin costo social.

Entre las soluciones se encontraban la creación de fábricas en los países de mano de obra barata, con una cultura compatible con las normas japonesas.

Otra de las alternativas era robarse empleados, como en Estados Unidos.

Para Ohno y Toyota era inaceptable, minaba el fundamento de su sistema.

En ese entonces George Devol vendió su primera Unimate a la General Motors, que fue instalada en la plata de Trenton, New Jersey.

Al igual que los romanos, la mano de obra abundante convertía a estos “chiches” en objetos de prestigio, “Miren que modernos que somos”.

Cuarenta años mas tarde las restricciones del gobierno japonés nos llevan a esta realidad. “The number of installed robots has grown aster and aster, and today there are more than 800,000 worldwide (42% in Japan, 40% in the European Union and 18% in the USA).[29]

¿Qué tiene que ver todo lo anterior con el Futuro Agrario Argentino?

En el modelo fordista agrario, la escala es lo MAS importante, tiene un problema técnico insuperable; el suelo como insumo básico NO es homogéneo.

No hablo solo del tema del relieve, que puede ser superado con la agricultura de precisión, sino de su composición efadologica.

Hace rato que vengo insistiendo sobre la necesidad de un Mapa Nacional Efadologico, como herramienta estratégica para poder orientar y controlar el uso adecuado de la tierra.

No solo indica cual es la producción mas racional, también permite diseñar los incentivos y/o prohibiciones a las inversiones necesarias.

¿Soja, olivos, ganadería, bosques, parques naturales y/o recreativos?

¿Secano, irrigación, terrazas, canales, anegamientos, etc.?

Como en el toyotismo, la flexibilidad y el número de agentes superan a la escala.

El futuro de la Argentina Agraria no es vender materia prima, o procesada; sino procesos y metodologías, con las herramientas aptas para estos.

Con las materias primas nos “sobra” ¾ de la población, procesando las materias al máximo nos siguen sobrando la ½ de nuestros compatriotas.

Si logramos desarrollar los equivalentes de los conceptos de Jidoka(traducido por algunos autores como: Autonomización) y Poka-yoke (a prueba de fallos) que junto a conceptos posteriores como just in time y muda, nos va a faltar mano de obra.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edafolog%C3%ADa

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escuela_de_Manchester

http://deshonestidadintelectual.blogspot.com/2007/07/cuando-taiichi-ohno-derogo-las-ventajas.html

http://deshonestidadintelectual.blogspot.com/2007/07/heron-newcomen-taiichi-ohno-y-las.html

Mantén la cabeza en alto,
moviéndote,
sigue con la cabeza en alto,
moviéndote
Sweet dreams (are made of this)
Eurythmics

La vida del Militante del Movimiento Nacional es similar a la de un camillero durante el fuego cruzado, no importa de que bando es el herido, su deber es socorrerlo.

Juntando los pedazos aumentan las probabilidades de un mañana mejor.

La traducción de Eurythmics.

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/khanislupus/trads/e_sdmot.htm

Para ver completo el video y disfrutar de TODAS las ironías.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8pGJFwI_tM

martes, 1 de julio de 2008

1º de Julio, Herencia pa' un hijo gaucho

Hacer clic aquí

¿Se acabo la leche de la clemencia para los supermercados?

La realidad se extiende más allá de nuestros ombligos, aunque la Prensa Libre e independiente no lo informe, y la “Intelligentzia” siga soñando con el Quartier Latin en el VºDistrito.

"El último bastión de los supermercados caerá pronto"

Desde la tribuna, representantes de diversas asociaciones de ganaderos proclamaron la "victoria" en esta "guerra" de precios, agradecieron el "apoyo" de los medios de comunicación, y declararon convencidos que los consumidores estaban de su "lado". "Los consumidores están de nuestro lado si saben que el dinero va a ir a parar al campo", proclamó uno de ellos.

…unos 5.000 ganaderos se congregaron este jueves en Berlín ante la Puerta de Brandeburgo para protestar contra los bajos precios.

http://www.elmundo.es/mundodinero/2008/06/05/economia/1212679078.html

Los productores de leche de Alemania, Austria, Bélgica, Croacia, Dinamarca, Escocia, España, Francia, Gales, Holanda, Luxemburgo, Irlanda, Italia, Suecia y Suiza, miembros de EMB y unidos tanto para esta campaña como para resolver la problemática sectorial, reclaman, además de un precio justo de la leche en origen, un mercado flexible que esté en manos del ganadero para poder equilibrar la oferta y la demanda, así como el control de la exportación, como medida de protección de la leche y los productos lácteos de calidad propios de cada país, entre otras.

La Federación Española de Empresarios Productores de Leche (PROLEC), en colaboración con la organización European Milk Board (EMB) -que agrupa a 90.000 ganaderos de toda la Unión Europea-, llevan a cabo la campaña “Fair Milk” (Leche Justa), una campaña de sensibilización a la sociedad española y europea sobre la problemática que está viviendo el sector productor de leche, sobretodo por los bajos precios que los ganaderos cobran por la leche que producen. PROLEC ha recordado que los ganaderos están en pérdidas (cobran la leche por debajo de los costes de producción) y que en España la diferencia entre el precio de venta al público de la leche y lo que recibe el productor es del orden del 52%, margen que se queda en manos de la industria y la distribución.

http://www.agroinformacion.com/leer-noticia.aspx?not=56895&canal=industria

El precio de la mantequilla y el precio del pan son considerados precios de importancia política en Alemania. Se trata de productos que se encuentran casi siempre en la cesta de compras, y por eso el cliente del supermercado tiene los precios bien memorizados.

Y cuando se disparan de un día para otro en 50 por ciento en un país con una inflación que anda por el 2 por ciento al año, la población se escandaliza.

Las lecherías echaron la culpa en el encarecimiento de la leche en polvo en los mercados mundiales y nacionales (+ 62 por ciento en Alemania en los últimos 12 meses) –ora por la sequía en Australia, país productor y exportador importante de lácteos, ora por la creciente demanda de productos lecheros en China, ora por el aumento de los costes de forraje y otros piensos debido a la producción de biocombustibles. El comercio asegura que meramente tiene que pasar el aumento en sus precios de compra a sus compradores y rechaza que intente mejorar sus márgenes.

Los menos sospechosos son los 110,000 ganaderos lecheros alemanes: Ellos aseveran recibir ahora en promedio entre 33 y 36 centavos de euro por litro de leche suministrada a las lecherías, un aumento en 4 centavos desde comienzos del año. Los ganaderos son el eslabón más débil en la cadena campo – lechería – comercio – consumidor. Se les ven fraccionados ante la crecida concentración de la industria lechera (al consorcio no. 1 le corresponde casi un 15 por ciento de la leche procesada en Alemania), -sólo 29,000 ganaderos son miembro de la Asociación de ganaderos lecheros, la BDM. Esta asociación pide comprensión por los aumentos del precio de la leche cruda. Destacan que aún ahora el precio que se les paga esté al mismo nivel como en los años setenta del siglo pasado.

http://www.alemaniaparati.diplo.de/Vertretung/mexikogic/es/04/lacteos__seite.html

Quartier Latin

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartier_latin_%28quartier_parisien%29

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrio_Latino_de_Par%C3%ADs

jueves, 26 de junio de 2008

Política de Trincheras; Autonomía, Tiempo e Interacción.


Sometimes cooperation emerges where it is least expected. During World War I, the Western Front was the scene of horrible battles for a few yards of territory. But between these battles, and even during them at other places along the five-hundred-mile line in France and Belgium, the enemy soldiers often exercised considerable restraint. A British staff officer on a tour of the trenches remarked that he was

astonished to observe German soldiers walking about within rifle range behind their own line. Our men appeared to take no notice. I privately made up my mind to do away with that sort of thing when we took over; such things should not be allowed. These people evidently did not know there was a war on. Both sides apparently believed in the policy of "live and let live." (Dugdale 1932, p. 94)

This is not an isolated example. The live-and-let-live system was endemic in trench warfare. It flourished despite the best efforts of senior officers to stop it, despite the passions aroused by combat, despite the military logic of kill or be killed, and despite the ease with which the high command was able to repress any local efforts to arrange a direct truce.

This is a case of cooperation emerging despite great antagonism between the players. As such, it provides a challenge for the application of the concepts and the theory developed in the first three chapters. In particular, the main goal is to use the theory to explain:

  1. How could the live-and-let-live system have gotten started?
  2. How was it sustained?
  3. Why did it break down toward the end of the war?
  4. Why was it characteristic of trench warfare in World War I, but of few other wars?

A second goal is to use the historical case to suggest how the original concepts and theory can be further elaborated.

Fortunately, a recent book-length study of the live-and-let-live system is available. This excellent work by a British sociologist, Tony Ashworth (1980), is based upon diaries, letters, and reminisces of trench fighters. Material was found from virtually every one of the fifty-seven British divisions, with an average of more than three sources per division. To a lesser extent, material from French and German sources were also consulted. The result is a very rich set of illustrations that are analyzed with great skill to provide a comprehensive picture of the development and character of trench warfare on the Western Front in World War I. This chapter relies upon Ashworth's fine work for its illustrative quotes and for its historical interpretation.

While Ashworth does not put it this way, the historical situation in the quiet sectors along the Western Front was an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In a given locality, the two players can be taken to be the small units facing each other. At any time, the choices are to shoot to kill or deliberately to shoot to avoid causing damage. For both sides, weakening the enemy is an important value because it will promote survival if a major battle is ordered in the sector. Therefore, in the short run it is better to do damage now whether the enemy is shooting back or not. This establishes that mutual defection is preferred to unilateral restraint (P>S), and that unilateral restraint by the other side is even better than mutual cooperation (T>R). In addition, the reward for mutual restraint is preferred by the local units to the outcome of mutual punishment (R>P), since mutual punishment would imply that both units would suffer for little or no relative gain. Taken together, this establishes the essential set of inequalities: T>R>P>S. Moreover, both sides would prefer mutual restraint to the random alternation of serious hostilities, making R>(T+S)/2. Thus the situation meets the conditions for a Prisoner's Dilemma between small units facing each other in a given immobile sector.

Two small units facing each other across one hundred to four hundred yards of no-man's-land were the players in one of these potentially deadly Prisoner's Dilemmas. Typically, the basic unit could be taken to be the battalion, consisting of about one thousand men, half of whom would be in the front line at any one time. The battalion played a large role in the life of an infantryman. It not only organized its members for combat, but also fed, paid, and clothed them as well as arranged their leave. All of the officers and most of the other soldiers in the battalion knew each other by sight. For our purposes, two key factors make the battalion the most typical player. On the one hand, it was large enough to occupy a sufficient sector of the front to be "held accountable" for aggressive actions which came from its territory. On the other hand, it was small enough to be able to control the individual behavior of its men, through a variety of means, both formal and informal.

A battalion on one side might be facing parts of one, two, or three battalions on the other side. Thus each player could simultaneously be involved in several interactions. Over the course of the Western Front, there would be hundreds of such face-offs.

Only the small units were involved in these Prisoner's Dilemmas. The high commands of the two sides did not share the view of the common soldier who said:

The real reason for the quietness of some sections of the line was that neither side had any intention of advancing in that particular district.... If the British shelled the Germans, the Germans replied, and the damage was equal: if the Germans bombed an advanced piece of trench and killed five Englishmen, an answering fusillade killed five Germans. (Belton Cobb 1916, p. 74)

To the army headquarters, the important thing was to develop an offensive spirit in the troops. The Allies, in particular, pursued a strategy of attrition whereby equal losses in men from both sides meant a net gain for the Allies because sooner or later Germany's strength would be exhausted first. So at the national level, World War I approximated a zero-sum game in which losses for one side represented gains for the other side. But at the local level, along the front line, mutual restraint was much preferred to mutual punishment.

Locally, the dilemma persisted: at any given moment it was prudent to shoot to kill, whether the other side did so or not. What made trench warfare so different from most other combat was that the same small units faced each other in immobile sectors for extended periods of time. This changed the game from a one-move Prisoner's Dilemma in which defection is the dominant choice, to an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in which conditional strategies are possible. The result accorded with the theory's predictions: with sustained interaction, the stable outcome could be mutual cooperation based upon reciprocity. In particular, both sides followed strategies that would not be the first to defect, but that would be provoked if the other defected.

Before looking further into the stability of the cooperation, it is interesting to see how cooperation got started in the first place. The first stage of the war, which began in August 1914, was highly mobile and very bloody. But as the lines stabilized, nonaggression between the troops emerged spontaneously in many places along the front. The earliest instances may have been associated with meals which were served at the same times on both sides of no-man's land. As early as November 1914, a noncommissioned officer whose unit had been in the trenches for some days, observed that

The quartermaster used to bring the rations up... each night after dark; they were laid out and parties used to come from the front line to fetch them. I suppose the enemy were occupied in the same way; so things were quiet at that hour for a couple of nights, and the ration parties became careless because of it, and laughed and talked on their way back to their companies. (The War the Infantry Knew 1938, p. 92)

By Christmas there was extensive fraternization, a practice which the headquarters frowned upon. In the following months, direct truces were occasionally arranged by shouts or by signals. An eyewitness noted that:

In one section the hour of 8 to 9 A.M. was regarded as consecrated to "private business," and certain places indicated by a flag were regarded as out of bounds by the snipers on both sides. (Morgan 1916, pp. 270-71)

But direct truces were easily suppressed. Orders were issued making clear that the soldiers "were in France to fight and not to fraternize with the enemy" (Fifth Battalion the Camaronians 1936, p. 28). More to the point, several soldiers were courtmartialed and whole battalions were punished. Soon it became clear that verbal arrangements were easily suppressed by the high command and such arrangements became rare.

Another way in which mutual restraint got started was during a spell of miserable weather. When the rains were bad enough, it was almost impossible to undertake major aggressive action. Often ad hoc weather truces emerged in which the troops simply did not shoot at each other. When the weather improved, the pattern of mutual restraint sometimes simply continued.

So verbal agreements were effective in getting cooperation started on many occasions early in the war, but direct fraternization was easily suppressed. More effective in the long run were various methods which allowed the two sides to coordinate their actions without having to resort to words. A key factor was the realization that if one side would exercise a particular kind of restraint, then the other might reciprocate. Similarities in basic needs and activities let the soldiers appreciate that the other side would probably not be following a strategy of unconditional defection. For example, in the summer of 1915, a soldier saw that the enemy would be likely to reciprocate cooperation based on the desire for fresh rations.

It would be child's play to shell the road behind the enemy's trenches, crowded as it must be with ration wagons and water carts, into a bloodstained wilderness... but on the whole there is silence. After all, if you prevent your enemy from drawing his rations, his remedy is simple: he will prevent you from drawing yours. (Hay 1916, pp. 224-25)

Once started, strategies based on reciprocity could spread in a variety of ways. A restraint undertaken in certain hours could be extended to longer hours. A particular kind of restraint could lead to attempting other kinds of restraint. And most importantly of all, the progress achieved in one small sector of the front could be imitated by the units in neighboring sectors.

Just as important as getting cooperation started were the conditions that allowed it to be sustainable. The strategies that could sustain mutual cooperation were the ones which were provocable. During the periods of mutual restraint, the enemy soldiers took pains to show each other that they could indeed retaliate if necessary. For example, German snipers showed their prowess to the British by aiming at spots on the walls of cottages and firing until they had cut a hole (The War the Infantry Knew 1938, p. 98). Likewise the artillery would often demonstrate with a few accurately aimed shots that they could do more damage if they wished. These demonstrations of retaliatory capabilities helped police the system by showing that restraint was not due to weakness, and that defection would be self defeating.

When a defection actually occurred, the retaliation was often more than would be called for by TIT FOR TAT. Two-for-one or three-for-one was a common response to an act that went beyond what was considered acceptable.

We go out at night in front of the trenches.... The German working parties are also out, so it is not considered etiquette to fire. The really nasty things are rifle grenades.... They can kill as many as eight or nine men if they do fall into a trench.... But we never use ours unless the Germans get particularly noisy, as on their system of retaliation three for every one of ours come back. (Greenwell 1972, pp. 16-17)

There was probably an inherent damping process that usually prevented these retaliations from leading to an uncontrolled echo of mutual recriminations. The side that instigated the action might note the escalated response and not try to redouble or retriple it. Once the escalation was not driven further, it would probably tend to die out. Since not every bullet, grenade, or shell fired in earnest would hit its target, there would be an inherent tendency toward de-escalation.

Another problem that had to be overcome to maintain the stability of cooperation was the rotation of troops. About every eight days, a battalion would change places with another battalion billeted behind it. At longer intervals, larger units would change places. What allowed the cooperation to remain stable was the process of familiarization that the outgoing unit would provide for the incoming unit. The particular details of the tacit understandings with the enemy were explained. But sometimes it was quite sufficient for an old timer to point out to a newcomer that "Mr. Bosche ain't a bad fellow. You leave 'im alone; 'e'll leave you alone" (Gillon n.d., p. 77). This socialization allowed one unit to pick up the game right where the other left it.

Still another problem for the maintenance of stable cooperation was the fact that the artillery was much less vulnerable to enemy retaliation than was the infantry. Therefore, the artillery had a lesser stake in the live-and-let-live system. As a consequence, the infantry tended to be solicitous of the forward observers from the artillery. As a German artillery man noted of the infantry, "If they ever have any delicacies to spare, they make us a present of them, partly of course because they feel we are protecting them" (Sulzbach 1973, p. 71). The goal was to encourage the artillery to respect the infantry's desire to let sleeping dogs lie. A new forward observer for the artillery was often greeted by the infantry with the request, "I hope you are not going to start trouble." The best answer was, "Not unless you want" (Ashworth 1980, p. 169). This reflected the dual role of artillery in the maintenance of mutual restraint with the enemy: the passiveness when unprovoked, and the instant retaliation when the enemy broke the peace.

The high commands of the British, French, and German armies all wanted to put a stop to tacit truces; all were afraid that they sapped the morale of their men, and all believed throughout the war that a ceaseless policy of offense was the only way to victory. With few exceptions, the headquarters could enforce any orders that they could directly monitor. Thus the headquarters were able to conduct large battles by ordering the men to leave their trenches and risk their lives in charging the enemy positions. But between large battles, they were not able to monitor their orders to keep up the pressure[1]. After all, it was hard for a senior officer to determine who was shooting to kill, and who was shooting with an eye to avoiding retaliation. The soldiers became expert at defeating the monitoring system, as when a unit kept a coil of enemy wire and sent a piece to headquarters whenever asked to prove that they had conducted a patrol of no-man's-land.

What finally destroyed the live-and-let-live system was the institution of a type of incessant aggression that the headquarters could monitor. This was the raid, a carefully prepared attack on enemy trenches which involved from ten to two hundred men. Raiders were ordered to kill or capture the enemy in his own trenches. If the raid was successful, prisoner would be taken; and if the raid was a failure, casualties would be proof of the attempt. There was no effective way to pretend that a raid had been undertaken when it had not. And there was no effective way to cooperate with the enemy in a raid because neither live soldiers nor dead bodies could be exchanged.

The live-and-let-live system could not cope with the disruption caused by the hundreds of small raids. After a raid neither side knew what to expect next. The side that had raided could expect retaliation but could not predict when, where, or how. The side that had been raided was also nervous, not knowing whether the raid was an isolated attack or the first of a series. Moreover, since raids could be ordered and monitored from headquarters, the magnitude of the retaliatory raid could also be controlled, preventing a dampening of the process. The battalions were forced to mount real attacks on the enemy, the retaliation was undampened, and the process echoed out of control.

Ironically, when the British High Command undertook its policy of raiding, it did not do so in order to and the live-and-let-live system. Instead, its initial goal was political, namely, to show their French allies that they were doing their part to harass the enemy. Their image of the direct effects of raiding was that it increased the morale of their own troops by restoring an offensive spirit and that it promoted attrition by inflicting more casualties on the enemy in the raids than the raiding troops themselves would suffer. Whether these effects on morale and casualty ratios were realized has been debated ever since. What is clear in retrospect is that the indirect effect of the raids was to destroy the conditions needed for the stability of the tacit restraints widely exercised on the Western Front. Without realizing exactly what they were doing, the high command effectively ended the live-and-let-live system by preventing their battalions from exercising their own strategies of cooperation based on reciprocity.

The introduction of raids completed the cycle of the evolution of the live-and-let-live system. Cooperation got a foothold through exploratory actions at the local level, was able to sustain itself because of the duration of contact between small units facing each other, and was eventually undermined when these small units lost their freedom of action. Small units, such as battalions, used their own strategies in dealing with the enemy units they faced. Cooperation first emerged spontaneously in a variety of contexts, such as restraint in attacking the distribution of enemy rations, a pause during the first Christmas in the trenches, and a slow resumption of fighting after bad weather made sustained combat almost impossible. These restraints quickly evolved into clear patterns of mutually understood behavior, such as two-for-one or three-for-one retaliation for actions that were taken to be unacceptable. The mechanisms of the evolution of these strategies must have been trial and error and the imitation of neighboring units.

The mechanisms for evolution involved neither blind mutation nor survival of the fittest. Unlike blind mutation, the soldiers understood their situation and actively tried to make the most of it. They understood the indirect consequences of their acts as embodied in what I call the echo principle: "To provide discomfort for the other is but a roundabout way of providing it for themselves" (Sorely 1919, p. 283). The strategies were based on thought as well as experience. The soldiers learned that to maintain mutual restraint with their enemies, they had to base that restraint on a demonstrated capability and willingness to be provoked. They learned that cooperation had to be based upon reciprocity. Thus, the evolution of strategies was based on deliberate rather than blind adaptation. Nor did the evolution involve survival of the fittest. While an ineffective strategy would mean more casualties for the unit, replacements typically meant that the units themselves would survive.

The origins, maintenance, and destruction of the live-and-let-live system of trench warfare are all consistent with the theory of the evolution of cooperation. In addition, there are two very interesting developments within the live-and-let-live system which are new to the theory. These additional developments are the emergence of ethics and ritual.

The ethics that developed are illustrated in this incident, related by a British officer recalling his experience while facing a Saxon unit of the German Army.

I was having tea with A Company when we heard a lot of shouting and went out to investigate. We found our men and the Germans standing on their respective parapets. Suddenly a salvo arrived but did no damage. Naturally both sides got down and our men started swearing at the Germans, when all at once a brave German got on to his parapet and shouted out "We are very sorry about that; we hope no one was hurt. It is not our fault, it is that damned Prussian artillery." (Rutter 1934, p. 29)

This Saxon apology goes well beyond a merely instrumental effort to prevent retaliation. It reflects moral regret for having violated a situation of trust, and it shows concern that someone might have been hurt.

The cooperative exchanges of mutual restraint actually changed the nature of the interaction. They tended to make the two sides care about each other's welfare. This change can be interpreted in terms of the Prisoner's Dilemma by saying that the very experience of sustained mutual cooperation altered the payoffs of the players, making mutual cooperation even more valued than it was before.

The converse was also true. When the pattern of mutual cooperation deteriorated due to mandatory raiding, a powerful ethic of revenge was evoked. This ethic was not just a question of calmly following a strategy based on reciprocity. It was also a question of doing what seemed moral and proper to fulfill one's obligation to a fallen comrade. And revenge evoked revenge. Thus both cooperation and defection were self-reinforcing. The self-reinforcement of these mutual behavioral patterns was not only in terms of the interacting strategies of the players, but also in terms of their perceptions of the meaning of the outcomes. In abstract terms, the point is that not only did preferences affect behavior and outcomes, but behavior and outcomes also affected preferences.

The other addition to the theory suggested by the trench warfare case is the development of ritual. The rituals took the form of perfunctory use of small arms, and deliberately harmless use of artillery. For example, the Germans in one place conducted "their offensive operations with a tactful blend of constant firing and bad shooting, which while it satisfies the Prussians causes no serious inconvenience to Thomas Atkins" (Hay 1916, p. 206).

Even more striking was the predictable use of artillery which occurred in many sectors.

So regular were they [the Germans] in their choice of targets, times of shooting, and number of rounds fired, that, after being in the line one or two days, Colonel Jones had discovered their system, and knew to a minute where the next shell would fall. His calculations were very accurate, and he was able to take what seemed to uninitiated Staff Officers big risks, knowing that the shelling would stop before he reached the place being shelled. (Hills 1919, p. 96)

The other side did the same thing, as noted by a German soldier commenting on "the evening gun" fired by the British.

At seven it came – so regularly that you could sat your watch by it.... It always had the same objective, its range was accurate, it never varied laterally or went beyond or fell short of the mark.... There were even some inquisitive fellows who crawled out... a little before seven, in order to see it burst. (Kipper 1931, pp. 135-37)

These rituals of perfunctory and routine firing sent a double message. To the high command they conveyed aggression, but to the enemy they conveyed peace. The men pretended to be implementing an aggressive policy, but were not. Ashworth himself explains that these stylized acts were more than a way of avoiding retaliation.

In trench war, a structure of ritualised aggression was a ceremony where antagonists participated in regular, reciprocal discharges of missiles, that is, bombs, bullets and so forth, which symbolized and strengthened, at one and the same time, both sentiments of fellow-feelings, and beliefs that the enemy was a fellow sufferer. (Ashworth 1980, p. 144)

Thus these rituals helped strengthen the moral sanctions which reinforced the evolutionary basis of the live-and-let-live system.

The live-and-let-live system that emerged in the bitter trench warfare of World War I demonstrates that friendship is hardly necessary for cooperation based upon reciprocity to get started. Under suitable circumstances, cooperation can develop even between antagonists.



Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, NY 1984, pp. 73-87 (Ch. 4).


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