The Co-operation reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Co-operation

Co-operation refers to the practice of people or greater entities working in common with commonly agreed-upon goals and possibly methods, instead of working separately in competition.

Co-operation in many areas of business, farming and housing may be in the form of a co-operative.

Cooperation is generally held to be the opposite paradigm from competition. Many people support cooperation as the ideal form of management of human affairs.

However, certain forms of co-operation are illegal because they alter the nature of access by others to economic or other resources. Thus, co-operation in the form of cartels may be illegal, and price-fixing is usually illegal.

Even if all members of a group would benefit if all cooperate, individual self-interest may not favor cooperation. The prisoner's dilemma codifies this problem and has been the subject of much research, both theoretical and experimental. Results from experimental economics show that humans often act more cooperatively than strict self-interest would seem to dictate.

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