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The Farmer's Dilemma
by mk

    Suppose you and I are farmers, owning adjacent fields. One day you have a brilliant idea. If we dig a ditch from the nearby river, between our fields, then irrigating our fields becomes a lot less work. It would cost two utils to dig the ditch - one utilon each - and we'd get five utils each from its existence.

    You come to me with this suggestion. "That sounds great," I say, "but I don't think I'm going to bother."

    You object that I'm being dumb not to take those four utils.

    "No," I say, "I just think that if I don't help you, you'll do all the work yourself. You still get three utils if you dig it alone, so you'll do it even if I don't help you. And by not helping, I get five utils instead of four. Why would I pay a utilon to help you?"...