(I had the title and the next three paragraphs written before Radek's comments today.)
Experimental evidence on the topic suggests a disquieting affirmative answer. Specifically, I refer to
"Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation", by Robert H. Frank, Thomas Gilovich, and Dennis T. Regan (
Journal of Economic Perspectives, V. 7, N. 2 (Spring 1993): 159-171)
I believe that more up-to-date work exists in this vein. I was able to quickly locate a reference to "Does Studying Economics Discourage Cooperation? Watch What We Do Not What We Say or How We Play", by Yetzer, Goldfarb, and Poppen (
Journal of Economic Perspectives, V. 10, N. 1 (1996): 177-186). (I haven't read this.)
But look at the URL for that copy of the Frank, Gilovich, and Regan paper. Why should
Richard Stallman want more people to know of their findings? What does this have to do with open-source and free (as in "freedom") software?
Perhaps if I browsed around the proceedings of one of the
Wizard of OS conferences, I would see some connection between advocating open source and being anti-mainstream economics. Given the interests of at least one of my readers, I want to note that Lawrence Lessig is the keynote speaker for this year's conference, which just ended.
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