As we all know, on Tuesday we held a unanimous vote to hold class on election day instead of having a lecture on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Is it a coincidence that this occurred at the end of our lecture on Olson’s theory on interest groups and how their size determines their success? I think our quick vote spoke to his theory. As our class was yelling new dates for class across the room to one another, I thought to myself, “this would be a nightmare in a large lecture-sized class”. In a larger group like that it would be nearly impossible to reach a unanimous decision, due to high organizational costs and free-riding. Students that refuse to contribute (or in this case vote), whether it be purposeful or not, would be considered free-riding and prevent a unanimous vote from being reached.
In a way, our class acted like a small, monopolistic interest group. We were effective at this size because it was easier to incentivize everyone to vote as well as monitor the two folks who were absent and quickly communicate to them the situation. The social pressure present in small groups was also evident in our class. I heard one peer say “I would’ve had to be here the Tuesday before Thanksgiving anyways, but I voted for you guys!”. I am sure she would’ve liked having the full day off on election day, but since she could hear how passionate everyone else in the room was, she felt obligated to vote to move class. Overall, I think our collective bargaining as a small interest group was very successful, which is largely due to the small size of our class.
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