Behavioural Economics - Cruel to be Kind

Thanks to Mark Johnston who has unearthed several gems from the pages of the New Scientist over the years and has found another one with this article

“Classical economics says that no rational person should ever reduce their own income just to slash someone else’s. And yet that’s exactly what we do. Classical economics, it turns out, is a pretty terrible predictor of how we actually behave…..Economists, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists have been teasing out how, used judiciously, spiteful behaviour can be one of our best weapons in maintaining a fair and ordered society.”