The contractual exploitation as a social dilemma

Abstract

The article concerns contractual exploitation, which is nowadays opposed by several Brazilian laws, as the Civil Code article 157 (respecting to laesio enormis) and Consumer Protection Code article 51 (unconscionable terms). Contractual exploitation in competitive markets (for example, the exploitation of workers and consumers by firms) is presented below as a case of social dilemma, which, according to Dawes, is defined as a circumstance under which self-interested and rational behavior by individual agents leads to undesirable consequences for all (i.e., individual rationality entails collective irrationality). The paper draws on three topics of the theory on social dilemmas, an interdisciplinary research field built by the contributions of, among others, psychologists and economists: a) group identification; b) logic of appropriateness (as a decision making style differing from rational choice or logic of consequence); and c) sanctioning systems. Among its findings, the article stresses the difficulty of obtaining cooperation (which equals, in the case focused here, to non-exploitative behavior) by means other than incentives or “structural solutions” through which individual and collective interests are reconciled. As alternatives to a legal sanctions-based antiexploitation strategy, legal measures aimed at reframing decision making processes, as well as the manipulation of social norms, are suggested.