The success or failure (in terms of an individual's outcome) of what could also be called rational actor theory seems very context-dependent. Cynicism as descr

The success or failure (in terms of an individual's outcome) of what could also be called rational actor theory seems very context-dependent. Cynicism as described in this article, i.e. extreme selfishness, is an understandable response to societal breakdown of various kinds. For example, people might resist paying taxes in the context of high levels of governmental corruption, as evidenced by a governmental failure to deal with widespread problems like poor roads, endemic homelessness, etc. In contrast, if the government used tax revenues wisely and efficiently to improve citizen's quality of life, rational actors would be happy to pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes, as the benefit to themselves would be greater (as even if they paid no taxes, they still wouldn't have the resources needed to address societal-scale problems). Take Prisoner's Dilemma as another case. In a stable society, players develop reputations as cooperators or betrayers. Two people with long-standing reputations of cooperation would be much more likely to trust one another, while in an unstable society without any reputational basis, the opposite would be true (and damage to one's reputation wouldn't have any persistent negative effect). This can be treated as Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma (pdf): https://www.u.arizona.edu/~mwalker/10_GameTheory/RepeatedPrisonersDilemma.pdf https://www.u.arizona.edu/~mwalker/10_GameTheory/RepeatedPri... Of course humans aren't rational logical actors, which is why advertising often works, and those who try the hardest to achieve that status don't seem to be very happy people.