Editor,

RE: "Entropy is ruining EAC integration dream” (The New Times, November 5).

Welcome to the prisoner’s dilemma theory. The prisoner’s dilemma shows why two completely "rational” individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.

Selfishness is the default for most humans. So is mistrust. If you are landlocked like Rwanda you really have very few options. Singapore does not suffer that misfortune.

Weisende Kuronya

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Yes, I did think of the prisoner’s dilemma logical problem as I read Kenneth Agutamba’s piece, and while commenting on it. But, no, there are always options: Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg are, for instance, among the 16 European states that are landlocked (Liechtenstein is in fact ‘double-landlocked’, as it has to cross at least two foreign borders to reach the sea). But these are also among Europe’s most prosperous.

Just as being endowed with natural resources is never in and of itself sufficient for development; conversely, not being endowed with a lot of natural resources is not necessarily an incapacitating condition if you are able to maximise the value of the little that you have.

When you have little, you have to be wiser than most and reduce wastage as much as is humanly possible, focusing your resources and energy where their returns are likely to be the highest over the long term.

Japan did that through an industrial policy that favoured sectors in which its planners knew their country had a chance, with single-minded focus of resources, of becoming extremely competitive on the global stage in the long term. So did South Korea, and so is China now.

My central point is to recognise it when evidence becomes clear that your erstwhile partners cannot be trusted, and reduce having to depend on them for you to achieve your goals.

And in doing so, avoid any emotionalism of alleged shared histories; these are like any sunk costs, you rightly ignore them when having to choose among investment options, for sunk costs are history, while investment choices are for future gains or losses.

Our problems are that we often allow sentimental attachments to those sunk costs to cloud our thinking. They shouldn’t, especially when those we think we share such histories with have themselves moved on, believing there is nothing personal in business; that all is fair in business and what gains they might bring trump all else, including good relationships.

Mwene Kalinda