Winners Don’t Punish - Or do they?

Winners Don’t Punish « The Leisure of the Theory Class: "Why do I tell you about this paper? Because I do not like experiments. I do not see what we gain from them. The title of this paper, for example, is “Winners Don’t Punish”. Is this the right conclusion? I do not think so. Because the game is short, there is not much time for learning, for using a punishment. If you were punished, you lose 4, and there is hardly any time to regain your losses. And even if the game were longer, and players could teach each other that defection leads to punishment and is therefore not profitable, will an experiment on $10 teach us anything about decisions in the real world? The Roman Empire used to punish heavily. And it worked, as long as it was the strongest. Most dictators punish, and some last decades. So in real life, if you are strong, you can punish as much as you wish. I still wait to see the experiment that will convince me that it reveals some insight on real life."