Vaccination and altruism: the case of Ohio

The state of Ohio in the United States has, as a result of despair at the low vaccination rate, begun to offer incentives for vaccination, such as free college tuition. There seems to be general approval. But is this such a good idea ? Apart from the missed opportunity of appealing to people's pro-social and altruistic motivations, or of combatting anti-science propaganda, from a pragmatic point of view, will this be effective ? As the sociologist Richard Titmuss pointed out many years ago, appealing to people's desire to help other individuals, or society as a whole, was markedly more effective in persuading people to give blood than material incentives. The desire to feel needed by others, and to feel connected to them, are very powerful. Perhaps the state of Ohio thought that anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and the all-pervasive culture of acquisitive individualism are just too powerful, and it had to go with the flow. If this is do, it rather ominously points to the limits of Biden's political project. For his project to succeed, people have, to change their fundamental assumptions, as they did, for a time, and to a certain extent, under FDR and LBJ.