  When we vote on a policy, as discussed above, we de facto change our problem from a collective-action prisoner’s dilemma into a simple coordination problem by ruling out individual idiosyncrasies in our choices. We have only collective choice: provision for all or provision for none. Although the state is itself not the resolution of a giant prisoner’s dilemma or collective action, as is sometimes supposed, it can be used to resolve prisoner’s dilemma interactions. Suppose you and I both want cleaner air but that each of us would free ride on the efforts of others to clean the air. State policy can block free riding, if necessary at metaphorical gunpoint. We both prefer the general effort to provide cleaner air and we both pay our share toward the cost of providing it.