A nice identification game was uncovered in a New York suburb a few years ago. Certain motorists carried identity cards which identified them to policemen as members in a club; if the motorist with a membership card was arrested, he simply showed the card to the policeman and paid a bribe. The role of these cards was to identify the motorist as a person who, if the bribe was received, would keep quiet. It identified the motorist as a man whose promise was enforcible. But the card identifies the motorist only after he has been arrested; if the police could identify card-carrying motorists by looking at them, they could concentrate their arrests on card-carrying drivers, threatening a ticket unless payment were received. The card is contingent identification, at the option of the motorist.

XREF: Connects to signaling theory and reputation economics patterns, like Akerlof's lemons or costly signaling in biology. SEED: Could angle an article on how privileges and trust signals work — the design insight that withholding identification until needed preserves asymmetry.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 327