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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOne of the Most Pervasive -- and Wrong -- Conservative Economic Myths, Debunked
http://www.alternet.org/books/one-most-pervasive-and-wrong-conservative-economic-myths-debunkedPicture a pasture open to all.
For at least a generation, the very idea of the commons has been marginalized and dismissed as a misguided way to manage resources: the so-called tragedy of the commons. In a short but influential essay published in Science in 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin gave the story a fresh formulation and a memorable tagline.
The tragedy of the commons develops in this way, wrote Hardin, proposing to his readers that they envision an open pasture:
It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible in the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?
The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another.... But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd with- out limitin a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
The tragedy of the commons is one of those basic concepts that is drilled into the minds of every undergraduate, at least in economics courses. The idea is considered a basic principle of economicsa cautionary lesson about the impossibility of collective action. Once the class has been escorted through a ritual shudder, the professor whisks them along to the main attraction, the virtues of private property and free markets. Here, finally, economists reveal, we may surmount the dismal tragedy of a commons. The catechism is hammered home: individual freedom to own and trade private property in open markets is the only way to produce enduring personal satisfaction and social prosperity.
Agony
(2,605 posts)the Commons is NOT OK when using tax dollars to provide universal health care?
Hypocrites.
Shandris
(3,447 posts)...knows all too well that 'common good' is a myth. There may be groups that try to utilize it, and occasionally some small number will succeed, but it only takes one person to ruin all their work. Witness any MMO guild that has ever had its guild bank robbed, or simply read the history of EVE Online.
The author does seem to make one fundamental failure from my point of view, though (the previous comment simply being a disagreement, but not something I would call an error in his judgement). It is contained in this line first: "Hardins fictional scenario sets forth a system that has no boundaries around the pasture, no rules for managing it, no punishments for over-use and no distinct community of users." Then, he follows with this: "Just as Hardin proposes a herdsman whose reason is unable to encompass the common good, so Lloyd supposes persons who have no way to speak with each other or make joint decisions."
However, if one examines the first statement, it shows that at no point is the incentive to not destroy the commons an appeal to the common good, nor is it a joint decision. It is (and unabashedly so) the threat of retaliation. Rules and punishments (as well as social norms (shaming) and sanctions (social punishment). IOW, it isn't a -common- good at all. It is an property made temporarily available at the leisure of the authoritarian in control, and as such is every bit as reliant on those people not being evil as modern government. Nothing has changed, except that now even more power is concentrated into even fewer hands. This is a fundamental failure masquerading as liberal thought.