>Hardin, like Harold Demsetz, an economist who wrote a similar and
>very influential article around the same time making a similar
>point, arguing for the superiority of private ownership, both
>proceed from a priori rational choice-theoretical assumptions. They
>don't really consider historical evidence or counterexamples. Both
>of them are pretty much ideologues. At the same time they have a
>point to make; the TotC is real in some circumstances, e.g.,
>overfishing, and is a special instance of the general public goods
>problem that makes government necessary. The TotC occurs when agents
>act in a self-interested maximizing manner, like the actors in
>rational choice theory. The self-regulation the author here speaks
>of, or government and law, change those behaviors. So it's not that
>there is no TotC, it's a pervasive threat, and there have to be
>institutional safeguards against it.
Yes, government of things is necessary and there is something in it. But as you say, it isn't an inevitable feature of common ownership.
Basically, it is necessary for human society to have developed a culture appropriate to the economic system. In the sense that the author of the TotC and those like him would be inclined to destroy the commons out greed.
Likewise, those who come from a culture of sharing, tend to make a real mess of trying to participate in an economy of selfish greed. They just don't get it. Anymore than people from a self-serving capitalist culture can get heir head around a commons economy. Its just totally alien and incomprehensible to them. As is marvelously demonstrated by this fellow who wrote TotC.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas