--- On Tue, 8/26/08, Joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> I remember seeing a reference to this nonesense (tragedy of
> the commons)
> in Barron's I think and wondering what the fuck the
> author was talking
> about. Because, you know, the only piece of evidence for
> that I can
> think of is Easter Island. Other than that, looks to me
[WS:] As I understand it (based on Jared Diamond's account,) the tragedy of Easter Island is the tragedy of balkanization and competition running amok - the island was divided into small fiefdoms (so to speak) that fiercely competed for resources and status. Building statutes (which led to deforestation) was a part of that competition - whoever had a bigger one won. This situation is closer to the concept of the free market than the commons.
As Andie correctly points out, the ToC myth is based on the rat-choice ideology in which certain form of rationality (maximization of self-interest determined in a linear, regression-like fashion) is assumed universally valid and thus exempt from empirical verification. That is, the counter-hypothesis that people do not act to maximize utility in a linear fashion is a priori ruled out. It is important to underscore that acting in self interest is not the most fallacious part of the rat-choice ideology - determining those interest in a linear regression-like fashion is. This simply implies that people take all known cons and pros into account and balance them out in making their decisions.
This model of decision making is demonstrably false - as people make their decisions in a discret fashion. That is, they selectively take into account only a very limited pieces of information available to them, namely those deemed relevant in a particular context, and cognitively "bracket out" i.e. ignore all other pieces of information. More importantly, what is "deemed relevant" in a particular situation is socially constructed and determined. Therefore, the social rules and norms of what can be considered "valid information" in a particular setting determine, for the most part, the outcome of the decision making process of what self interest is.
Stated differently, people generally act in self interest, but the rules what can and cannot be taken into account in figuring out that self-interest are socially constructed, and thus pre-determine the range oof possible outcomes of what self-interest is. The ultimate fallacy of the rat-choice ideology is not the acting in self interst assumption, but the presumed mode in which that self-interest is belived to be determined by rational actors.
Another way of approaching this problem is the concept of public good - i.e. goods that are "non-rival" and "non-excludable" - which in rat-choice jargon means that one person using a good does not preclude another using it (e.g. my using of a rodway does not prevent others using it) and that preventing non-payers from using a good is difficult or highly impractical (e.g. not providing fire protection services to those who did not pay for fire insurance will result in denying that protection to those who did pay.) In rat-choice ideology, goods that are public cannot be efficiently distribted through markets mainly due to their non-excludablity. Consequently, if such goods are to be provided at all, there mist be some form of compulsory payment mechanism that forces all beneficiaris to pay thier share. This justifies the existence of taxes (or mandatory insurance premiums.)
What this argument misses is that non-rivalry and excludability are socially or institutionally constructed rather than natural properties of the good themselves. That is, goods and services are made public or private by specific institutional arrangements that make them either exlcudable (and consequently "private") or non-excludable (and consequently "public.") For example, roads can be made public by making them accessible to everyone (cf. most of the Interstate highway system,) or private by restricting access to those who pay (cf. NJ or Pennsylvania Turnpike). Ditto for land, education, health care, risk protection, and virtually any other good or service. This is an outcome of cultural customs or conscious policy decisions rather than quasi "natural" property of goods and services, as the neo-lib ideology wants us to believe.
In sum, even in the rat-choice appraoch, certain goods are non-private (i.e. public) and as such, they are consumed collectively and paid for by collective levies (taxes or insurnace premiums.) Thuse, the myth of the ToC is inconsisitent even with its own theoretical assumptions. In reality, the mechanisms of production and distribution of goods and services are determined by institutional (social and political) ramifications rather than "laws" and "contradictions" concocted by half-baked philosophers and intellectuals.
Wojtek