[lbo-talk] tragedy of the commons

[andie nachgeborenen]

At risk of repetition, it's very important for us pro-commons types to realize that preserving the commons takes social network and practices, formal and/or informal institutions, different sets of incentives, and different psychologies that we are used to. These will be long in building and we have no idea how to create this. The people who think you take away private property. markets, and profit and poof! create beautiful self-regulating commons are just as deluded as the people in the FSU (Gorby among them) who thought that if just took away central planning and state control, poof! you would have beautifully functioning markets. Markets that function even as well (or poorly, for cynics, or both) as those in the industrialized west took almost a thousand years of social upheaval, legal developments, and institutional -- rearrangement, for lack of a better word. As some have noted here, the English Commons were the product of themselves several

 thousand years of development. (See E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common)
 
It's not to the point criticize Hardin., Demsetz, Alchian, Coase, Olson, Hayek, Mises (the latter lot being anti-commons right wing economists of different kinds) for merely being a priori and nonempirical. In a capitalist world where self-interested maximization is the rule, the tragedy of the commons abounds, there it is every where you look. Hardin, etc. are merely providing an explanation of a phenomenon which is extremely widespread. Moreover, the explanation is substantially accurate As the old man said, in ideology, reality is invertede as in a mirror.l It wouldn't grip if it didn't embody a lot of truth. The ideology move is saying that things cannot be otherwise, not in accurately describing how and why they are under capitalist market conditions. 
So, I'm sorry Michael, your reported blow-off of Hardin is not an adequate response. We cannot get rid of Hardin and the TotC until we create the conditions under which the commons can thrive. That does not promise to be an easy task.

----- Original Message ----
From: Joanna <123hop at comcast.net>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:01:06 AM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] tragedy of the commons

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 like indigeneous 
peoples have done a pretty good job as stewards of the land. There's a 
long tract on this in Traven's "The White Rose."

I mean, it's not like the Americas were barren deserts when the European 
privatization began.

But facts don't matter. The theft continues apace....

Joanna
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