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Tragedy of the Commons really means "the structure of a market failed to produce the desired outcome". The common good may be the victim, but the market is the
by danharaj 10y ago
Tragedy of the Commons really means "the structure of a market failed to produce the desired outcome". The common good may be the victim, but the market is the culprit.
The solution of course is alternate economic structures that respect the commons. The distinguished economist Elinor Ostrom wrote a whole book called Governing the Commons which presents real-life alternatives to markets for commons-like economic activity.
Or we could continue marching to the drum of neoliberalism and try to contort markets until they meet our needs. Love me some procrustean capitalism.
- rhizome 10y agoI thought neoliberalism was more about contorting society until they meet the needs of the market.
- mtgx 10y agoAssuming you've already read that book, can you elaborate how would those strategies help in this case and what kind of changes would they imply?
- cobbzilla 10y agoThe opposing viewpoint is that only public resources suffer from tragedies of the common (they become a free-for-all), whereas with private ownership there's usually a natural incentive to make your profit-producing resource sustainable. Of course, it's always more nuanced than that (mining and resource extraction industries are problematic), the ideal is probably somewhere in the middle. So we argue about exactly where it should be :)