>>So aside from imposing regulation, another way to prevent a tragedy of the commons is to get rid of the commons: grant exclusive use of the former commons to

>>So aside from imposing regulation, another way to prevent a tragedy of the commons is to get rid of the commons: grant exclusive use of the former commons to a single party, who then has an incentive for good stewardship. >>As is often the case when the law arbitrarily privileges some parties over others, there is an overlooked harm here, suffered by would-be lobstermen that the rules say cannot be. I fail to see how granting exclusive use to a single party would benefit "would-be lobstermen", if anything, its economies of scale would allow it to employ less people. Not to talk about how the hypothetical single party might find another, more profitable, equilibrium point with less, and more expensive, lobsters in the market, employing less people. Or sending all of them to china and damaging the coastal tourism of Maine. Also, I can't think of a modern instance of a monopoly that was given the control of a limited renovable resource and behaved nicely in an unregulated environment. All the instances I can think of were heavily regulated.