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The argument can be used for both or either purpose. However, the modern popularizer of the term, ecologist Garret Hardin, lamented that the idea is widely misi
by stult 9y ago
The argument can be used for both or either purpose. However, the modern popularizer of the term, ecologist Garret Hardin, lamented that the idea is widely misinterpreted. He claimed that he should have called it "the tragedy of the unregulated commons."
I suppose if you just hear about the idea briefly during a single lecture of an intro econ course, it's easy to grasp the benefits of private ownership without recognizing the limitations. Specifically that some common resources are not susceptible to private ownership, such as those you list, but are still susceptible to the tragedy of the commons when left unregulated. Hence the widespread misreading of the hypothetical.
- dnautics 9y ago'land ownership' is a totally artificial construct. We can create (and have created) private ownership models that work extraordinarily well. For example, NOx and SOx emissions permits in the US are issued as simple, auctioned tokens. That is a propertization model. Generally, the simpler these models are, the better, because complicating matters generally creates opportunities for bizzare arbitrage. By contrast, the proposed CO2 cap and trade (in the US) has so many well-intentioned loopholes with credits and the like that it will almost certainly cause unintended consequences like where an Indian manufacturer created and then sequestered a high-greenhouse-potential gas, resulting in a net emissions of CO2 (as well as a pointless use of resources).