5 ms·

Your last sentence is worth emphasizing. Many people misunderstand the tragedy of the commons as an argument why a commons can't work, but the only possible con

by hnbad 6y ago

Your last sentence is worth emphasizing. Many people misunderstand the tragedy of the commons as an argument why a commons can't work, but the only possible conclusion is that the commons can't work under the current economic system (and specifically the dominant school of economic thought of the past half century). The usual example given is a pasture shared by shepherds who are each going to optimize their use of the pasture by getting more sheep even if it means exceeding the sustainable capacity of the pasture, eventually killing it for everyone. Yet the real world shows that communal pastures have existed for centuries in rural communities just fine. The difference is that these pastures aren't used "optimally" and the shepherds aren't economically "rational actors" within the current economic system, though they are increasingly being pressured into that by the dominant system surrounding them. The tragedy of the commons is not a warning about the unsustainability of a commons, it's a warning about the logical consequence of our dominant economic system.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
Capitalism represents a solution to the tragedy of the commons: Privatize it. You guys are interpreting this as a takedown of capitalism when it's the exact opposite. Capitalism represents a solution to this issue. You might not like that solution, but this circumstance just goes to show that naive attempts to reinvent capitalism are unlikely to work.
- orwin 6y ago
  But you can't privatize the air? Also, do you think the indian company was a perfect example of why capitalism should not involve itself with common goods? Unless you think it isnt a capitalist company despite presenting all aspect of it (including regulatory capture and threats of violence against slaves/employees).
- GlobalFrog 6y ago
  Contrarily to the common claim of capitalism, this wouldn’t be an optimal solution. Let’s say there are ten shepherds sharing the fields. You privatize it and in a short amount of time, there will be one shepherd left, ultra rich, and nine unemployed shepherds. So capitalism is a good system to optimize the value of the field, not its value for society.
  - qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
    If that actually happens, it will be because one of the shepherds is substantially better at flock management than the others, and their financial success allows them to buy fields from the other shepherds. The other shepherds will only sell their field if the good-flock-manager shepherd makes them an attractive offer (probably enough money such that they can live off the interest for the rest of their life). Not to mention, they very well might get a job working for the good-at-flock-management shepherd, possibly even at a raise since superior profits means there's more wealth to share. (Realistically there will probably be at least 2 sheep conglomerates competing on wages to hire the best shepherds. I'm not an ideologue, I'm cool with the government intervening in the economy a little bit to break up monopolies.)
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > If that actually happens, it will be because one of the shepherds is substantially better at flock management than the others, and their financial success allows them to buy fields from the other shepherds. IFF all the other shepherds even got a cut in the privatisation, then perhaps. But there's no guarantee of that. That's certainly not how things went down in the last major privatisation the world has seen, that of post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s.
- captainmuon 6y ago
  In some cases that applies, but I don't think a paid version of babel would be viable. Electronic goods resist commodifying. It only works sometimes (like in streaming music), but you need to put in a lot of technological and legal effort. I believe that societies develop in lockstep with technology. The industrial revolution was only possible with the beginning civil society and capitalism; capitalism as we know it was only possible at the end of feudalism and absolutism. It is intertwined. New technologies tend to disrupt societies, you can go where the tech leads you (e.g. content can be copied without effort), or you can go the other way and adapt the tech to the society (say, not using machines in order to save jobs). That is why I think we are due for a big change in our political and economic system. What that is going to look like, and how much it will still look like capitalism, I don't know. (Sorry for derailing the thread...)
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    >I don't think a paid version of babel would be viable. It would if there were no open source alternatives. Bear in mind that most of the users are commercial organisations deriving value from it. They need something like it to solve their problems and if it isn't available for free then they will pay.
- js8 6y ago
  Hm, a solution. They privatize it, and then companies will say to their webdevs, we don't want to pay extra for a profit of some capitalist, write the website without it. So each webdev will end up with their own half-baked solution. Tragedy of the lack of commons! I hear you cry, but that's irrational! Precisely, but so is not caring about the commons and letting them die. I am not under an illusion that under capitalism, people cannot pass the buck (responsibility for maintenance) away too.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    Companies make those sort of trade offs all the time, whether to buy or build. It doesn't take many to decide to buy to fund a small project like Babel. Not only that but you are likely to see competition driving the whole thing forward.
    - js8 6y ago
      My point was that framing this as a tragedy of the commons problem, and here's the standard solution, can itself be disputed. The hidden assumption is that the capitalist will take the responsibility to take care of the thing, and provide it for a fair price, but it is by no means given. Certainly, there are examples of economic failures of this type as well. (Even in software, Unixes/Lisps..)
guerrilla 6y ago
I think you might be interested in my comment sibling to yours about the work of Elinor Ostrom. She spent her life documenting those systems.
dash2 6y ago
That's mistaken in two ways. First, the tragedy of the commons - aka the public goods problem - is an argument why a commons can't work, full stop. It's precisely mathematically specified. If the conclusion doesn't hold, that's because the assumptions didn't hold. You can certainly argue that the assumptions don't hold in many places, e.g. among Maine lobster gangs or in the woods around Japanese villages, and indeed that's what various authors have done. They have not argued - and it would make little sense - that a different economic system would magically make public goods games have a different equilibrium. Second, you're mistaken in assuming that actors in successfully maintained commons are economically irrational. One simple interpretation of these commons is that they are repeated games. In such games it is rational to cooperate to preserve the commons, since defection leads to others defecting in future. That is standard economic rationality. Elinor Ostrom put forward that interpretation sometimes. She also emphasized that communities used things like punishments and fines to sanction uncooperative behaviour - again, these mechanisms work for standard homo economicus reasons.
- hnbad 6y ago
  The economic system is literally part of the assumptions. The tragedy of the commons holds up under laissez-faire capitalism. It can be somewhat mitigated under other forms of capitalism but there are examples for commons that pre-date capitalism itself and also specifically enclosure (the formal privatization of common land), which itself pre-dates capitalism. I'm not sure why you think you need to defend the concept of homo economicus. You're literally refuting your own first point with the second: a commons can work, but where it has worked it has usually come with constraints that run contrary to laissez-faire/free-market capitalism (or the approximation thereof) and that don't necessarily translate to the dynamics between globe-spanning corporations compared to that between a much smaller set of individuals.
  - dash2 6y ago
    No, the logic of public goods does not require any assumption about the economic system. Any set of actors whose actions create a negative externality, and who cannot enforce agreements to cooperate (either through the courts or via repeated interactions) will overproduce the externality. So, you could say the assumptions include the legal system. There are numerous tragedies of the commons under socialist economic systems, including environmental degradation and the inefficiency of socialist firms. There are plenty under capitalism too. Berlin under Rhineland capitalism has plenty of litter, just as New York does under Anglo-American capitalism. Hunter-gatherering bands are also perfectly capable of overusing natural resources and failing to cooperate. When they succeed, it's because they get the incentives right - at least, there is a reasonable case for that.[1] I defend homo economicus to dispel a false impression: that successfully sustained commons refute the idea that humans (a) are self-interested and (b) make optimal choices. You could say that laboratory public goods games do that, but even there you'd have to qualify your argument very carefully. [1] Guala, Francesco, 2012. Reciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate. Behavioral and brain sciences, 35(1), pp.1-15.

by hnbad 6y ago

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago

Capitalism represents a solution to the tragedy of the commons: Privatize it. You guys are interpreting this as a takedown of capitalism when it's the exact opposite. Capitalism represents a solution to this issue. You might not like that solution, but this circumstance just goes to show that naive attempts to reinvent capitalism are unlikely to work.

orwin 6y ago
But you can't privatize the air? Also, do you think the indian company was a perfect example of why capitalism should not involve itself with common goods? Unless you think it isnt a capitalist company despite presenting all aspect of it (including regulatory capture and threats of violence against slaves/employees).
GlobalFrog 6y ago
Contrarily to the common claim of capitalism, this wouldn’t be an optimal solution. Let’s say there are ten shepherds sharing the fields. You privatize it and in a short amount of time, there will be one shepherd left, ultra rich, and nine unemployed shepherds. So capitalism is a good system to optimize the value of the field, not its value for society.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  If that actually happens, it will be because one of the shepherds is substantially better at flock management than the others, and their financial success allows them to buy fields from the other shepherds. The other shepherds will only sell their field if the good-flock-manager shepherd makes them an attractive offer (probably enough money such that they can live off the interest for the rest of their life). Not to mention, they very well might get a job working for the good-at-flock-management shepherd, possibly even at a raise since superior profits means there's more wealth to share. (Realistically there will probably be at least 2 sheep conglomerates competing on wages to hire the best shepherds. I'm not an ideologue, I'm cool with the government intervening in the economy a little bit to break up monopolies.)
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > If that actually happens, it will be because one of the shepherds is substantially better at flock management than the others, and their financial success allows them to buy fields from the other shepherds. IFF all the other shepherds even got a cut in the privatisation, then perhaps. But there's no guarantee of that. That's certainly not how things went down in the last major privatisation the world has seen, that of post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s.
captainmuon 6y ago
In some cases that applies, but I don't think a paid version of babel would be viable. Electronic goods resist commodifying. It only works sometimes (like in streaming music), but you need to put in a lot of technological and legal effort. I believe that societies develop in lockstep with technology. The industrial revolution was only possible with the beginning civil society and capitalism; capitalism as we know it was only possible at the end of feudalism and absolutism. It is intertwined. New technologies tend to disrupt societies, you can go where the tech leads you (e.g. content can be copied without effort), or you can go the other way and adapt the tech to the society (say, not using machines in order to save jobs). That is why I think we are due for a big change in our political and economic system. What that is going to look like, and how much it will still look like capitalism, I don't know. (Sorry for derailing the thread...)
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  >I don't think a paid version of babel would be viable. It would if there were no open source alternatives. Bear in mind that most of the users are commercial organisations deriving value from it. They need something like it to solve their problems and if it isn't available for free then they will pay.
js8 6y ago
Hm, a solution. They privatize it, and then companies will say to their webdevs, we don't want to pay extra for a profit of some capitalist, write the website without it. So each webdev will end up with their own half-baked solution. Tragedy of the lack of commons! I hear you cry, but that's irrational! Precisely, but so is not caring about the commons and letting them die. I am not under an illusion that under capitalism, people cannot pass the buck (responsibility for maintenance) away too.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Companies make those sort of trade offs all the time, whether to buy or build. It doesn't take many to decide to buy to fund a small project like Babel. Not only that but you are likely to see competition driving the whole thing forward.
  - js8 6y ago
    My point was that framing this as a tragedy of the commons problem, and here's the standard solution, can itself be disputed. The hidden assumption is that the capitalist will take the responsibility to take care of the thing, and provide it for a fair price, but it is by no means given. Certainly, there are examples of economic failures of this type as well. (Even in software, Unixes/Lisps..)

guerrilla 6y ago

I think you might be interested in my comment sibling to yours about the work of Elinor Ostrom. She spent her life documenting those systems.

dash2 6y ago

That's mistaken in two ways. First, the tragedy of the commons - aka the public goods problem - is an argument why a commons can't work, full stop. It's precisely mathematically specified. If the conclusion doesn't hold, that's because the assumptions didn't hold. You can certainly argue that the assumptions don't hold in many places, e.g. among Maine lobster gangs or in the woods around Japanese villages, and indeed that's what various authors have done. They have not argued - and it would make little sense - that a different economic system would magically make public goods games have a different equilibrium. Second, you're mistaken in assuming that actors in successfully maintained commons are economically irrational. One simple interpretation of these commons is that they are repeated games. In such games it is rational to cooperate to preserve the commons, since defection leads to others defecting in future. That is standard economic rationality. Elinor Ostrom put forward that interpretation sometimes. She also emphasized that communities used things like punishments and fines to sanction uncooperative behaviour - again, these mechanisms work for standard homo economicus reasons.

hnbad 6y ago
The economic system is literally part of the assumptions. The tragedy of the commons holds up under laissez-faire capitalism. It can be somewhat mitigated under other forms of capitalism but there are examples for commons that pre-date capitalism itself and also specifically enclosure (the formal privatization of common land), which itself pre-dates capitalism. I'm not sure why you think you need to defend the concept of homo economicus. You're literally refuting your own first point with the second: a commons can work, but where it has worked it has usually come with constraints that run contrary to laissez-faire/free-market capitalism (or the approximation thereof) and that don't necessarily translate to the dynamics between globe-spanning corporations compared to that between a much smaller set of individuals.
- dash2 6y ago
  No, the logic of public goods does not require any assumption about the economic system. Any set of actors whose actions create a negative externality, and who cannot enforce agreements to cooperate (either through the courts or via repeated interactions) will overproduce the externality. So, you could say the assumptions include the legal system. There are numerous tragedies of the commons under socialist economic systems, including environmental degradation and the inefficiency of socialist firms. There are plenty under capitalism too. Berlin under Rhineland capitalism has plenty of litter, just as New York does under Anglo-American capitalism. Hunter-gatherering bands are also perfectly capable of overusing natural resources and failing to cooperate. When they succeed, it's because they get the incentives right - at least, there is a reasonable case for that.[1] I defend homo economicus to dispel a false impression: that successfully sustained commons refute the idea that humans (a) are self-interested and (b) make optimal choices. You could say that laboratory public goods games do that, but even there you'd have to qualify your argument very carefully. [1] Guala, Francesco, 2012. Reciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate. Behavioral and brain sciences, 35(1), pp.1-15.