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It's not Tragedy of the Commons because it's not a commons: there's a single controlling entity that should be interested in managing the resource. It's closer

It's not Tragedy of the Commons because it's not a commons: there's a single controlling entity that should be interested in managing the resource. It's closer to a discounting problem, because future benefits from investment made today are discounted because it's the future's problem. (And it's a great service to society that people have been debunking the myth of the Tragedy of the Commons which was an armchair moralist article in scientific clothing that had no empirical basis when it was published and yet got widely cited for a while because it was emotionally appealing.)

richk449 3y ago
Can you tell me more about how the tragedy of the commons is a myth? I am no economist, but I thought it was a straightforward and well understood outcome.
- Affric 3y ago
  PDF warning: https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113... The commons were well managed by local people and enclosure was a land grab by the rich.
  - richk449 3y ago
    I see. Thank you for the interesting article. The Tragedy of the Commons as a historical event in Medieval England has been criticized (hard to say debunked from this one article, but perhaps there are more). The Tragedy of the Commons as an economical/social phenomena has not been debunked. Since 99.9% of the uses of the phrase Tragedy of the Commons are referring to the second case, I'm not sure it is helpful to say that it has been debunked.
    - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
      >The Tragedy of the Commons as an economical/social phenomena has not been debunked. This was what I came here for too. I'm sure someone out there is more interested in the history of the phrase than the economics phenomenon it points to, but it sure isn't me. You could rename it the Doohickey, drop any historical precedent, and I'd still be very interested if someone said the Doohickey was debunked.
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      I suppose it is also worth asking the opposite: is there any reason to believe in the tragedy of the commons as an economic or social phenomenon? There must be anecdotes in favor or against, but so we have any reason to believe it is a generally applicable rule?
    - southerntofu 3y ago
      Well it's not just historically debunked. There's plenty of modern examples of common resources being well-managed. Take free public transit in some european cities, for example: they're not the trashy full-of-grafiti hellscape capitalists will have you believe. You should take it the other way around: the tragedy of the commons is a myth. Of course you could cherry pick some story of bad actors misbehaving. But that's not a general rule, it's not bound by fate, and you just have to shove your foot up their face to prevent it. But in the absence of egotistic capitalist pigs, most people are reasonable in managing shared resources and that's how humanity survived for so long before inventing private property. Anedotally, that's also my experience living in collectives for a few decades: there may be abusive situations dealing with shared resources (who ate all the tomatoes?!) but that's only mildly annoying because it's the exception rather than the norm.
      - Sakos 3y ago
        You seem to have fundamentally misunderstood the tragedy of the commons. Yes, public transit is well managed in certain places, so there is no tragedy. That's the point. Public or common resources must be well-managed and regulated or they're exploited without regard for consequences. There are plenty of examples of said exploitation, just look at water rights in the US. Your anecdotal and biased experience doesn't disprove it.
  - raxxorraxor 3y ago
    A lot of these concepts lack specification on the requirements that must be met for them to occur. If people feel a common responsibility for something, the concept does not apply at all or only to a lesser degree. Our fundamental economic beliefs about growth still reflect this, even with rescue arguments about growth in productivity and efficiency (which rarely apply to any natural resource). In essence the peasants of yesterday are the B.A. of today. However, there is also the comedy of the commons and the tragedy of the anticommons for that matter. Open source for example doesn't suffer from the tragedy of the commons as much as it is suffering from the tragedy of the anticommons.
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      When you say anticommons, do you mean commercial entities abusing open source or just like rich folks in general?
      - raxxorraxor 3y ago
        More in a sense that knowledge is kept behind closed doors and is not shared, when it isn't made a public good. Data from OpenAI for example.
        Obscurity4340 3y ago
        Zing! That name is def the dark-pattern naming equivalent of a problem
- throwaway736261 3y ago
  Check out Ostrom's work and the long line of work following it. Not just Ostrom though.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
To clarify, I did not say it was ToTC. I said riff on, and then I clarified. The controlling entity clearly is failing, sans charging a cutting in line fee. It's in the best interest of the rest to do something. Yet nothing. Perhaps not a ToTC but it's nonetheless a tragedy, or soon to be. And The Commons elsewhere are sure to be the ones to bear the brunt of the blow.

richk449 3y ago

Can you tell me more about how the tragedy of the commons is a myth? I am no economist, but I thought it was a straightforward and well understood outcome.

Affric 3y ago
PDF warning: https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113... The commons were well managed by local people and enclosure was a land grab by the rich.
- richk449 3y ago
  I see. Thank you for the interesting article. The Tragedy of the Commons as a historical event in Medieval England has been criticized (hard to say debunked from this one article, but perhaps there are more). The Tragedy of the Commons as an economical/social phenomena has not been debunked. Since 99.9% of the uses of the phrase Tragedy of the Commons are referring to the second case, I'm not sure it is helpful to say that it has been debunked.
  - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    >The Tragedy of the Commons as an economical/social phenomena has not been debunked. This was what I came here for too. I'm sure someone out there is more interested in the history of the phrase than the economics phenomenon it points to, but it sure isn't me. You could rename it the Doohickey, drop any historical precedent, and I'd still be very interested if someone said the Doohickey was debunked.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    I suppose it is also worth asking the opposite: is there any reason to believe in the tragedy of the commons as an economic or social phenomenon? There must be anecdotes in favor or against, but so we have any reason to believe it is a generally applicable rule?
  - southerntofu 3y ago
    Well it's not just historically debunked. There's plenty of modern examples of common resources being well-managed. Take free public transit in some european cities, for example: they're not the trashy full-of-grafiti hellscape capitalists will have you believe. You should take it the other way around: the tragedy of the commons is a myth. Of course you could cherry pick some story of bad actors misbehaving. But that's not a general rule, it's not bound by fate, and you just have to shove your foot up their face to prevent it. But in the absence of egotistic capitalist pigs, most people are reasonable in managing shared resources and that's how humanity survived for so long before inventing private property. Anedotally, that's also my experience living in collectives for a few decades: there may be abusive situations dealing with shared resources (who ate all the tomatoes?!) but that's only mildly annoying because it's the exception rather than the norm.
    - Sakos 3y ago
      You seem to have fundamentally misunderstood the tragedy of the commons. Yes, public transit is well managed in certain places, so there is no tragedy. That's the point. Public or common resources must be well-managed and regulated or they're exploited without regard for consequences. There are plenty of examples of said exploitation, just look at water rights in the US. Your anecdotal and biased experience doesn't disprove it.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  A lot of these concepts lack specification on the requirements that must be met for them to occur. If people feel a common responsibility for something, the concept does not apply at all or only to a lesser degree. Our fundamental economic beliefs about growth still reflect this, even with rescue arguments about growth in productivity and efficiency (which rarely apply to any natural resource). In essence the peasants of yesterday are the B.A. of today. However, there is also the comedy of the commons and the tragedy of the anticommons for that matter. Open source for example doesn't suffer from the tragedy of the commons as much as it is suffering from the tragedy of the anticommons.
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    When you say anticommons, do you mean commercial entities abusing open source or just like rich folks in general?
    - raxxorraxor 3y ago
      More in a sense that knowledge is kept behind closed doors and is not shared, when it isn't made a public good. Data from OpenAI for example.
      - Obscurity4340 3y ago
        Zing! That name is def the dark-pattern naming equivalent of a problem
throwaway736261 3y ago
Check out Ostrom's work and the long line of work following it. Not just Ostrom though.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

To clarify, I did not say it was ToTC. I said riff on, and then I clarified. The controlling entity clearly is failing, sans charging a cutting in line fee. It's in the best interest of the rest to do something. Yet nothing. Perhaps not a ToTC but it's nonetheless a tragedy, or soon to be. And The Commons elsewhere are sure to be the ones to bear the brunt of the blow.