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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 fr

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.

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.