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That seems to be ahistorical revisionism. The common land in mediaeval England was literally called "waste" as in a "wasteland". It seems that some ideological

by nvm0n2 3y ago

That seems to be ahistorical revisionism. The common land in mediaeval England was literally called "waste" as in a "wasteland". It seems that some ideological academics are now trying to rewrite this history. Wikipedia has been edited into a state of internal inconsistency where it says [2]: > Millions of acres were "common land", but this did not mean public land open to everybody, a popular fallacy ... Certainly their rights were strong, because the lord was not entitled to build on his own land, or fence off any part of it So this land wasn't fenced off in any way and the putative "owner" couldn't build anything on it, yet this article argues it also wasn't "open to everybody", despite literally being called "common land" that is the root of the word "commoners". It also says: > the commoners' right to graze the lord's land with their animals was restricted by law - precisely in order to prevent overgrazing ... but the citation for this is very curious. It's a book [1] with an abstract that says: The report of the Royal Commission on Common Lands (of which both authors were members) revealed not only the chaotic state of the laws relating to the commons but also the lack of information regarding their nature, distribution and extent. Some commons being shamefully misused, while some very large tracts are lying idle and serving no useful purpose either economically or for public enjoyment. ... which sounds exactly like the well known tragedy of the commons that supposedly doesn't exist. Checking the history of the Wikipedia talk page (which is nearly empty) reveals what you might expect: someone engaged in a massive edit war to totally rewrite this page along ideological lines, claiming the classic understanding taught to British schoolchildren was "neomalthusian rubbish", whatever that means. They appear to have simply ground down their opposition, then the whole discussion was deleted by a bot. Nice. Wikipedia has become such a dumpster fire in recent years, it's so sad. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-England-Collins-Naturalist-Library/dp/0007342225 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-England-Collins-Naturalist-L... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Fluorescence 3y ago
I can't understand what issue you are having. Common land was managed in different ways in different places (chaotic) with local laws granting rights that often restricted scale of access to prevent over-use. I'm not sure what your point is about waste is because The Lord's Waste was a specific legal designation separate from the more emotive devastated/unusable/excess we might be familiar with. The assumption that Common Land was unmanaged and owned by all is false but that doesn't mean it was always well managed. Be in no doubt that Enclosure was a horrifying theft of rights from the citizenry and in no way a solution to a Tragedy of the Commons.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  > The assumption that Common Land was unmanaged and owned by all is false How? The source wiki now cites for that claim contradicts it. It says lords owned/managed it but not really - they weren't able to control access or put anything on it (manage it), and none of the commoners were able to manage it either because none of them owned it. How do you think "scale of access" was restricted without basics like fences? Cows don't care about laws. The point of the tragedy of the commons is that without private property rights, resources get wasted and misused. The common land in mediaeval England is described in the book abstract as having that exact problem - it's either overgrazed and destroyed, or abandoned entirely. The solution was Enclosure, i.e. restoring ownership and building fences around the common areas, which is exactly the solution you'd need to utilize land effectively and prevent overgrazing.

by nvm0n2 3y ago

Fluorescence 3y ago

I can't understand what issue you are having. Common land was managed in different ways in different places (chaotic) with local laws granting rights that often restricted scale of access to prevent over-use. I'm not sure what your point is about waste is because The Lord's Waste was a specific legal designation separate from the more emotive devastated/unusable/excess we might be familiar with. The assumption that Common Land was unmanaged and owned by all is false but that doesn't mean it was always well managed. Be in no doubt that Enclosure was a horrifying theft of rights from the citizenry and in no way a solution to a Tragedy of the Commons.

nvm0n2 3y ago
> The assumption that Common Land was unmanaged and owned by all is false How? The source wiki now cites for that claim contradicts it. It says lords owned/managed it but not really - they weren't able to control access or put anything on it (manage it), and none of the commoners were able to manage it either because none of them owned it. How do you think "scale of access" was restricted without basics like fences? Cows don't care about laws. The point of the tragedy of the commons is that without private property rights, resources get wasted and misused. The common land in mediaeval England is described in the book abstract as having that exact problem - it's either overgrazed and destroyed, or abandoned entirely. The solution was Enclosure, i.e. restoring ownership and building fences around the common areas, which is exactly the solution you'd need to utilize land effectively and prevent overgrazing.