3 ms·

A tragedy of the commons can only be solved top down.

• dredmorbius 2y ago
  Actually, that's not the case, and wasn't even the argument made in Garrett Hardin's original essay on the topic, which suggested instead privatisation as a frequently-effective mechanism. Those who are opposed to that approach on the basis of criticisms of enclosures acts and the end of traditional commons have many arguments on their side, but the general effectiveness of privatisation in that particular case is not amongst them. (Hardin is also pointedly arguing about a far larger problem, including of commons which are less readily closed such as ocean fisheries, and of the total global human population of Earth, in which privatisation might not hold, or for which other approaches, some of which are strongly criticised today, might be applied.) The one dynamic which solving a tragedy of the commons requires is that it not be possible to privatise gains whilst socialising costs, which drives the entire logic of the tragedy. How that is arrived at still leaves multiple options.