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How do you address issues where tragedy of the commons comes into play? Every individual neighbourhood/smallest unit of government would (rightly) pick the best
by digitalPhonix 1y ago
How do you address issues where tragedy of the commons comes into play? Every individual neighbourhood/smallest unit of government would (rightly) pick the best option for themselves.
Having a large representative base is the easiest way to prevent that.
- landl0rd 1y agoCan you give me examples of situations like this? I am perfectly fine with something like the clean air and water acts (in principle if not implementation). Obviously people in an upstream town aren't allowed to dump pollution in the river to save money.
- digitalPhonix 1y agoBut why would the upstream town be interested in governing what they dump? Clearly someone/something has to assert the value that downstream towns have the right to unpolluted water. And won't that be the higher level government preventing the upstream town from asserting their rules and values?
- landl0rd 1y agoYes actually. I'm not opposed to any government above a highly-local level. The point of government is basically to fix externalities and run defense/diplomacy. For rivers we do in fact need co-ordinated governance to prevent people from polluting others' water downstream.