Common VS Government Property: The Tragedy of the Unmanaged

[eye2i2hear]

Common Versus Government Property
by Kevin Carson in The Freeman, Published by the Foundation for Economic Education
April 27, 2010
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Quote:Garrett Hardin himself later expressed regret that he had not titled his famous essay “The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons” and repudiated much of the use that had been made of it.

As economist Joseph Stiglitz put it, “Conservatives used the tragedy of the commons to argue for property rights, and efficiency was achieved as people were thrown off the commons. But the effects of throwing a lot of people out of their livelihood were enormous. What Ostrom has demonstrated is the existence of social control mechanisms that regulate the use of commons without having to resort to property rights.”

But in fact –a fact ignored by those on both the left and right who equate “private property” to individual property and contrast “property” with the commons– the commons were a form of property rights. And the eviction of peasants from the commons was not simply an efficiency loss; it was a case of the State expropriating property rights.

Even if one disagrees on theoretical/philosophical grounds, some re-assessment of relevant history included in the article makes it a read value (imo).

== and a bit of "jic": including of the quote by Stiglitz and his choice of "Conservatives" as arguably an unnecessarily risky one, per politico-polarizing speak too rampant presently in America, leads me to this pointing of it out; whether the word miniStatists, classical Propertarians, or such might more optimally preface his point, is of course subjective or personal; so I'm just saying don't let that dissuade your reading of the article ==

[NonEntity]

2i2,

When my cat pers, I sorta get it, but you per all the time and I mostly have no idea what you mean when you per. I understand 5 percent. That means "5 out of one hundred." What do you mean when you per? I don't get the warm fuzzies from your pering that I do from my cat... I just get confused.

- NonE

[eye2i2hear]

Ok, heir dictiontator: purr Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913):

Quote:Per
Through; by means of; through the agency of; by; for; for each; as, per annum; per capita, by heads, or according to individuals; per curiam, by the court; per se, by itself, of itself. Per is also sometimes used with English words.

syn: via (by the way of)

Ci`, I'm jest doin' my bit for making it historically popular enough to one day be yet another 'official' AEnglish dictionary entrail. (don't ask me who I [strike]learned[/strike] picked it up from; I dunno, maybe it was my neighbor hoods...) ;D

Butt purr your bitchin', eye'll work on (yet another) reductionism.