Posted on 12/04/2007 10:01:03 PM PST by goldstategop
My Thanksgiving column about how the pilgrims nearly starved practicing communal farming but thrived once they switched to private cultivation made some people angry. One commented, "Sharing of the fruits of our labor is a bad thing?"
I never said that.
I practice charity regularly. I believe in sharing. But when government takes our money by force and gives it to others, that's not sharing.
And sharing can't be a basis for production -- you can't share what hasn't been produced. My point is that production and prosperity require property rights. Property rights associate effort with benefits. Where benefits are unrelated to effort, people do the least amount necessary to get by while taking the most they can get. Economists have a pithy way of summing up this truth: No one washes a rental car.
It's called the "tragedy of the commons." The idea is as old as ancient Greece, but ecologist Garrett Hardin popularized the phrase in a 1968 Science magazine article. Hardin described a common pasture on which anyone may graze his livestock. Each person will benefit from a larger herd but will suffer only a tiny fraction of the negative effects of overgrazing. Public Choice economists call this "concentrated benefits and dispersed costs."
That's a recipe for depleting the resource. If a herdsman were to leave a portion of the commons ungrazed, someone else would gain the benefit, so why leave it ungrazed? Soon, all the grass is gone, and the livestock die. That's the tragedy of the commons.
There are two possible solutions. One is to put someone in charge. But that someone would have arbitrary power over the rest -- he may give his friends better terms -- and one individual can't possibly know how to plan the village economy.
The second solution, as the pilgrims learned the hard way, is private property. Property rights unite costs and benefits. If a herdsman owns part of the pasture, he reaps not only 100 percent of the benefits of enlarging his herd but also 100 percent of the costs. Under those conditions, he behaves differently. If he undergrazes, uses fewer pesticides, etc., to make sure that the pasture flourishes next year, he can anticipate the future benefits. So, he has a strong incentive to be a good steward of the land.
This principle is pertinent today. People lament endangered species and call for government action. But that is the inferior "solution" already discussed. What we need is private property.
Cows, chickens, turkeys and pigs are never at risk of becoming endangered. What's special about them? Only that individuals own these animals and sell them. That gives livestock owners an incentive to keep them healthy and plentiful year after year.
The animals whose future we do worry about -- whales and elephants, for example -- are not typically subject to ownership. It's the tragedy of the commons.
Elephants are endangered because in much of Africa, poachers kill them for their tusks. Poachers have no incentive to expand herds, and neither does anyone else. Governments outlawed hunting and the ivory trade, but that hasn't stopped the loss of elephants. The plain is too vast to police it all.
Yet, where the property principle has been applied -- however imperfectly -- the fate of the elephants has been reversed. Villagers in Zimbabwe earn income by permitting hunting. In effect, the villagers have property rights in the herds. That changes attitudes. They'd be poorer if they let the elephants be hunted to extinction.
The result? "To say that we have too many elephants would be an understatement," Zimbabwe Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management acting director E.W. Kanhanga said in 2001.
The system is not perfect because individual property rights -- which would create a stronger sense of responsibility -- are not allowed. Moreover, the system has come under suspicion because cronies of Zimbabwe's despicable dictator, Robert Mugabe, are said to be killing elephants in game parks.
Nevertheless, Zimbabwe tried property rights. Kenya tried prohibition. Kenya lost elephants while Zimbabwe gained them.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It’s amazing how many people really don’t get this.
Acolyte chapter & verse ping.
Not amazing at all, not even mildly surprising. After all, the majority of people these days, particularly young people, learn their ‘’economics’’ in pulbic skewls, those cesspools of quasi-Marxism and egalitarianism-at-all-costs.
Same problem here with common property in my state.
The DNR has built ATV and snowmobile trails that abutt private property. Some who use these trails abuse the privilege of using this common land. In my opinion, these trespasssers, who dump garbage, cut trails through private property and destroy trees, are nothing more than communists who believe all land is theirs, and they may destroy as much of it as they please whenever they want. The state allows this destruction and are guilty of aiding and abetting.
This is also the tragedy of the commons that isn’t brought to public attention.
Some owners arer building fences straight across these trails, claiming private ownership, and forbidding people the use of these “public” trails. So far, the courts are backing the property owners.
My own thought is to sue the state for creating a public nuisance, under the idea that the state is not patrolling these “trails” to prevent law-breaking. Nor have fences been built along the trails to prevent trespassing and damage to private property.
This is the kind of situation deliberately created by the Marxists in government to discourage private ownership of rural property.
A successful multii-billion dollar class action lawsuit against the state would certainly put an end to “common” property and all its inherent abuses.
Thanks for the ping. Thanks for posting. Very good article by Stossel.
The Brits solved the original Commons tragedy by the Enclosures Act.
I’d not worry ‘bout it. Mom just came to collect the car.
Its not all that big of a deal. Just ask cyclotic. People off themselves all the time (don’t worry ‘bout it).
Tragedy of the commons bump.
Note to self: Look up Article from Garrett Harding
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Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a391f6d546577.htm
Pursuit od Liberty: The Tragedy of the Commons
Conservatism Opinion (Published) Keywords: PURSUIT OF LIBERTY, LIBERTARIANISM, HARDIN, TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS, POPULATION, ENVIRONMENTALISM
Source: Science, 162(1968):1243-1248
Published: 1968 Author: Garrett Hardin
Posted on 05/14/2000 20:21:56 PDT by annalex
The Tragedy of the Commons
Garrett Hardin (1968)
“The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin, Science, 162(1968):1243-1248.
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Trees and crops reclaim desert in Niger [because they started allowing private ownership]
Intrnational Herald Tribune ^ | February 11, 2007 | Lydia Polgreen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1783092/posts?page=6#6
To: grundle
That’s the solution to global warming and depleted fisheries: parcel out private ownership.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243
Famous essay by Garrett Hardin: Tragedy of the Commons.
6 posted on 02/12/2007 6:17:10 PM PST by Kevmo (The first labor of Huntercles: Defeating the 3-headed RINO)
Freeper Carry_Okie has a good book related to the power of property rights in solving similar issues in envirnmental concerns:
http://www.naturalprocess.net/
Thanks. Carry Okie, is there a thread where you posted this stuff on FR? I note that there are a lot of hits, and here are some of the more entriguing ones.
amchugh’s home page
natural process (A theory about using free market forces for environmental stewardship)
http://www.naturalprocess.net/
From NattieShea’s home page
My Dad’s Website
http://www.naturalprocess.net/
madfly’s tagline for a while:
(AZFIRE.org, NATURALPROCESS.net)
Thanks.
They need the TMDL gambit, the origins of which are detailed in Part V of |my book| to get it done.
***Carry Okie, note that the link to “your book” no longer works on that thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008628/posts?page=1#1
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Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
No, I thought it unethical to use FR that way for my commercial purposes although JR would have probably gone for it. I have told individuals about the book here as was appropriate to the conversation only because it's the best reference available for this particular topic. Be sure to consider the reviews. When it first came out, things looked pretty hopeful. Unfortunately, it issued weeks before 9-11, so its introduction didn't exactly create any noise. I had burnt every dime I had writing and publishing it that I didn't have any money for promotion. It's also a very rigorous look at the topic to demonstrate the capability of the method so as to convince any academic that it is serious. Unfortunately, it is so comprehensive and radical that it scared a lot of those people away. So it has a limited audience. Sales were slow enough (it's self published) that I just dropped selling is because I have other fish to fry. I have a hundred copies or so left.
I have tried like hell to get candidates to listen, but I'm not famous and have avoided notoriety until my habitat restoration projects were far enough along as to be undeniably superior to any park, preserve, wilderness area, or "pristine area," as a way of generating moral and technical authority (I'm an engineer, not a botanist). According to the local botanists, we're there; there is no other property on the entire Central Coast of California that is as clean of non-native plants.
This place had been a hell-hole of weeds and fuel. It could be even better, especially if I could get the government off my back. I have a plan for that, but I can't divulge it here. You can learn a bit by reading my patent application; we're seven years into the process.
On the general PR front, I did a bit of that last year as time permitted: Interview with Mark Vande Pol (FReeper Carry_Okie). It's a long and broad ranging discussion I'm sure you'll find thought-evoking.
I have published a few articles, typically here and at Eco-logic online.
Skinning Cats Legal Means to Disarm the Second Amendment
Kelo and the 14th Amendment Exploring a Constitutional Koan
ESA Reform - "Sound Science" and the Law of Unintended Consequences
An Analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy
Frankly, I'm too busy taking care of my land to do much more, so thanks for the curiosity. I've got to get back to work though so I won't be able to respond much until this evening. Rain Thursday night.
Very, very cool. I posted a response on that interview thread.
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Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
Hi Carry:
When I click on the link on your website to try to buy the book, I get a 404 error.
http://www.naturalprocess.net/
buy the book
http://www.wildergarten.com/WPPress/ss-index.html
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Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
Right. I'm not selling it any more and haven't updated the site. Not a priority.
If you want one, send me a freepmail with a mailing address.
What you talkin’ ‘bout Willis?
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