Posted on 09/06/2009 4:17:37 PM PDT by Kaslin
An essay that appeared in Science magazine back in the 1960's explains clearly and concisely the self-destructive path we're on in our country today.
The essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons", showed how individuals, rationally pursuing their self-interest, could unintentionally destroy their own common existence.
A simple problem is put forth: A common grazing field is available to a community of herders. Everyone brings his or her cows there. Because there is no clear ownership, the only incentive each herder has is to bring all of his cows to graze and consume as much as possible.
With everyone doing it, and no one having any incentive to consider the implications of their behavior beyond consuming as much as possible, the final result is obvious. The field is destroyed.
Only when there is ownership and private property do individuals working in their own self-interest also make everyone else better off. When it's yours and you have responsibility for it, you think about tomorrow and how to make best of use of resources.
Today's equivalent of the common field is what we call the public sector -- government. And our grazers are politicians and interest groups.
Whereas a businessman will be out of business in short order if he delivers a poor product or mismanages his firm, politicians just graze in the public pasture doling out other peoples' resources.
There was a lot of flowery talk recently about Senator Kennedy on occasion of his passing.
Kennedy was a man born into wealth who spent a life in politics growing government. What was the personal consequence to him of what he did in politics? By personal consequence, I mean on his bank account, his survival. None.
He could convince poor people that he was working for their interest by fighting against school choice while everyone in his family attends private schools.
Or he could declare, as he did, that everyone has a "right" to health care. The personal costs of this to average Americans in the way of massive new intrusion of government into their lives and in major new taxes to pay for it all had absolutely no personal consequence to Kennedy. Does anybody think he ever sat in an HMO waiting room?
The public sector -- government -- was just a sandbox for Senator Kennedy to play in to seek personal power and glory.
President Obama has just submitted a 10-year federal government budget projecting our national debt burden to reach $17 trillion. This is greater than our entire GDP today.
Does anyone think Barack Obama manages his personal finances this way? Or if he were president of his own company that he would be running it this way?
The bigger government gets, the more "special interests" we have grazing for personal gain.
Federal government spending is now twice what it was ten years ago. Can it surprise anyone that over the same period expenditures on lobbying more than doubled and the number of lobbyists in Washington increased 50 percent?
Or that with the major new push for government managed health care that Washington is crawling with health care lobbyists? Health care lobbying expenditures in 2008 were a half billion dollars. The spending pace so far this year exceeds that.
A hundred years ago the "public sector" was less than ten percent of our economy. By the 1940's it was almost one quarter. Soon it will be one half.
Our people and resources are being increasingly diverted from the productive private economy to the public pasture, where they graze and consume for personal gain and in total destroy a once great country.
It's our "tragedy of the commons." It's why we should fight at all costs to slam the breaks on this massive government hijacking.
read
Stop sending money to Washington.
I see no evidence to the contrary. He is a smooth-talking parasite, not somebody who has worked his way up in the world. And his wife most likely spends every penny she can get her paws on.
Hear! Hear!
We now have a situation where the citizenry are only permitted to exist insofar as to feed the government.
Easy fix, we all go to work for the government. I have a new clip board to carry. All that money and 30 days a year vacation and plus those holidays. Then there are those none critical staff days off when there is no budget. You get to go fishing and get paid for not working. Cannot be fired and great retirement and medical. LOL
great analogy.
Per my earlier comment on another thread.
It is not clear how to solve Star Parker's commons tragedy, though. One approach might be to cancel all Federal tax collection (other than customs duties and moneys for only National Defense). This might ameliorate the problem somewhat, but would just push it down to the State level. You would need a solution for that, then.
btt
nice catch
The following essay tells an interesting story.
The Miracle of America
from
axes and hoes to high technology;
log cabins to air-conditioned condos;
horsedrawn wagons to autos, planes, and rockets;
scarcity to abundance; &
from tyrannical government rule to individual liberty
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
Most of our history books don’t tell us that, in the beginning, the pilgrims established a communal economic system. Each was to produce according to his ability and contribute his production to a common storehouse from which each was to draw according to his need.
The assurance that they would be fed from the common store, regardless of their contribution to it, had a peculiarly disabling effect on the colonists. Taking property away from some and giving it to others bred discontent and retarded employment. Human nature was the same then as now, and before long, there were more consumers than there were producers, and the pilgrims were near starvation. Governor Bradford, his advisors, and the colonists agreed that in order to increase their crops, each family would be allowed to do as it pleased with whatever it produced. In other words, a free market system was established. In Governor Bradford’s own words:
“This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means ye Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into ye field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene though great tiranie and oppression. . . . By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed. . . . and some of ye abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since this day . . . .” (Wm. Bradford, “Of Plimoth Plantation,” original manuscript, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1901)
Those who, today, favor central government planning, common ownership and redistribution of the earnings of others are advocating a system that Americans tried and rejected over 350 years ago. Their wisdom gave birth to the great American miracle!
Are we as wise today?
You Can Do Something About This!
(This message originally published in the mid-1980’s by Stedman Corporation’s Government Affairs & Free Enterprise Education Program – a former NC textile firm. For more essays in this series, visit www.ouragelessconstitution.com )
I saw someone on a blog pushing the idea that every working person should claim 3 or 4 more additional dependents right now on their W-2 at work. (Don’t claim ten dependents as evidently that raises a red flag with the IRS.) Bank the extra money in your paycheck, though, so you can pay the tax bill come April 15. His theory was for eleven months out of each year the government won’t have that money coming in monthly and the sharp drop in revenue might give them pause.
It used to be that FR’s search function would yield a rich backdrop on Garret Hardin’s essay, but now it finds only 2 articles. Re-stirring the mix with a fresh google...
The Tragedy Of The Commons Part II (How Property Rights Protect ...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 ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934897/posts - Cached - Similar -
NIMBY’s versus Socialism - Open Space Now Becoming Socialized GoodIt looks like open space is becoming a “tragedy of the commons”. ... 4 posted on 04/07/2007 8:02:13 PM PDT by Kevmo (Duncan Hunter just needs one Rudy G ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1813839/posts - Similar -
Before You Debate Economics ...I try to bump whenever I see “ tragedy of the commons “. ... 2 posted on 05/17/2007 12:13:59 PM PDT by Kevmo (Duncan Hunter just needs one Rudy G Campaign ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1835299/posts - Cached - Similar -
Replies... to the point of overloading...a classic example of the “tragedy of the commons”. ... 44 posted on 12/02/2008 3:08:06 PM PST by Kevmo (Palin/Hunter 2012) ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2141697/replies?c=1 - Similar -
Disowned by the Ownership Society (class warfare regurgitated)BMFLR on ownership society, tragedy of the commons, that kind of thing. 22 posted on 02/06/2008 10:36:58 PM PST by Kevmo (SURFRINAGWIASS : Shut Up RINOs. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1966195/posts - Similar -
“Right to Carry” and the “Tragedy of the Commons”Sep 3, 2009 ... We can only find a just and efficient resolution by treating this as a tragedy of the commons issue. Both sides have a point but neither can ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2331342/posts - Cached - Similar -
The Tragedy Of The Commons Part II (How Property Rights Protect ...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 ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934897/posts - Cached - Similar -
Yandle on the Tragedy of the Commons and the Implications for ...Oct 29, 2007 ... Bruce Yandle of Clemson University and George Mason University’s Mercatus Center looks at the tragedy of the commons and the various ways ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1918194/posts - Cached - Similar -
Pilgrims Socialist Experiment Failed too...Aug 23, 2009 ... The Tragedy Of The Commons Part II (How Property Rights Protect ...Famous essay by Garrett Hardin: Tragedy of the Commons. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2322871/posts - Cached - Similar -
Reclaiming the CommonsAug 4, 2002 ... The “tragedy of the commons” narrative “invoke[s] an image of helpless ... Absent from this “tragedy of the commons” argument—and related ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/727212/posts - Cached - Similar -
The American Way of War, What’s wrong with the military? (Long read)And then we have “The Tragedy of the Commons” in which the genetically inferior .... The author doesn’t understand the expression “Tragedy of the Commons”, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/821486/posts - Cached - Similar -
Trees and crops reclaim desert in Niger [because they started ...Famous essay by Garrett Hardin: Tragedy of the Commons. ... “Another expression of scarcity was the ‘tragedy of the commons’ that was popularised by Garrett ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1783092/posts - Cached - Similar -
“Of Ccourse We’re Not Going To Pay Back The Chinese”Aug 9, 2009 ... The tragedy of the commons in the national treasury will not magically change in the next decade where the country will take hacksaws to the ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2311984/posts - Cached - Similar -
The Professor who failed his entire classJul 26, 2009 ... This is a variant of the “tragedy of the commons” story usually told in econ 101. Very few students understand it until they start paying ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2301525/posts - Cached - Similar -
And by the way, those who use the phrase "common good" to justify collectivist, socialist, statist practices, are misusing a good word with an honorable pedigree. "Common good" used to be, and should be, related to the concept of "Natural Law" (another, ouch, often-misused term) which points to the observable truths of human nature and human society, and the moral and social principles essential for the flourishing of the individual person, and of the society extending through generations.
A true understanding of the "common good" would recognize the foundational nature of individual initiative, responsibility, moral accountability, and enterprise.
But in thepresent political milieu, the words "common good" (like "social justice") are now used by fools and charlatans who don't understand that the looting (called "distributing") now will shortly lead to the ruin of all.
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