Jim Devine wrote:
It's a market failure as we of the Econ tribe typically use the term: a deviation of the real-world market from the idealized Walrasian world.
I don't think that's the way economists understand a market failure. A market failure is the inability of a market proper (i.e. with duly stipulated private-ownership rights) to turn out an optimal or efficient allocation. The "tragedy of the commons" is the exact opposite. It's an argument against communism. It's about the inefficiency of communism. So, obviously, the "neoclassicals" don't need to respond to it. A Marxist response to this argument is, however, implicit in Gotha. The mode of distribution cannot be ahead of the mode of production. The mode of distribution cannot be ahead of the level of public-mindedness of the producers. Etc. The evolution of them all is, well, dialectical. It's not semantics.
