Michael, I think, sets out quite succinctly the critique of Hardin's
TofC. It is historically incorrect and it neglects the critical element
that the commons collapsed when the market encroached upon the commons,
frequently forcefully with the state as agency. Though I could refer to
the classical case of the demise of the British commons, let me take
examples from North America where the European invasion destroyed the
social regulation of the commons. Take, for example, the fur trade.
Production (by the aboriginal population) remained sustainable and was
regulated under traditional rules -- production for subsistence food was
common, production for market trade was reserved by traditional family
harvesting areas, i.e. a mixture of common and 'individual' or
family/clan property rights (which were not absolute and which
ultimately resided with the 'tribe'). What destroyed that and forced the
Indians west was competition from the European traders who moved into
Indian territory to deal/compete with the natives bypassing the
middlemen traders. Competition between the two major European companies
(HBC and XY companies) resulted in the beavering out of large areas
forcing the trade further and further northwest. In short, it was
(merchant) capitalist competition that destroyed the social controls on
the commons. The tragedy was European imperialism, not of the commons.
The second example I would use is the destruction of the prairie
'buffalo' (more correctly, Bison) commons to private property. (By the
way, brilliantly analysed by the late Irene Spry in her article on the
subject "The transition from a Nomadic to a Settled Economy in Western
Canada, 1856-1896" (1968). The commons were not destroyed by the
aboriginal/metis population but by the incursion of British land claims
into the west in the 1860s and '70s and by the pushing of the American
Indian population into western Canada by the Indian wars and the
incursion of American buffalo robe/trophy hunters and whiskey traders
in the 1880s and beyond. In short, it was not the tragedy of the
commons, but the tragedy of ethnic cleansing under the pressure of
capitalist markets.
The whole idea that fishing could avoid the external crashing of
common property rights by privatisation of property rights iis
ludicrous. This is an issue that is becoming increasingly threatening
these days here in Canada. The problem is that fish do not stay still
in one area but move through all sorts of different rights
jurisdictions. This has become a serious issue of dispute between
Canada and the US since salmon who return every 4 years to breed in BC
rivers are allegedly being overfished by US and Alaskan fishers meaning
that fewer and fewer return to their source to spawn. This is not to
downplay the negligence of BC forest and mine regulation that has
destroyed much of the spawning grounds and poisoned the spawning rivers
and creeks, nor to underplay the importance of global warming (and hence
water warming) to the declining fish stocks. But what it does say is
that private property rights is no answer to collapsing fish stocks,
particularly as long as Japan, Spain, etc. defy international regulation
and refuse to abide by the social regulation of the commons by their
destructive overfishing, driftnetting, etc. of so-called international
waters. The tragedy of the commons is, rather, the tragedy of capitalist
imperialism upon the local social regulation that makes the commons an
efficient community production resource.
Paul P
Michael Perelman wrote:
Here is what I wrote in the Perverse Economy about the supposed Tragedy of the
Commons
The market figures prominently in two competing explanations for environmental
disasters, including extinctions such as that of the passenger pigeon.
According to
the earlier sections of this chapter, markets pose an environmental danger. I
described how market forces give people an incentive to use resources with
abandon
because they take little or no account of the future costs to society of
wasteful
practices.
A competing theory proposes that markets offer the best possible approach to
providing environmental protection. Garrett Hardin, a conservative biologist,
wrote
the classic statement of this proposition during the salad days of the
environmental
movement in an article entitled, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (Hardin 1968).
The
"Commons" in the title referred to the land that traditional English villagers
shared for grazing their animals.
With no evidence whatsoever, except for an obscure nineteenth-century
pamphlet,
Hardin insisted that the absence of property rights in the English common lands
inevitably led to an environmental disaster. Based on his limited
understanding of
traditional English land-use patterns, Hardin declared that without private
property, each individual would selfishly attempt to graze as many animals as
possible on a finite area of land, putting excessive stress on the environment.
Hardin's story has been so widely circulated that it has become commonly
believed.
Even serious environmental books frequently reprint the article.
Experts in British rural history dismiss Hardin's account. Specialists who
have
done extensive research about contemporary collective ownership also dispute
Hardin's contention that such an arrangement will necessarily cause excessive
use of
the environment. They distinguish between open access systems where anybody is
free
to take all that they want and a commons, in which people work out rules for
sharing
a resource. These scholars have found that traditional societies frequently
developed effective ethical codes to ensure both sustainable aggregate harvests
and
a relatively equitable distribution of access to resources. They report that
traditional societies have created arrangements that are "far more binding on
individual conscience than any government regulations could ever be" (Sethi and
Somanathan 1996, p. 766). Rather than belabor the details of this subject, I
would
direct the reader to Elinor Ostrum's excellent introduction to the literature
that
she prepared for economists (see Ostrum 2000).
Of course, the power of Hardin's article had less to do with its historical
veracity than its comforting message for those who wish to nurture faith in the
market. The evidence that Hardin mustered was little stronger than an urban
myth.
No matter that he was wrong; no matter that these villages had institutions that
actually prevented the overuse of the commons -- Hardin's article continues to
be
read. The intended lesson is supposed to be that no reasonable alternatives to
the
market exist.
--
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA
95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com
--
Paul Phillips Professor Emertus, Economics University of Manitoba Home
and Office: 3806 - 36A st., Vernon BC, Canada. ViT 6E9 tel: 1 (250)
558-0830 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
