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Comment by mjburgess | Hacker News Reader

which is also basically the same point made by Hobbes about the state of nature

Hobbes, Rousseau were effectively both trying to solve the "tragedy of the commons" problem with political collaboration. Hobbes is widely misunderstood by (romantic, naive, libertarian) fools to have said that absent a powerful soverign, life is "nasty brutish and short". What he more accurately said is that, "an unmanaged commons is nasty bruitsh and short" -- to use that kind of language

Rousseau, to the same romantic strain is widely misunderstood to have said that 'the unmanaged commons' is a delight. Instead, he basically said politically community isnt that required anyway, and if you're in trouble, just run away.

In either case, the tragedy of the commons issue is well known in other guises throughout the history of philosophy

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> In either case, the tragedy of the commons issue is well known in other guises throughout the history of philosophy

It really isn't. There are lots of anecdotes that appear to illustrate the tragedy, throughout history. But what they lack is what Ostrom added: the historical account of how a previously managed commons had its management structures dismantled by greed and power and only then was in a position to become a "tragedy". The result is that a very significant number of people believe that resources held in common always lead to "tragedy", when in fact the lesson is "the structures used to manage resources held in common are critically important, and severe action should and must be taken against those who try to dismantle them". We can hold resources in common, but must be ever vigilant and actionful against the selfish bastards who seek to manipulate them for their own advantage.

Right, and that's pretty much exactly Hobbes analysis of the state of nature which is a hypothetical stripping away of such systems of political management.

The application of this principle to physical resources is novel, sure -- but the observation that "enforced coordination solves the rational self-interest problem" isnt novel.

Agreed that it's not novel.

But Ostrom's novel observation wasn't that. It was "all those stories of how shared ownership of resources leads to tragedies? they're wrong, and part of a mostly uncoordinated attempt to get you to abandon the idea of shared ownership of resources. It is, as ever, greed and power that lead to those tragedies".

These are both ways of saying that the problem isn't the commons (shared ownership), it's an issue of accountability (where "abandon something broken and find another" is a way of exercising accountability).

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