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| Authored by: Wol on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 07:36 PM EDT |
Except the "tragedy of the commons" isn't the disaster it's painted.
The commons have always had rules that have protected them.
The problem has always been when *external* forces come in and muck up the
balance. And usually those external forces are people who come in, fail to
understand, and enforce changes that the locals object to.
The enclosures in England weren't quite like that, admittedly, but the external
forces were there. The commons were enclosed fastest next to big cities where
the big landlords saw a way to fence in and take over the land in order to make
money by selling the produce to the city.
Same sort of thing with the clearances in Scotland - suddenly wool was valuable,
and the lairds drove the common people off the land to replace them with sheep.
And in Africa the land was usually carved up, not amongst the locals, but
amongst the politicos.
The tragedy of the commons is not the exploitation of the land by the people,
but the exploitation of those who rely on the land by those who see the
opportunity of a quick buck.
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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