Three possible solutions:
1. A Big Fat Dictator who shoots anyone who tries to put two cows on the commons.
2. Sell the commons, making it private so that folk take care of it. (We might call this the Selfish Git solution)
3. Develop a culture that treats the commons with respect.
Which will you choose? — Banno
Not I.
A regulatory body with teeth falls under the Big Fat Dictator solution. All well and good, but I want here to expose the morality of the very need for such a solution.
Sure, Let's work out how many cows the commons will support. Let's also consider that having more cows than you ought is unethical. And that's what is missing from the economic analysis.
Accepting the economic, amoral analysis has led to the situation we are in now, where those with more cows on the common are somehow considered virtuous. — Banno
Let's also consider that having more cows than you ought is unethical. — Banno
A truism. Doing anything more than you "ought" is immoral by definition. But this isn't a moral question. It's a political/legal one, so we impose laws to advance the state's interest. Whatever you're getting at, get at, which seems to be that you want our consciences to tell us that 3 trout per season is sustainable, but not 4. 10 trout is not gluttony, immoral, and a sin. It's just more than the population can sustain, so we regulate it. Maybe in other seasons 10 makes sense. — Hanover
You're sounding too much like unenlightened. I'm out. — frank
The regulatory state enters in when this tradition falls apart, either because we're too recently transplanted to know without knowing what practices work, or because a new economic model/ behavior has torn to pieces organic communities. — csalisbury
If you put two cows on the commons, we should all move away from you when you go to the Pub for a beer after work — Banno
Right. Punish people who don't do as they ought. How is this different than fining or taxing for a privilege which Hanover suggested. Shunning people equates to not allowing their cows in the commons or not doing business with them, both of which hurt them financially. You an Hanover seem closer in your thinking than you'd like to admit.Shun folk who put two cows on the Commons. — Banno
Sounds like a true libertarian response. Let the people, not the government, treat cheaters how they should be treated.Shun folk who put two cows on the Commons — Banno
That community owned land in England was not in especially bad shape, and that plenty of societies around the world have had communally owned land at some point during their history, without this apparently leading to some calamity. — Echarmion
The third option seems to me to be the one spoken of by First Nations folk. Respect for the world in which we are embedded, rejection of excessive individualism, all that airy-fairy stuff economists hate.
Pointing out that you were the dictator over and over again is not that helpful. — Banno
Not at all. I'm a tyrant. — unenlightened
folk will always take more than they ought. Someone will sneak in an extra cow.
And doubtless they are right. But I still prefer the third option. — Banno
Shunning people equates to not allowing their cows in the commons or not doing business with them, both of which hurt them financially. You an Hanover seem closer in your thinking than you'd like to admit. — Harry Hindu
So, (1.) the Environmental Committee issues a dictat from time to time that declares the fish allowance this year, and (2.) the Hanoverian Hussars are deputed to kill the first-born of apostates.
In the happy Banno world of social responsibility, government is a simple matter of coordination, (1.) experts work out what is best and we all do it; (2.) the brutality of coercion, is only required because there are cheats.
Things could be better than they are though, and mainly by not letting the cheats make the rules and enforce them. — unenlightened
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