turner (03/13/83)
#N:ucbesvax:7100013:000:4545
ucbesvax!turner Mar 12 20:05:00 1983
"The Tragedy of the Commons" seems to have become Exhibit 1 in
the ongoing trial of Captalism vs. Socialism. Apparently, this
idea comes out of somebody's economics course. No specifics are
given, so it's hard to tell when and where the alleged Rape of
Public Property happened. Being against BOTH sides of this issue,
I get to enjoy puncturing both side's trial balloons.
The Commons might have been in colonial New England or Pennsylvania.
In those places, it was, as mentioned, a community grazing-ground.
Did this Tragedy ever take place? I think it might have, but probably
owing more to outside population pressure -- community erosion by
traffic. This traffic was brought about by the activities of colonial
promoters, who sat in European capitals, signed up colonists, and
collected per-head royalties from the Crown (or whoever was sponsoring
the invasion of Native American lands at the time.) A Commons might
be perfectly healthy for a while, then be over-run by an influx of
emigres, get over-grazed once, and cause the town's original denizens
(who probably had a good sense of the good uses of community property)
to pick up and move on. Pretty soon: muggings, winos in the gutter,
smog, billboards advertising menthol cigarettes, and acid rain -- an
unfortunate precedent was set very early about treatment of all things
held in common. We suffer to this day.
Forgotten in all this is the fact that this country used to CONSIST
of community property. Most of Kentucky used to be one huge common
hunting ground, shared by two neighboring tribes. Being a source of
food, one might want to move into it. Tribes would do this, over-hunt
and get into wars with other tribes who wanted the same hunting grounds.
Sometime many millenia before Europeans arrived, they called it quits.
The treaty said: anybody can hunt there, but nobody can live there. It
worked well until the Barbarian Hordes arrived from England, Ireland
and Germany.
Another example is HUD-sponsored housing projects -- monstrosities
which often turn into pits of human misery, partly because of "Tragedy of
the Commons" kinds of behavior. Researchers who look into the failures
of these projects have discovered at least one interesting thing: here
and there, one finds small corners where the residents quite
conscientiously maintain common areas -- pick up trash, erase
graffiti, keep small shrubs, and yell at other people's kids who
try to mess things up. "Small Corners" is the key here: if the
physical structure is RELATIVELY private, the overall level of
maintenance is good. Community property is not inherently untenable,
but certain kinds of property are inherently un-communal -- even when
they are called "public." Traffic level is an important variable.
A final note on individual vs. group rationality: there is a labor-
management scheme called "piece-work" -- the basic idea is that people
will get paid on a per-item production basis. Hmm, sounds good, says
the Randite: not only does it reward real effort, but rationality would
lead the workers to realize that unionizing doesn't benefit anybody
but the relatively lazy. The reality of this "rationality" is that
piece-work frequently becomes a union-organizer's most useful issue.
Workers (yes, Tom Craver, even DILIGENT workers) will vote FOR a union,
with a platform of OPPOSING piece-work, because they want to work in
a place where they don't have to compete with each other. (I invite
you to think about what competing for a living means in a plant with
lots of dangerous heavy machinery. What the management sees as a
"diligent, entrepreneurial piece-worker" might be a holy terror to
his co-workers, who have to live in fear of sabotage.) Economic
rationality doesn't work too well in many of the jungles that our
society still has hiding under its well-groomed surface. And rational
self-interest has, in many contexts, a character which Tom Craver
would automatically brand with the pejoratives of "altruist" and
"collectivist."
So please: let's not strip too much context from real events.
And by all means, let's consider as many representative REAL events as
possible -- abstractions have the eventual disadvantage of becoming boring.
For A Better World (Or At Least A More Exciting Discussion)
Michael Turner