“The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled After 100 Years”

Mark Thoma discusses “The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled After 100 Years”.

Thoma quotes Robert Stavins as saying that:

Conventional regulatory policies, which have not accounted for economic responses, have been excessively costly, ineffective, or even counter-productive. The problems behind what Garrett Hardin (1968) characterized as the “tragedy of the commons” might better be described as the “failure of commons regulation.” As our understanding of the commons has become more complex, the design of economic policy instruments has become more sophisticated.

The regulation of the commons is a vital problem for Communism. Since this problem is difficult to solve within Capitalism, can it be any easier in Communism?

For an economic system that is based on property rights (such as Capitalism is), the commons (or unowned property) is a problem because it poses an ideological challenge. The basis of Capitalism is that private property is necessary for wealth production: no private property, no wealth. The existence of unowned property cannot be subsumed into the productive process.

Two (2) avenues are offered by Capitalist economists:

1. Government regulation, or a socialist approach; or
2. Market-based regulation in which the market ensures the efficient use of the commons through pricing.

Both of these approaches takes the management of the commons away from the people where it should be belong. However, in any class society, the commons cannot be fairly managed because people are excluded from it because of their class origins.