farmer jon

 
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  • in reply to: Debt Rattle June 11 2017 #34501
    farmer jon
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    “Wonderful. I think, however, that saying it contradicts the Tragedy of the Commons is a bridge too far. Because these people do choose what’s best for themselves.”

    Do you think that the “Tragedy of the Commons” is even a valid theory??? I have heard otherwise…. that it is a false premise often used to justify the need for the state or “the market” to delegate the use of common pool resources. There is substantial evidence humans are capable of sharing common resources equitably without market-state involvement. Another modern day example:
    https://www.perc.org/articles/community-run-fisheries-0

    Based on my reading a commons consists not just of a shared resource…. but:
    1. a defined common pool resource
    2. a group of people who share the resource
    3. a set of agreements about how to share it

    As in the example given in the article, the key thing is that the participants must have actual real world relationships with each other. They have to talk and interact! If one farmer takes more than his share of irrigation water, then the nearby farmers will see exactly what is happening and the greedy farmer’s relationships in the community will suffer. It is not that the individual farmers are not doing what is best for themselves….they are!!….. it is that having good relationships with their neighbors is also in their best interest.

    If the rice paddies were instead divided up among several large corporations then the ability to interact on a personal level farmer-to farmer is destroyed then it is no longer a commons…. it is a free-for-all…. and self-regulation is no longer possible. Ironically, this is when the “tragedy of the commons” model takes shape. When there are no longer any community traditions and taboos… only the quest to turn rice into profits, this is when each entity acts for its own self gain without regard to the others, and an external authority would be required to regulate irrigation practices.

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