Learning to Recognise the Common

Article Summary

John S Veitch
John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

People in ancient times didn't have title to the land. They worked small family plots of land, but their animals lived on and shared "the common".
Gareth Hardin wrote "The Tragedy of the Commons". Forms of ownership made a great deal of difference to how the common land was used and protected.
For a common to protected it needed both a set of appropriate rules, and a means of ensuring that users of the common obeyed the rules.
Commons often exist because things that are naturally shared and cannot sensibly be owned by anyone.
There are local man-made commons, roadways and walking tracks for instance, but also parks and civic amenities of all kinds.
There are social commons, like public picnics, or community concerts, or public dances.
To a large extent, every commons is a self organising system. What people choose to do on a common tells you what they value.
When the use pressure on a commons is light, rules of use are normally unwritten, but well understood by all users. Such simple ideas can be quite effective.
With increased pressure on the common resource written rules enforced by the law may be needed. Enforcement is costly, but essential.
Coal mining provides massive employment around the world, and the low cost energy for burning coal is considered essential to industrial production.
It's a hard issue. Banning coal mining would certainly cause deaths. Continuing with coal mining will also cause deaths.
Having an "Open Future ©" demands the ability to make hard decisions.

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