[unity1001]

> A society which creates collective incentives towards collaboration

There is no 'collaboration' in industrial slums. Its machinized slavery.

> Commies are wild.

From the other perspective, your knee-jerk dismissal of the widely known and discussed 'tragedy of the commons' sounds like a religious fundamentalism. Especially to non-Americans.

The people of the age openly described what was happening, criticized it and lamented what they lost. The perpetrators of the act had no qualms in openly declaring their intentions and doing what they declared, because they openly and actually proudly thought that was the way it should be.

The social awareness that we have today was not present in those ages - back then peasants had to 'know their place' and 'their betters' had all the right to do whatever they pleased with what they owned. So they had no problem in openly declaring things that we would find as sociopathic today.

If what you read in that small bit of article shocks and surprises you, wait until you read the actual memoirs of the aristocrats and industrialists from that age...