[tshaddox]

> This matters because the "tragedy of the commons" concept has been used to suggest (successfully) that communities cannot manage commonly held resources, which is false.

This is not my impression. I’ve always heard “tragedy of the commons” invoked precisely to advocate that commonly held resources must be regulated.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

The concept of "toc" is used to claim that you must have regulation otherwise you get a tragedy. The historical reality is that we have almost always had regulation, and tragedies happen anyway because the regulatory process is not robust enough in the face of greed and selfishness.

[jart]

TOC is used to claim that spaces should be owned. Bureaucrats will only protect a space insofar as it allows them to get their palms greased before leaving office. An owner on the other hand has their incentives aligned with both the space itself and its future.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> An owner on the other hand has their incentives aligned with both the space itself and its future

This is absolutely not reflected in the history of resource extraction in the United States. Time and time again, companies have become owners, begged to be trusted because their interests are "aligned", only to destroy the resource, and frequently the communities around it, and then move on.

The version of game theory you're imagining an owner is playing (unbounded, repeated interactions) is not the version played by the companies that have taken ownership of so many resources on our planet.

[jart]

Could you give me three examples of what you're talking about? Are you saying like someone owns a coal mine and destroys the coal because they dug it up and sold it? Or do you mean more like they blew up the mountain to get the coal, to save money, so now the mountainside is less picturesque?

[tshaddox]

How about Superfund sites, where the owners didn’t just remove valuable resources, but actively added and then left behind hazardous materials which are now the responsibility of the taxpayer?

[jart]

I'm not sure what can be done when land is worth less than the cost of cleaning it. I'm sure technology will be available in the future that makes it economical. Especially as land grows more scarce.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

1. the forests. I know most about the ones in the pacific northwest. wherever there has been private ownership (and sometimes where there has not) by a corporate entity, the forest productivity has declined (sometimes to zero)

2. mining. The owners care only about what's in the ground, not what's above it, and so there are repeated cases of them poisoning waterways and the rest of whatever is downstream because they actually have no incentive to preserve the land itself. [ Note: this really covers multiple resource extraction industries, but I'll leave it as just one example for now ]

3. topsoil. Farms across the country have been losing topsoil for more than a century. Despite the long term implications of this being acknowledged by everyone involved, practices to stop it from happening are limited, and generally constrainted to non-corporate, non-vertically-integrated farmers.

[tshaddox]

Generally the textbook commons are resources which are not easily divided up into private ownership, like large bodies of water that feed a large number of people via fishing. Of course in some cases new technology can enable privatization of previous commons.