lucifer242:

risebeaver:

dukemookem:

leftist-daily-reminders:

“Tragedy of the Commons” is probably the most blatant and vulgar of the reactionary narratives. In a nutshell, it argues that when social utilities are owned and managed by everyone, they’re in turn owned by no one; everyone will naturally try to maximize their own self-gain and soon you will have chaos and autocratic monopolies. Hilariously, the cappies who argue this don’t seem to see the irony behind it all. “Monopolies and cutthroat resource-grabs will happen if we socialize this utility and understand it as commonly-held, so we should privatize it and divvy it up into the private hands of a few elite owners, all while cutthroat individualism forces majority non-owners into wage labor and subservient dependence under those arbitrary owners.“ 

It doesn’t even pretend to focus on human freedom like some other passages from neoliberal scripture, too. At least standard neoliberal dogma pretends to care about the breadth of important choices a person can make throughout their lifetime, and at least Randian propaganda pretends to care about the working class by claiming that TRUE capitalism (NOT corporatism though, #ISwear2GodCapitalismAndCorporatismAreDifferent) would uplift everybody out of poverty. Tragedy of the Commons, on the other hand……"I don’t want the peasants mucking up MY miles-long forest and MY dozens of apartments with their dirty prole shoes.” It so gleefully and unabashedly advocates autocratic class domination based on resource and capital access that I swear I’m transported back into the 19th century every time I hear a cappie mention it.

I studied environmental history, we understood the “tragedy of the commons” as the tragedy of capitalist exploitation of resources previously held in communal management. That the introduction of global markets removed the incentive for sustainable management of ecosystems for continuing use. At least in the context of environmental historians it is understood as a powerful anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist critique. It’s been a while but I’m fairly certain the book “The Organic Machine” about the development of the Pacific NW’s energy infrastructure took this perspective.

Elinor Ostrom, recipient of the 2009 Nobel in economics, busted this myth on tragedy of the Commons. She basically researched a bunch of communities to show it is entirely possible to sustainably maintain resources, as long as there is ample self governance between people within the community.

See also:
+ Sustainble development and the tragedy of the commons
+ Ostrom’s eight design principles
+ Review/overview of Ostromite environmental economics

10 months ago / 1179 
via: kropotkhristian
src: left-reminders
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