Tragedy of the Commons

Questions about Objectivism
1

There is a famous essay popular among environmentalists called “The Tragedy of the Commons”, written by Aldo Leupold. The basic “gist” of this paper is that one person can benefit while harming others, while not suffering in turn. For example; a factory pollutes the air, poisoning it just a little for everybody else. The factory benefits because it can make and sell its product, and aside from perhaps purchaing a cheaper product, the rest of society is harmed. How do we explain this.

P.S. I am new to Objectivism

2

There is a famous essay popular among environmentalists called “The Tragedy of the Commons”, written by Aldo Leupold. The basic “gist” of this paper is that one person can benefit while harming others, while not suffering in turn. For example; a factory pollutes the air, poisoning it just a little for everybody else. The factory benefits because it can make and sell its product, and aside from perhaps purchaing a cheaper product, the rest of society is harmed. How do we explain this.

P.S. I am new to Objectivism

It’s not an issue. There’s a lot of air on this planet, the idea that a factory poisons it all just a little, but enough to affect someone 1000 miles away, is ridiculous. (acid rain for instance, the major argument environmentalists used to impose massive regulations in the past, was tied to volcanic activity in the mean time, not factories)

Sometimes the air is a little more polluted in major cities (mainly from cars, since the factories are not in residential areas), in which case people who don’t like it can move to places where there aren’t that many people and cars. (someone who wishes to live in a car free environment doesn’t have a claim against New York City.)

Other times, a factory does pollute someone’s environment (their water or land, which is private property), at which point the owner of the property can sue and stop the factory, ask for damages etc.. Or, if the pollution kills someone, they would be tried and punished for murder. (The idea that there has to be a government agency which shows up from time to time at a factory, to make sure they aren’t hurting anyone is the equivalent of the Police showing up at our houses, to look around, just to make sure we’re not killing someone. It’s a major violation of the factory owner’s rights.)

But the idea that the planet is being destroyed by industrial activity, and everyone is in danger, is preposterous.

3

I agree with what you said, but I am still interested in the concept.

Lets say hypothetically there is X number of fish in a lake, and they reproduce at a rate of Y. The problem is that they are being removed and consumed at a rate that exceeds their ability to procreate. Is it unreasonable to limit the number of fish being removed in order to keep the resouce availible? What if this is just a private agreement among fishermen?

4

This is just common sense, it’s like saying “I have x amount of dollars in savings and it increases at y rate” if the rate was high enough so that you could live off the interest for the rest of your life, that’s obviously the best way to go. the question of removing this logical limit (as you seem to be implying) is basically saying “I could live off of this for the rest of my life, but i think that’s smart, so i’ll consume it all now, om nom nom”

5

I agree with what you said, but I am still interested in the concept.

Lets say hypothetically there is X number of fish in a lake, and they reproduce at a rate of Y. The problem is that they are being removed and consumed at a rate that exceeds their ability to procreate. Is it unreasonable to limit the number of fish being removed in order to keep the resouce availible? What if this is just a private agreement among fishermen?

Hi Rem.

The trouble with asking the question, “Should a limit be placed on the number of fish removed from the lake?”, is that it’s not necessarily straight forward who’s purpose this serves. Technically, until property rights have been established by some objective authority, no one owns the lake, and no one has a legitimate interest in its fish, so no one’s purpose can be considered.

The solution to the “Tragedy of the Commons” is to establish ownership. For as long as no valid claim to ownership can be made, the lake must be said to be unowned. And it is not right to prevent someone from making a value out of the unowned.

Of course, the question of how to establish ownership can be complicated. But in the specific case of the lake with fish, I would suggest that a corporation be established by all parties who can demonstrate that they are in a position to exploit it (i.e. all the local fishermen). Once the corporation is established, a monetary value could be placed on its shares, a charter can be written up, and everyone with an interest in the corporation can harvest a measurable value from the lake.

And I should think that a reasonable fisherman would not be averse to joining such a corporation because it would tend to perpetuate the fish that are desired by fishermen.

Were I a judge of the case, I’d try to find a set of criteria for determining who has a current, viable claim to fishing. It would have to be fishermen who are already established, to avoid the problem of new-comers. And I might look at their relative harvesting capabilities. Those who are currently able to harvest more than others might be considered for greater shares of the company.

Another way to approach the problem would be to solicit bids for the property and to let everyone have a share proportional to the size of their bid. (And all bids must be paid to the state for payment of its arbitration services. Incidentally, this is one way to voluntarily fund the government.)

Rachel

6

I agree with what you said, but I am still interested in the concept.

Lets say hypothetically there is X number of fish in a lake, and they reproduce at a rate of Y. The problem is that they are being removed and consumed at a rate that exceeds their ability to procreate. Is it unreasonable to limit the number of fish being removed in order to keep the resouce availible? What if this is just a private agreement among fishermen?

It is unreasonable for the lake to not be private property. (public property is unreasonable, and it leads to problems such as the one you described, since there’s no such thing as “the public”)

The owners would be the people who are in position to use the lake (I guess the owners of the land around it), at the current time. Since the lake is one entity, and the fish can move around in it, Rachel’s corporation idea makes sense(at least as far as the fishing rights are concerned-maybe the surface of the water can be used to, and the rights to that can be divided among individuals, the same way land is owned). Most of the time private arbitration would work just fine, but occasionally the government would have to step in (and charge those involved the costs of the arbitration).

P.S. In our current predicament, it might be right for the government to simply sell all public property, including lakes, to the highest bidder, in order to settle the country’s debt.

And then, everything that’s left unsold (because no one wants it, obviously) will become abandoned, and the property of whoever is first able to make use of it. (the property rights would be decided naturally, the same way they would have beenwithout the gov. claiming stuff it isn’t in its job description to claim–and often have been in North America, in the case of land)

7

Thank You Rachel,

I do think the private ownership idea is a good one, certainly in my experince private companies and charities are far more effective and efficient than government programs (isn’t welfare just mandatory charity!) . For example Ducks Umlimited a waterfowl and wetlands group which I believe is contributed to mostly by those who use the land, and its services and products (hunters) mangages to use 88% of their money for conservation, 10% for fundraising and R&D, and a mere 2% for administration and HR. In the 2007 they took in 213.1 million. You would be hard pressed to find any government agency that lean and efficient.

8

The power of private interests at work! :lol: