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  • Should be noted that Europe had commons for hundreds and hundreds of years before they all got enclosured and they managed them just fine with local-level spontaneous democracy.

    Also the "tragedy of the commons" as we know it today was invented by a malthusian in the 1960s and everybody who invokes it as an argument against socialism ignores the part of the essay where the author advocates for central planning

    • Well said. To give some more examples of communal societies:

      • The Mbuti hunter-gatherers of the Ituri Forest in central Africa.
      • The gift-giving economy of the Semai in Malaya.
      • Numerous indigenous societies in NA that practice communal land ownership (Lakota/Dakota/the Cherokee, etc.).
      • Millions who shared resources in the villages of Europe.
        • Arable land was often divided into plots for local families to farm (e.g., the English open field system, - Scandinavian Solskifte ["Sun Division"] system, the Irish "Rundale" system, etc.).
        • Grazing lands and forests were often shared by the community (e.g., in Scandinavia, Spain, France).

      People who argue that we need capitalism to save us from ourselves don't understand human nature.

  • The Tragedy of the Commons was popularized by a man who was anti-immigrant and pro-eugenics, and it's not good science. The good science on it was done by Elinor Ostrom who won a Nobel-ish prize for fieldwork showing that various societies around the world had solved the issues of the governance of commons.

    The thing is, Ostrom didn't disprove it as a concept. She just proved that with the right norms and rules in place it doesn't inevitably lead to collapse. IMO it's not about capitalism or communism, it's about population. A small number of people who all know each-other can negotiate an arrangement that everyone can agree to. But, once you have thousands or millions of people, and each user of the commons knows almost none of the other users, it's different. At that point you need a government to set rules, and law enforcement to enforce those rules. That, of course, fails when the commons is something like the world's atmosphere and there's no worldwide government that can set and enforce rules.

    • At that point you need a government to set rules, and law enforcement to enforce those rules.

      In a communist society where we have abolished wages and everyone has their needs guaranteed, why would anyone harm the community by flouting norms regarding the commons? This paints us as naturally immoral creatures that will always need Father Government to protect us from ourselves. Arguably, people are such social creatures that strong norms and taboos would keep most (all?) of us in check (again, in the context of a communist society).

  • In the end, really, the tragedy of the commons hides a far messy reality of primitive accumulation; mass pre-capitalist (feudal or before) dispossession of many property, communal, church, if not state, in favor of monopolized accumulation in the portfolio of the burghers, the forerunners of capital, as we know them.

  • I think it's a refutation of unregulated production & resource distribution in general.

    In socialism, distribution would be handled by the state or locality, by the producers themselves, by a work coupon system, with money (a la market socialism), or theoretically in a sort of free-for-all all where people just request what they need. Only the last one is really implicated in a tragedy of the commons type scenario, with the money and work coupon systems potentially causing a smaller degree of that sort of an issue (as there would be less inequality, so less possibility of overproduction due to demand). Producers would, in that case, be encouraged to produce more to fill the increased demand, but there wouldn't be a profit motive for doing so, and so a consumer-side tragedy of the commons is less likely. Also, producers' access to resources would theoretically be more tightly regulated than in capitalism, but that isn't necessarily the case.

    In capitalism, distribution is dictated by the money system obviously and due the massive inequality there is a big disparity among people's buying power - but more importantly companies consume the vast majority of resources and are encouraged to grow infinitely in a world of finite resources - creating demand where it doesn't naturally exist to squeeze more profit out of folks' savings, make them take on debt, or cause them to deprioritize other purchases.

    In capitalism, people are not encouraged to consume infinitely more because it is not possible. You only have so many needs and so much income as an individual. The market invents new needs with advertising and such (you need makeup, you need the newest smartphone with ten cameras, you need glasses that let facebook spy on you), but consumers' buying power is limited. People can't really cause a market-wide tragedy of the commons, only companies can because they have the vast majority of the access to resources and the ability and motive (profit motive) to acquire them.

    Tragedy of the commons, or some iteration of it, seems inevitable under capitalism, but is mitigated or eliminated under socialism

  • When engaging in a rational discussion of facts and the other throws logic out the window... You have only yourself to blame for continuing as if the rules hadn't changed. 😶

  • When private property is so ingrained in your brain that you think communism is when more people have land.

    The tragedy of commons straight up describes capitalism, profits are privatized and costs are socialized, how can people think this is a refutation of communism.

  • I never even thought it was that deep (idk if in other countries ppl go over it in school or something, I first heard of it online) so I never really understood how people are relating it to any economic system. All it's saying to me is that one bad actor can be enough to ruin something for everyone - as far as I'm concerned it's just prisoners' dilemma in a larger group. So we need some way of enforcing that, if a shared ressource is vulnerable to singular bad actors (which isn't all of them, e.g. some people abusing welfare doesn't suddenly skyrocket costs), it won't be abused.

    Edit: just realized I forgot whether tragedy of the commons was about some few fucking up the pasture for everyone, or everyone slightly overusing it. The latter is ofc a bit different, but "ah I can cheat the system a little, I need it after all" isn't an uncommon sentiment. That one usually just means you need a bit of a buffer, though, because most people won't grossly abuse something. (And of course, it's still quite independent of economic systems - regional software pricing for example is ultimately a capitalist thing to sell more, and yet would fall under this as it's usually possible to get these prices from other regions.)

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