Question: How to resolve “the tragedy of the commons”?
Recommended material: Garrett Hardin’s
1968 article and the following video:
.
Highlights:
- There are three ways of governing open-access resources: 1) creating and selling property rights to resources (privatization); 2) top-down regulations (government regulations); and 3) bottom-up institutions (cooperative collective action).
- The commons is a social system (bottom-up institutions) by which communities co-manage resources. The commons involves: a resource; the user and/or productive community; and the rules defined by the community.
- Successful cases of the commons include eight principles as defined by Elinor Ostrom.
- Polycentricity: build governance diversity to manage the biodiversity as well as the diversity of human creativity.
