Fallacy in the sense that it is supposed to demonstrate a problem with the Commons while ignoring the context in which it is used. Maybe because privatization is taken as a given, a thing to not even be questioned, thus the Commons has to fit in to the world of private property as we know it today or else be deemed flawed. (Private property as we know it cannot be flawed: it is axiomatic.)
From Wikipedia:
> Faced with evidence of historical and existing commons, Hardin later retracted his original thesis, stating that the title should have been "The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons".
It is telling that it retains its original name. We teach it speficially as “the problem” with “the commons”.
Why does everyone—including in this thread—think of “the tragedy of the commons” in terms of “the commons” instead of “private property” as we know it? Why is that the knee-jerk response?
Also from Wikipedia:
> Although taken as a hypothetical example by Lloyd, the historical demise of the commons of Britain and Europe resulted not from misuse of long-held rights of usage by the commoners, but from the commons' owners enclosing and appropriating the land, abrogating the commoners' rights.[1]
This theory might be right or wrong. But why is it never even mentioned that enclosure of the Commons happened at some point, and that apparently use of the Commons by commoners might have worked (just might)? Because private property as we know it today is axiomatic. Hence the question is merely about regulating or not regulating the access to the Commons from such private interests; the last part about private interests cannot be questioned.
A third problem/point is that it is just a hypothetical. People just take a thought experiment at face value as something-that-always-happens! But such dynamics do not always come about:
> Elinor Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for demonstrating this concept in her book Governing the Commons, which included examples of how local communities were able to do this without top-down regulations or privatization.[2]
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> Romeo and Juliet
Deaths are tragedies in the sense of bad things that happened. How would you prevent a future double-suicide? Not by naming it after some irrelevancy, like the Tragedy of the Efficacy of Oral Poisoning. You learn from the story and don’t poison yourself just because you think someone that you love has died. (I think that’s what it is about?)
The supposed “tragedy” of the Commons is a recurring thing. Not merely a thing that happened but something that can happen again. So how do you prevent that? By focusing on whatever caused the tragedy and fixing that. Not by focusing on the victim.
I think we are actually in agreement and I think this is just a quibble with the nomenclature.
As I was taught, the tragedy of the commons is just any situation where the Nash equilibrium (all actors acting independently optimally in their own interests) is not Pareto efficient (no actor can be made better off without making another actor worse off). In my mind I don't really even associate it with property rights (and I certainly don't think private property is axiomatic), so personally I was surprised at your interpretation of it being a fallacy.
From Wikipedia:
> Faced with evidence of historical and existing commons, Hardin later retracted his original thesis, stating that the title should have been "The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons".
It is telling that it retains its original name. We teach it speficially as “the problem” with “the commons”.
Why does everyone—including in this thread—think of “the tragedy of the commons” in terms of “the commons” instead of “private property” as we know it? Why is that the knee-jerk response?
Also from Wikipedia:
> Although taken as a hypothetical example by Lloyd, the historical demise of the commons of Britain and Europe resulted not from misuse of long-held rights of usage by the commoners, but from the commons' owners enclosing and appropriating the land, abrogating the commoners' rights.[1]
This theory might be right or wrong. But why is it never even mentioned that enclosure of the Commons happened at some point, and that apparently use of the Commons by commoners might have worked (just might)? Because private property as we know it today is axiomatic. Hence the question is merely about regulating or not regulating the access to the Commons from such private interests; the last part about private interests cannot be questioned.
A third problem/point is that it is just a hypothetical. People just take a thought experiment at face value as something-that-always-happens! But such dynamics do not always come about:
> Elinor Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for demonstrating this concept in her book Governing the Commons, which included examples of how local communities were able to do this without top-down regulations or privatization.[2]
-
> Romeo and Juliet
Deaths are tragedies in the sense of bad things that happened. How would you prevent a future double-suicide? Not by naming it after some irrelevancy, like the Tragedy of the Efficacy of Oral Poisoning. You learn from the story and don’t poison yourself just because you think someone that you love has died. (I think that’s what it is about?)
The supposed “tragedy” of the Commons is a recurring thing. Not merely a thing that happened but something that can happen again. So how do you prevent that? By focusing on whatever caused the tragedy and fixing that. Not by focusing on the victim.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/the-theft-of-the-com...
[2] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/la...