IDEALog Comparison, or Maybe We’re Really All Liberaltarians

James Hanley in reply to James Hanley says:

Just for clarification on one of those points where I say you don’t understand libertarianism, the “you don’t focus too much on trying to fix where people start on the ladder,” point:

Libertarians have criticized public housing projects. They have criticized the war on drugs. They have criticized bad public schools. They have criticized badly designed welfare programs that create incentives to go on welfare young and stay on it.

Whether or not a person agrees with their criticisms or proposed solutions, those are indisputably about changing the starting position for the poor. If you don’t understand that, you don’t actually understand libertarianism. There’s a big difference in what you learn listening to talk about libertarians vs. listening to libertarians.Report

James Hanley in reply to John Howard Griffin says:

JHG,

[JH] What I suspect you don’t get is that many libertarians just have a very different solution than you do–privatization/property rights so that the commons is no longer a commons.

[JHG] There were no qualifiers in that statement. You state that libertarians have a very different solution for dealing with the tragedy of the commons – not different solutionS, solution. I understand what your very different solution is: privatization/property rights. Except that that isn’t ALWAYS the solution to the tragedy of the commons. Sometimes there is another solution, or no solution at all. And, I’m supposed to know when the very different solution applies and when it doesn’t.

Of, for fuck’s sake, it’s hard to try to be polite when faced with shit like this. Answer me this–liberals care about unfairness and have various solutions for mitigating it, but how do liberals propose to completely and permanently end all unfairness, 100% for ever and ever?

If liberals don’t have an answer to that, does that mean liberalism thereby shown to be bullshit? Of course not. Would a serious person immediately jump to that most impossible of all tasks for liberals? Of course not. And does that mean liberals can’t take some real and meaningful steps towards mitigating unfairness? Of course not.

But you seem to want to hold libertarians to a much tougher standard than you would want others to be held to. That’s bullshit. It’s like a basketball team wanting the refs to let them get away with hacking and pushing, but calling touch fouls on their opponents.

Consider a set of problems A, B, …… Z, where A is the easiest to solve, Z is the hardest, and each one in between is successively harder to solve than the one prior to it. So if at any point in there a problem can’t be solved, it means all problems above it also cannot be solved. If we can’t solve problem Q, then we can’t solve R, S, T….Z. What you asked was, “How do you solve problem Z?” But the inability to solve Z doesn’t prove much–it means everything from A through Y is still potentially solvable. Privatizing the atmosphere is a pretty good Z for libertarians, eliminating all unfairness is a pretty good Z for liberals, and so the inability to resolve either of them says nothing about either libertarians’ or liberals’ ability to solve their respective A through Y problems.

If you can step out of relentless ideologue mode and try to consider both ideologies without such bias, you can come to understand why your example was precisely the wrong place to start.

You see, I actually AM reading what you are writing, and responding directly to that. But, somehow I’m also supposed to know what you really MEAN if it is different from what you write.

The issue is not misunderstanding what I mean. The issue is not understanding what is a reasonable way to argue.

[JH] Frankly, the inability to solve the single most impossible problem is not evidence at all about the ability to solve less impossible problems.

[JGH] I never said it was evidence of anything other than your statement about the libertarian solution being incomplete, and that you could not brush me off so easily with a flippant statement. It’s a solution, except when it isn’t.

Does liberalism have a complete set of solutions? Seriously now, every ideology is incomplete, limited. Pointing specifically to one and exclaiming over a characteristic it has in common with all other ideologies is not meaningful. It’s like talking about dogs and cats, and saying about the dog, “But it gives live birth!” Well, yes, yes it does. Now let’s see how the cat reproduces, shall we?

The problem here, as far as I can tell, is that you are operating in pure argument mode, where any critique of your opponent’s ideology is satisfactory. Because you’re not really interested in discussion and discovery, you are unable to step back and consider whether such a critique is also applicable to your own ideology.

[JH] Why don’t you give me a real world case where liberals and libertarians actually disagree about the value of privatization or the value of command and control regulation?

[JGH] What real world commons can have your initial statement (privatization/property rights as solution) applied? I’ve offered others already. Marine fisheries? National Parks? How about grazing rights? Water resources? Energy use? Pollution? Human population? Infinite growth in a finite system? Holocene extinction event? AGW?

Marine fisheries: Coastal ones can be privatized with relative ease. Deep sea fisheries, not so much.

National Parks: Not truly a commons, although they share some characteristics of a commons. (We’re back to that issue of definition–it matters.)

Grazing rights: Grazing rights are not a commons. If you mean public lands grasses, grazing rights are in fact the privatization of that commons. It’s a bit ironic that you actually listed a privatized solution without realizing it.

Water resources: Frequently easy to privatize, not always. The Ogallala aquifer would be impossible to privatize (at least with current technology), but smaller aquifers, as well as water rights pertaining to most lakes and streams would not be outside the realm of possibility.

Energy use? Pollution? Human population? Infinite growth in a finite system? Holocene extinction event? AGW?

These things are not commons. Again, the proper definition is critical to having a meaningful conversation. Energy is overwhelmingly privatized–you pay for what you use. Human population is not a commons, although it is plausibly a consequence of the general global commons. Infinite growth in a finite system is an interesting issue, but it’s not a commons. HCE is, again, a consequence of the commons, not a commons itself. AGW, the same.

Which ones are “gotchas” that we must avoid?

None of those, because none of those are that indisputably impossible one that doesn’t prove anything about less difficult ones, as “privatizing the atmosphere” was. (Although we could talk about pollution permits, which are plausibly a privatization of, not the atmosphere itself, but of the right to dump shit into the atmosphere.)

Not which subjects or disagreements, which COMMONS does your solution apply to?

There, that’s the key. Not, “Does your solution fix this most impossible of all problems, no, well then nyah nyah it’s a total failure and I can dismiss it completely,” but “to what extent is it feasible, and what are it’s functional limits?” That latter is a good question, because every approach has functional limits, your as well as mine as well as anyone else’s. It would be foolhardy to try to use any solution in a case that is beyond its functional limits, but it’s not necessarily foolhardy to do so in situations where it actually is functional. (It’s not necessary to use it–for some problems multiple solutions will work, and the question is just what type of outcome we want and what side effects we find acceptable or not. That likely would still lead a liberal and a libertarian to frequently prefer different solutions, and that’s fine and legitimate. What’s not fine and legitimate is to say, “Your solution can’t solve the hardest problem, so we no longer need to consider it for less hard problems.)

See, the issue I really have here is not that you’re a liberal who dislikes libertarian solutions. The issue I have here is that you want to make grand pronouncements about the failures of libertarianism when you don’t yet have a good grasp on it, and you want to argue against it using a double-standard. Unless, of course, you’re willing to explain to me how liberals can completely and totally eliminate all unfairness–the moment you do that (and I hope to God it doesn’t look like this), then I promise to do my best to try to explain how we might possibly privatize the atmosphere.

The big point is, I don’t hate liberalism. What I hate is the general approach to argument that sets up an unequal comparison, where our own favored thing (whether it’s a sport, a restaurant, a political party, or an ideology) is implicitly treated as flawless (not explicitly, oh, no, because keeping it implicit allows the arguer to deny they’re done any such thing), while all the shortcomings of the opposing thing are revealed. Hence we get, “the market has failed, government must solve it,” which points out the shortcoming of the market while implicitly assuming that government is flawless enough to actually solve it–it never takes into account that there might be shortcomings in government that make it unable to improve (in the particular case) on the market imperfection. And, yes, it works in the other direction, too. Libertarians who say, “Government has screwed this up, the market will do better,” not because they’ve examined the particular case but because they implicitly treat the market as flawless, are just as guilty.

That’s why my critique of you is not about your being a liberal–it’s about you following this bad approach to argument, which itself cuts across all ideological lines.Report

James Hanley in reply to John Howard Griffin says:

Well, we were talking about the tragedy of the commons, and your great and detailed knowledge of it. We were not talking about libertarianism or liberalism.

You’re determined to miss the point, aren’t you? It was an analogy intended to illuminate why your example was not one designed to lead to productive debate.

Then, when I pointed to a commons, you said it was unfair.

You really are determined to insist that pointing to the one most impossible solution is a fair approach to debate, eh? But it isn’t—no matter what the topic is, that’s a really shitty way to go about a debate, and it indicates the person doesn’t really want to talk seriously to the other person, but wants to play gotcha and smugly proclaim some kind of victory.

what is bullshit is the fact that you make a sweeping statement about your solution to the tragedy of the commons and then complain when I bring up a commons that your statement can’t fix. I am only holding you to your statements. You hold me to my statements and quit cryin’.

It’s really ironic that you can write that such a short space after criticizing me for not reading you generously. That rule’s just for me to abide by, not you, eh?

I said libertarians have an alternative method for solving commons problems, and you took that to mean that I thought every single commons problem, at all times, in all places, forever and ever amen, could be perfectly solved that way. So you brought up the one case that absolutely positively disproved a claim I never intended, and that the very kind of generous interpretation you’re asking for would show that I never intended. Congratulations, you killed the strawman.

[National Parks]: Are you really saying that land that is shared by all is not a commons?

I am saying that national parks are not a commons. Because by definition they are not. They are actually a toll good. Common ownership is not the definition of a commons.

[JH] Grazing rights: Grazing rights are not a commons. If you mean public lands grasses, grazing rights are in fact the privatization of that commons. It’s a bit ironic that you actually listed a privatized solution without realizing it.

[JGH]: Are you really saying that land that is shared by all is not a commons? Of course I’m talking about public lands, and of course I know that it is a privatized solution. I bet, if you try really hard, you could be even more condescending.

Wait, “of course” you know grazing rights are a privatized solution? Then why did you list them as a commons? Yes, the open grazing lands of the west are a commons, and yes the rights are a privatizing solution to the problem…so what exactly was your point? Listing a privatized solution when you’re asking about whether a privatized solution will work is a bit illogical, no? Sorry to be condescending again, but it looks like you made a mistake and you’re trying to pretend it wasn’t, instead of just owning up to it. I mean, you can hardly be challenging me on whether X can be privatized when you’ve already agreed X can be privatized, right?

[Water resources]: Easy to privatize does not equate with best way to manage public resources, particularly for those downstream.

Hold on, you’re moving the goalposts. We weren’t talking about best solutions—your question was whether privatization was possible, not whether it was best. Let’s get one issue cleared up before moving on to another. I note here for the record that you appear to have agreed that it is possible to privatize water resources (but have not agreed that it is wise to do so).

[JH] These things are not commons… Energy … Human population… Infinite growth… HCE [Note: Should be HEE, my bad] …. AGW…
[JGH] Yes, I have to say you really are trying to be obtuse here. Are you honestly claiming that energy use, pollution, human population, HCE and AGW (all of which are examples of infinite growth in a finite system) are not examples of the tragedy of the commons?

Are you talking about commons, or the tragedy of the commons. They are no more the same thing than HIV is the same thing as AIDS. I don’t really care how condescending you think I’m being, it’s important to make sure we know what we’re talking about here. The distinction is critical. First, the mere existence of a commons does not determine that there will be a tragedy. The tragedy is a likely, but not inevitable outcome, of a commons. There are commons grazing areas in Switzerland that are over 4 centuries old, but have never resulted in tragedy—not through top-down government regulation, but through bottom-up design of social institutions for managing it. Or there could be too few users of the commons to overuse and degrade it. Or the commons could be a resource that’s not valuable enough to people for them to overuse. The relevant issue, though, is not how frequent those are, but that those demonstrate that a commons and the tragedy of the commons are non-identical, and to talk about the commons is not necessarily to talk about the tragedy.

Second, while a commons can be privatized, I’m not sure what it would mean to privatize the tragedy. How would we privatize the Holocene extinction? How does someone own an extinction? So if we’re talking about privatization, we’re actually talking about the commons itself, not the tragedy (even though the ostensible purpose of privatization is to prevent the tragedy).

You may think I’m being pedantic, but these distinctions are important. As I said above, you may not want to get into this debate with me, because it’s a particular area of expertise for me. That means I’m not going to let you slide on the fundamentals. There are specific meanings, and if we get too loose with them, then the things we say will be inaccurate. If you think that’s condescending, I’ll just have to live with it. But you might as well go talk to a biologist about evolution or a chemist about elements, having inaccurate definitions in either case. They’re not going to have much patience if you’re not willing to try to understand the proper definitions.

Then, you exploded at me for even saying the words “tragedy of the commons”

Yes, because I’ve had these conversations with liberals before. There’s a great smugness in their claims that other people just don’t get the concept of the commons, but it is extremely rare that I come across one who has an accurate understanding themselves. As I said at the outset, “Most–or at least many–liberals misuse and overuse the concept of the tragedy of the commons because they don’t understand the proper definition of the commons, and so they apply the concept too broadly, thinking it applies far more often than it really does.” I anticipated that you would fall into that grouping, and the brute fact is that you do.

and said that privatization was the solution by making a commons not a commons.

“A” solution, not “the” solution, and what I actually said was that libertarians propose a different solution than liberals. The latter is a factual statement. Here’s what you actually wrote:

It is a basic principle that is ignored often in these discussions. And, when the concept is raised, the response is always: But, the market eventually corrects because of market pressures!

To which I replied, “What I suspect you don’t get is that many libertarians just have a very different solution than you do–privatization/property rights so that the commons is no longer a commons.”

Two points here. First, what I said was simply a rebuttal of your “the response is always “the market…corrects.” I was simply pointing out that libertarians frequently have a different response, not “the market will correct,” but “the market won’t correct, so let’s do X.”

Second, I said that libertarians have this solution; I never said it was “the” solution. Again, if you’re really bothered by me not reading you generously enough, it would behoove you to recognize that you’ve done the same. Motes and boards and whatnot, for the biblically literate. Heck, my own solution set is multi-tooled—I think privatization is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not.

I then gave an example, and you exploded some more. Take a chill pill.

You are determined to believe that your example was entirely appropriate, aren’t you? If you can’t see that taking the most extreme example, one that isn’t actually debated by anyone, is not the way sincere people discuss things, then we’re really not going to get anywhere. Take a moment and really think about my liberalism/fairness example. The point is not that it is what we are discussing, the point is that if you were to say “liberals want a fair society,” and I posed that question to you, would you think I was sincere about wanting a meaningful discussion?

I tried to engage with you on the tragedy of the commons. Amazingly, you have shown yourself to be unwilling to discuss the tragedy of the commons, despite your protestations of grand and intimate knowledge of it.

Uhm, how have I not discussed it? I’ve said the tragedy of the commons is real; I’ve talked about when privatization is possible for a commons and when it is not, and I’ve talked about your misunderstanding of what commons are, so that we actually focus in on the commons, rather than talking about things that are not commons. So in what way have I been unwilling to discuss this? Again, if you’re really bothered by ungenerous readings….

You have been willfully obtuse in confirming my examples that are commonly accepted (even by Hardin, fercrissake!) of the tragedy of the commons in the modern world.

1. What do you mean by “even by Hardin?” Hardin wasn’t especially strict in his definition fo the commons, and in fact he’s not particularly respected by commons experts for his understanding of the problem. They respect him for bringing attention to the issue much more than for his actual understanding of it. That’s not to knock him, though. He was a biologist, commons weren’t really his specialty, so he doesn’t stand as much of an expert. But to his credit, almost nobody was an expert in the issue until he brought it to everyone’s attention.

2. Can you give me some examples of commonly accepted tragedies of the commons that I have denied? I don’t see any. If you mean things like AGW, I never said it wasn’t a tragedy of the commons, I said it wasn’t a commons. And please don’t tell me, “you know what I mean.” No, I don’t. When you use concepts too imprecisely, I can’t in any way be sure I know what you mean. The unfortunate fact is, I can’t be sure even you know what you really mean, because I can’t be sure you understand the issue accurately enough.

I never made any claims about failures of libertarianism. …. You continue to put words in my mouth about judging you and libertarianism, when I have done no such thing.

I’m not sure why you’re trying to deny it when the evidence is right here on this page. See your very first comment on the OP. See your comment that began this sub-thread. Both were negative judgments about libertarianism. I’m not sure if you’re being dishonest or just forgetful. In the spirit of generosity I’ll assume the latter, but, please, let’s try to keep things accurate.Report

James Hanley in reply to John Howard Griffin says:

JHG,

I’ve said several times, when you’re ready to get serious, just ask about the definition. It sounds like maybe you’re getting there, so perhaps now we can actually talk turkey.

Are you saying that part of the definition of a commons does not include that it is shared as widely as possible, usually through shared ownership.

Correct, that is an inaccurate definition. A commons neither needs to be shared as widely as possible, nor owned at all. You’ve already agreed the atmosphere is a commons, but who owns the atmosphere? Yes, we all share it, but nobody owns it in the sense all of us Americans own our national parks. And a tragedy of the commons can come into being even if the commons is not widely shared—a commons shared only among two people can result in the tragedy if they fail to coordinate on appropriate levels of use.

The technical definition of a commons is a resource that is characterized by two attributes. It is difficult to exclude non-payers (non-excludable), and one person’s use of the resource takes away from the whole and diminishes another person’s use of the resource (use is “subtractable,” or as is sometimes said, your consumption and mine are “rivalrous” because we cannot both enjoy the same unit of the resource.). Here is a graphic showing the different types of goods, as defined by these two characteristics.

So a national park is not truly a commons because it’s fairly easy to exclude non-payers, and for the most part one person’s use does not diminish another’s use. In that way it’s very different from a fishery or an aquifer. If I’m watching Old Faithful erupt in Yellowstone National Park, your simultaneous viewing of it does not diminish my viewing. The classic example of a toll good is a toll bridge (hence the name, of course)–it’s easy to keep people off the bridge if they don’t pay, and my use of the bridge does not diminish your use of the bridge. Toll goods are, however, subject to crowding, as anyone who’s traveled across the San Francisco Bay Bridge at rush hour or visited Yosemite Valley in July can attest. But that’s not the tragedy of the commons.

The tragedy of the commons is the degradation of a commons through unconstrained use. Unconstrained use is possible because it’s difficult or impossible to exclude potential users, and the degradation occurs because each person’s use subtracts from the whole. Because other potential users can’t be excluded, I have no incentive to conserve in my use of the commons, because there’s no guarantee there will be any units of it in the future. If others do conserve, then I don’t need to because by myself I’m unlikely to over-use it.

A classic example is a deep sea fishery, as you of course know. It’s difficult to exclude potential users (although modern satellite technology makes it easier than it would have been in the past), and each unit of fish taken by one fisher is a unit not available to others. If everyone at the League is a deep sea fisher, and I limit my catch in a single-handed effort to avoid overuse, my single-handed efforts are insufficient to prevent over-use, and all I do is guarantee I’ll get less in the long run. So I, and each of us, has an incentive to get as much as we can now, which of course hastens the degradation of the commons.

The normal liberal response to the tragedy is to regulate the commons with a top-down approach. This has often failed for several reasons. One is that the regulators often lack understanding of the resource’s characteristics, so they do things like set catch limits that are too high. Another is that top-down regulation frequently fails to take account of the interests, beliefs, and incentives of traditional commons users, and inadvertently promotes rule-breaking, instead of compliance. (I have a friend who works for NOAA, and he’s doing research on the coastal fisheries of the southeastern United States, with an eye toward understanding how local users the fisheries–that knowledge is something Elinor Ostrom considers crucial to good management of the commons.) Another reason is that specialized interests often lobby for rules that won’t actually constrain them. Liberals recognize that, of course, but too often they don’t accept that it is an inevitable price of relying on top-down regulation.

That doesn’t mean top-down regulation always fails, though. It only means that successful top-down regulation has a much lower probability of success than liberals generally recognize. (And, to be fair, perhaps a higher probability of success than many, perhaps most, libertarians recognize.)

And it also explains why–rightly or wrongly–libertarians propose privatization as a solution. Once an open-access resource is privatized, it’s no longer open access; it’s no longer a commons, so the tragedy is less likely to occur. Of course a private user can overuse and degrade it–but if the resource really has long-term value, the private owner is likely to conserve in its use, to keep the flow of value coming long term.

Sometimes commons are de facto privatized, even when de jure privatization doesn’t exist. The Maine lobster fisheries for example, are effectively privatized by the local fishermen who ruthlessly drive out interlopers. It’s not necessarily an ideal system, but they do see their interests in long-range terms, and by limiting the number of users they give themselves breathing space to not take too much catch each year–they can leave some and be assured of having access to it the next year, instead of worrying that the “extra” users will take it all.

Privatization can take forms most people are not aware of. For example, in England certain fishing clubs have (or at least used to have, I don’t know if it’s still the case) exclusive right to the fish in certain streams. Fish in streams are a common pool resource, and the normal solution is to regulate the catch. Privatizing the right to catch them also eliminates the commons problem. It also puts the responsibility for monitoring illicit use on the right-holder, rather than on the government, which is probably more efficient politically.

Of course not all commons are suitable for privatization. And despite whatever fervent wishes libertarians may have, some potential privatization schemes would be politically unacceptable. Oh, well, that’s how the real world works. All we libertarians can do about that is fuss and fume and hope someday everyone comes to their senses. 😉

I’m trying to understand why you are making this distinction, if not to just dismiss me.

Not do dismiss you. To make the point that if we start calling toll goods commons, then we’re going to miss the relevant characteristics of a commons that create the tragedy. And if we misunderstand that, then we’ll be talking, quite literally, nonsense, without realizing it.

Put another way, an accurate understanding of the technical characteristics of the real world is crucial for good policymaking. Just calling something a commons doesn’t make it so. And thinking that something has the characteristics that lead to a tragedy just because it is communally owned is erroneous, and will lead to ill-suited policy proposals.

Is there a potential for a tragedy of the commons if National Parks were privatized (I say yes)?

Technically, no, since it would no longer be a commons But if I understand your point, I think you’re asking if the resource would be degraded if it was privatized. As to “potential” for that, yes, there is potential—a private owner can degrade a resource he owns. But it’s very important not to call it the tragedy of the commons in that case because it’s resulting from a different dynamic, not the dynamic of open access.

And of course there’s potential for degradation while it’s owned in common, too. Many of America’s commons, from lakes and streams to aquifers, public lands, and fisheries have been badly degraded under public management. I participate in a monitoring program for our local river—it’s publicly owned and managed, yet so badly degraded that I won’t let my kids touch the water. So “potential” is really an inevitable characteristic–it’s an inseparable aspect of the resource, not an aspect of either privatization or public ownership.

The one advantage that private ownership can provide is long-range planning, which government in fact doesn’t do well, being driven by a focus on the next election and annual budget-making. Politicians can certainly talk well about the long run, and can be useful in bringing those issues to our attention, but because of annual budgeting they cannot–and I mean this in the most absolute terms–they cannot make guarantees about the future. No legislature, at any point in time, can bind future legislatures. (Here in Michigan, people are upset that the state has eliminated “promise” scholarships for college students, a program that was supposed to be perpetual. People are outraged that the legislature broke it’s promise; but of course the current legislature is in no way bound or constrained by past legislatures. The same problem holds true, unfortunately (and I sincerely mean it’s unfortunate), for public management of the commons. For an example, just look at how keeping drilling out of ANWR has required a non-stop political battle for nearly four decades now, with no end in sight. (My proposed solution is to privatize ANWR by deeding it to a group like the Nature Conservancy.)

Would that create greater inequality than exists today (I say yes)?

I don’t care about the inequality issue. I think it’s an overrated issue, because it focuses on relative well-being (am I as well off as the Joneses?) rather than absolute well-being (am I better off now than I was before?). These comments are long and complex enough, so I’m not going to respond to inequality issues.

The market, as it exists today not some idealized market, is rewarded or punished completely on short-term gains over long-term stewardship … Selling a National Park to private interests would destroy the park in the short-term, because of lack of stewardship.

That’s an assertion. You have to explain it. Why would private owners not engage in stewardship over their lands? If they destroy the value of it, it is no longer valuable to them.

The recovery from short-term damage could take many years, if not forever in some cases.

You mean like the damage that’s been done in Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks under public stewardship? Like building walkways, campgrounds, and parking lots in the middle of a geologically sensitive geyser basin? Like killing all the wolves, so that a century later we had to reintroduce them? Like building a major reservoir and a fricking golf course in Yosemite? Or letting so many goddammed snowmobiles into Yellowstone in the winter? The fact that the stewardship is public is no panacea, no guarantee of good stewardship. What it is a guarantee of is that the management of the resource will be subject to on-going political pressures, not all of which are going to be favorable toward long-term conservation of the resource. The fact that the stewardship is public is no panacea, no guarantee of good stewardship. What it is a guarantee of is that the management of the resource will be subject to on-going political pressures, not all of which are going to be favorable toward long-term conservation of the resource.

Look, I’m not arguing for privatizing the national parks. Parks are a traditional government function, and I just happen to like them. But if you think public management of the national parks has prevented their degradation, you haven’t been studying it closely. I have, solely because I love the national parks, so they’re a pet issue of mine. I think the National Park Service does a pretty damn good job under nearly impossible political conditions (protect the wilderness while making it available to hordes of the public; don’t commercialize it, but keep the local merchants happy)—but there’s the problem, even as good a job as they try to do, public ownership frequently results in having to operate under impossible political conditions.

Market forces would maximally increase profit in the short-term, which would take these national treasures away from a not insignificant amount of the population.

I’m not sure those two statements are congruent. How is the private owner making profits if they’re closing access to the resource? If I owned Smokey Mountain National Park, I think I’d make more money by charging people to use it than by locking them out. And if you’re sure that market forces always maximally increase profit by focusing on the short term, I’m going to guess you haven’t done much formal study of economics, but are just reading liberal critiques of the market (written, for the most part, by other people who haven’t done much formal study of economics). I don’t want to sound condescending again, but I have studied economics formally, and as with the concept of the commons, I recognize the errors in your statements. They’re based on popular belief, not expert understanding.

Much smarter people than I have written about this extensively.

And much smarter people than I have written extensively about the arguments I’m making. I’m not especially brilliant—just another third-rate academic. But I’ve been studying these issues very seriously for almost exactly twenty years now, reading the first rate minds who are the leading experts. My initial approach was much like yours, “private bad, public good.” Then I studied environmental economics and environmental law, then I studied public choice theory, and did a post-doc at the leading research institute for commons research (Indiana University’s Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis). And now I teach political economy and environmental politics. And what that twenty years of study has taught me is that “private bad, public good” is an overly simplistic approach, that fails to capture the complexity of commons management (much of which is neither strictly public nor strictly private), and fails to hold public management up to the same scrutiny to which it holds private management. It is an approach that seeks out every potential flaw in private ownership of resources, while assiduously resisting making serious efforts to recognize flaws in public ownership. (Libertarians do the same thing, in reverse. Seeing only the good in option A and only the bad in option B is a very blinded and unsophisticated approach, no matter what issue we are talking about and no matter who is engaging in it. It’s the approach I use when comparing a state I love (say, Oregon) to a state I loathe (Texas), but nobody should take me seriously when I do so.)

This is the space where you finally start defining how you think of commons, that is different from how 99% of the country would view National Parks as commons, but how your definition is more correct, and why this is an example of another liberal just not understanding the tragedy of the commons or commons in general and why none of this applies to National Parks and how I’m ultimately wrong about all of this, and, hey, you’re still not getting my point!!!!1!(talk about playing gotcha?!):

I hope you’re not seriously arguing that mass belief creates truth value. And when we’re talking about something of a technical nature, what’s more likely, that the 99% gets it right or that the 99% gets it wrong? And, yes, this is unfortunately another example of a liberal not understanding commons in general. Like so many, you think common ownership creates a commons. Certainly common ownership overlaps with the concept of the commons, and of course the two words are identical, so the misperception is very understandable. But it’s still a misunderstanding.

One of the great ironies is that people also tend to make the error of thinking that public ownership means something is a public good (refer back to the chart). So the same resources are sometimes viewed as being simultaneously a commons and a public good, which is an impossibility.

Go ahead, I’ll try to check back over the weekend. Then, we can hopefully continue with the next parts of your response.

That depends on your response. If you actually do some serious consideration of what I’ve explained here, I’ll probably respond in kind. If you decide to reject what I wrote because it doesn’t match up with what you believe, I’ll exit the discussion. Because this really isn’t about two competing interpretations of the commons, where each of us has a case to make for his own preferred one. There is a technical definition, and I’m not going to conduct a discussion on any basis except the technical definition that’s standard among the experts; certainly not on the non-technical one that’s popular among the masses.Report

James Hanley in reply to Roger says:

Ward, thanks for the compliment, but I suspect there’d have been fewer comments if certain cockheads had actually read the post and responded to its substance instead of seeing the word libertarian and ignoring the rest of the post as soon as they realized they’d been gifted another opportunity to repeat their lanai-libertarian rants. Comment threads that drift are one thing, but folks who just want to grind their axes regardless of what the OP is about as asshats who really need a kick in the nads.Report

James Hanley in reply to James Hanley says:

Your question about numbers of people is a bit weird. Why should there be a specifically libertarian position on that? And just what would any answer demonstrate?

I think it’s clear you’re just interested in being partisan, and don’t yet really understand what it means to have a real discussion.Report