Comment by dahart

1 day ago

That is one meaning of “commons”, but not all of them, and you might be mistaking which one the phrase ‘tragedy of the commons’ is using.

“Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

The actual mechanism by which ownership resolves tragedy of the commons scenarios is by making the resource non-free, by either charging, regulating, or limiting access. The effect still occurs when something is owned but free, and its name is still ‘tragedy of the commons’, even when the resource in question is owned by private interests.

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dahart

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bawolff  1 day ago

How does that differ from what the person you are arguing against is saying?

  • dahart  1 day ago

    Ownership, I guess. The 2 parent comments are claiming that “tragedy of the commons” doesn’t apply to privately owned things. I’m suggesting that it does.

    Edit: oh, I do see what you mean, and yes I misunderstood the quote I pulled from WP - it’s talking about non-ownership. I could pick a better example, but I think that’s distracting from the fact that ‘tragedy of the commons’ is a term that today doesn’t depend on the definition of the word ‘commons’. It’s my mistake to have gotten into any debate about what “commons” means, I’m only saying today’s usage and meaning of the phrase doesn’t depend on that definition, it’s a broader economic concept.