TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

John Quiggin, a left-leaning Australian economist and professor at the University of Queensland, has noted my recent post on the penchant for bloggers
and readers at the Mises Blog to attack climate science – are “almost universally committed to delusional views on climate science“, as he puts it – though these are not words fairly put into my mouth.  Like me, though, Quiggin wonders why wonders why libertarians focus on climate science at the near-exclusion of policy discussions, since (1) he sees “plenty of political opportunities to use climate change to attack subsidies and other existing interventions” and (2) he supposes that the environmental movement`s widespread shift “from profound suspicion
of markets to enthusiastic support for market-based policies such as
carbon taxes and cap and trade” seems like a big win for libertarians.

Quiggin previously commented on “Libertarians and global warming” last June; this seems to be a follow up.

Quiggins posits that Austrians/libertarians exhibit a “near-universal rejection of mainstream climate science,” and asserts that:

we can draw one of only three conclusions
(a) Austrians/libertarians are characterized by delusional belief in
their own intellectual superiority, to the point where they think they
can produce an analysis of complex scientific problems superior to that
of actual scientists, in their spare time and with limited or no
scientific training in the relevant disciplines, reaching a startling
degree of unanimity for self-described “sceptics”
(b) Austrians/libertarians don’t understand their own theory and
falsely believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own
views must be wrong
(c) Austrians/libertarians do understand their own theory and correctly
believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own views
must be wrong

John concludes:

“Overall, though I, think that acceptance of the reality of climate
change would be good for libertarianism as a political movement. It
would kill off the most extreme and unappealing kinds of a priori
logic-chopping, while promoting an appreciation of Hayekian arguments
about the power of market mechanisms. And the very fact of uncertainty
about climate change is a reminder of the fatality of conceits of
perfect knowledge.”

While John asks a good question and reveals some appreciation of markets, it`s clear that he is still pretty much groping in the dark when it comes to understanding libertarians` concerns about climate policy, indeed, even as to libertarian aims and concerns generally. He also overlooks various cognitive/psychological factors that appear to be at play. Naturally, I appreciate the opportunity for discussion.

1. Before addressing his three possible conclusions, let me note that while “market-based policies such as
carbon taxes and cap and trade” may seem to John “like a big win for libertarians”, this is most definitely NOT the case for most libertarians in the context of climate change, as these “market-based policies” represent an enormous expansion of government that libertarians feel very strongly, based on past experience, will be profoundly porky, counterproductive and costly. In the face of the fight for favor in Washington and the choice of opaque cap-and-trade over a more open rebated carbon tax and other deregulatory options, there is good reason to believe that libertarians are right.

2. Regarding conclusion (a), let me first note that John reveals the self-same “conceit of perfect knowledge” that he accuses Austrians/libertarians of having: the “acceptance of reality of climate change” would undoubtedly be good for everyone, but just what is that reality, and how can a layman of any stripe confirm himself that climate is changing and that man is responsible? The very fact that this “reality” is nearly impossible to confirm personally (even over the course of a lifetime) means that even those whom John considers as having “accepted reality” have basically just adopted a frame of reference, on the basis of the consistency of the AGW frame with other previously established mental frames, a reliance on authority, peer-group acceptance, etc.

“Reality” in this case inevitably, for most people, has very large personal and social components; accordingly, both “acceptance” and “skepticism” of it may look like a group belief, which may help to explain why it is possible to perceive “a startling
degree of unanimity” of views on climate science, the contents of such views varying by group.

As for Austrians/libertarians, while I don`t think it is fair to conclude they (we) are characterized by delusional belief in
their own intellectual superiority, but that many do have a belief, not so much in the superiority of their intellect, but in the correctness of their views on political science and economics (this is common in other groups, of course). This may affect their views on climate science, for several reasons that I have noted to John previously, and may be related for some of them to his conclusions (b) and (c).

3. Concerning conclusions (b) and (c), these are both over-generalizations; libertarians are a heterogenous bunch. But if I may generalize myself, to me there appears no conflict whatsoever between Austrian views, which are primarily about interpersonal relations and the role of government, and climate science. “Mainstream science” has nothing to do with these views, so if Austrians are wrong about “mainstream climate science”, this does not imply that any Austrian views
must be wrong. So Quiggins` (c) is wrong.

Quiggins`(b) – that Austrians may not understand their own theory and
may falsely believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own
views must be wrong – may be right for some Austrians, but certainly not generally. Rather, what I suspect is going on is much more ordinary, as I previously noted to Quiggin as a comment on his related June post; that I need to repeat myself indicates that maybe John is having cognitive difficulties of his own (emphasis added):

John, thanks for this piece. As a libertarian who believes that
climate change IS a problem, I share some of your puzzlement and have
done considerable commenting
on this issue [see this long list]. Allow me to offer a few thoughts on various factors at
work in the general libertarian resistance to taking government action
on climate change:

– As Chris Horner noted in your linked
piece, many libertarians see “global warming [as] the bottomless well
of excuses for the relentless growth of Big Government.”  Even those who
agree that is AGW
is a serious problem are worried, for good reason, that government
approaches to climate change will be a train wreck – in other words,
that the government “cure” will be worse than the problem.

–
Libertarians have in general drifted quite far from environmentalists.
Even though they still share a mistrust of big government,
environmentalists generally believe that MORE
government is the answer, while ignoring all of the problems associated
with inefficient bureaucratic management (witness the crashing of many
managed fisheries in the US), the manipulation of such managment to
benefit bureaucratic interests, special interests and insiders
(wildfire fighting budgets, fossil fuel and hard rock mining, etc.) and
the resultant and inescapable politicization of all disputes due to the
absence of private markets. Libertarians see that socialized property
rights regimes can be just as “tragedy of the commons” ruinous as cases
where community or private solutions have not yet developed, and have
concluded that, without privatization, government involvement
inevitably expands. Thus, libertarians often see environmentalists as
simply another group fighting to expand government, and are hostile as
a result.

– Libertarians are as subject to reflexive, partisan
position-taking as any one else. Because they are reflexively opposed
to government action, they find it easier to operate from a position of
skepticism in trying to bat down AGW scientific and economic arguments (and to slam the motives of those arguing that AGW
must be addressed by government) than to open-mindedly review the
evidence. This is a shame( but human), because it blunts the libertarian
message in explaining what libertarians understand very well – that
environmental problems arise when property rights over resources are
not clearly defined or enforceable, and also when governments
(mis)manage resources.

I`ve discussed a number of times how we all easily fall into partisan cognitive traps, as summarized here.

A related piece of the dynamic is that some libertarians may feel that if they agree that AGW may be a problem, that this will be taken – wrongly – by others in the political arena as a conclusion that the libertarian message is no longer relevant.

4. Some support for these points can be seen in Edwin Dolan`s 2006 paper, “Science, Public Policy and Global Warming: Rethinking the Market Liberal Position” (Cato), in which Dolan suggests that many libertarian climate skeptics are acting quite as
if they are “conservatives” of the type condemned by Friedrich Hayek. 
Dolan cites Hayek’s 1960 essay, “Why I am Not a Conservative” (1960),
in which Hayek identified the following traits that distinguish
conservatism from market liberalism:

• Habitual resistance to change, hence the term “conservative.”
• Lack of understanding of spontaneous order as a guiding principle of economic life.
• Use of state authority to protect established privileges against the forces of economic change.
• Claim to superior wisdom based on self-arrogated superior quality in place of rational argument.
• A propensity to reject scientific knowledge because of dislike of the consequences that seem to follow from it.

Further support is provided by Jonathan Adler, a libertarian law professor at Case Western who focusses on resource issues, and who has concluded that climate change is a serious concern, and that man is contributing to it. His February 2008 post, “Climate Change, Cumulative Evidence, and Ideology” (and the comment thread) is instructive:

“Almost every time I post something on climate
change policy, the comment thread quickly devolves into a debate over
the existence of antrhopogenic global warming at all. (See, for
instance, this post
on “conservative” approaches to climate change policy.) I have largely
refused to engage in these discussions because I find them quite
unproductive. The same arguments are repeated ad nauseum, and no one is
convinced (if anyone even listens to what the other side is saying). …

“Given my strong libertarian leanings, it would certainly be
ideologically convenient if the evidence for a human contribution to
climate change were less strong. Alas, I believe the preponderance of
evidence strongly supports the claim that anthropogenic emissions are
having an effect on the global climate, and that effect will increase
as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. While I reject most
apocalyptic scenarios as unfounded or unduly speculative, I am
convinced that the human contribution to climate change will cause or
exacerbate significant problems in at least some parts of the world.
For instance, even a relatively modest warming over the coming decades
is very likely to have a meaningful effect on the timing and
distribution of precipitation and evaporation rates, which will, in
turn, have a substantial impact on freshwater supplies. That we do not
know with any precision the when, where, and how much does not change
the fact that we are quite certain that such changes will occur.

“So-called climate “skeptics” make many valid points about the
weakness or unreliability of many individual arguments and studies on
climate. They also point out how policy advocates routinely exaggerate
the implications of various studies or the likely consequences of even
the most robust climate predictions. Economists and others have also
done important work questioning whether climate risks justify extreme
mitigation measures. But none of this changes the fact that the
cumulative evidence for a human contribution to present and future
climate changes, when taken as a whole, is quite strong. In this
regard, I think it is worth quoting something Ilya wrote below about
the nature of evidence in his post about 12 Angry Men”:

People
often dismiss individual arguments and evidence against their preferred
position without considering the cumulative weight of the other side’s
points. It’s a very easy fallacy to fall into. But the beginning of
wisdom is to at least be aware of the problem.

“The “divide
and conquer” strategy of dissecting each piece of evidence
independently can make for effective advocacy, but it is not a good way
to find the truth”

I  noted the following in response to Adler:

I think that there are many Austrians who understand WHY there might
be a climate change problem to which man contributes, as the atmosphere
is an open-access resource, in which there are no clear or
enforceable property rights that rein in externalities or that give
parties with differing preferences an ability to engage in meaingful
transactions that reflect those preferences. 

But, flawed human beings that we are, we have difficulty truly
keeping our minds open (subconscious dismissal of inconsistent data is
a cognitive rule) and we easily fall into tribal modes of conflict that
provide us with great satisfaction in disagreeing with those evil
“others” while circling the wagons (and counting coup) with our
brothers in arms.

Sadly, this is very much in evidence in the thread to your own post.

5. I have pulled together a post that indicates that a number of libertarians are trying to engage in good faith on climate change, and which may also serve as a good introduction for interested readers to libertarian thinking on environmental issues.

6. Finally, let me note that many of the problems that concern libertarians also concern progressives, chief of these being the negative effects of state actions on communities, development and on open-access (and hitherto local, indigenous-managed) commons.  This is the same concern that the Nobel Prize committee expressed when extending the prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom, signalling their desire for a change in international aid policy.

You might find these remarks by Nicholas Hildyard, Larry Lohmann, Sarah Sexton and Simon Fairlie in “Reclaiming the Commons” (1995) to be pertinent; domestic cap-and-trade is an enclosure of the atmospheric commons, for the benefit of firms receiving grants of permits and costs flowing regressively to energy consumers, and internationally represents a vast expansion of state authority and bureaucracies, with attendant enclosure of local resources:

The creation of empires and states, business conglomerates and
civic dictatorships — whether in pre-colonial times or in the modern
era — has only been possible through dismantling the commons and
harnessing the fragments, deprived of their old significance, to build
up new economic and social patterns that are responsive to the
interests of a dominant minority. The modern nation state has been
built only by stripping power and control from commons regimes and
creating structures of governance from which the great mass of humanity
(particularly women) are excluded. Likewise, the market economy has
expanded primarily by enabling state and commercial interests to gain
control of territory that has traditionally been used and cherished by
others, and by transforming that territory – together with the people
themselves – into expendable “resources” for exploitation. By enclosing
forests, the state and private enterprise have torn them out of fabrics
of peasant subsistence; by providing local leaders with an outside
power base, unaccountable to local people, they have undermined village
checks and balances; by stimulating demand for cash goods, they have
impelled villagers to seek an ever wider range of things to sell. Such
a policy was as determinedly pursued by the courts of Aztec Mexico, the
feudal lords of West Africa, and the factory owners of Lancashire and
the British Rail as it is today by the International Monetary Fund or
Coca-Cola Inc.

Only in this way has it been possible to convert peasants into
labour for a global economy, replace traditional with modern
agriculture, and free up the commons for the industrial economy.
Similarly, only by atomizing tasks and separating workers from the
moral authority, crafts and natural surroundings created by their
communities has it been possible to transform them into modern,
universal individuals susceptible to “management”. In short, only by
deliberately taking apart local cultures and reassembling them in new
forms has it been possible to open them up to global trade.[FN L.
Lohmann, ‘Resisting Green Globalism’ in W. Sachs (ed), Global Ecology:
Conflicts and Contradictions, Zed Books, London and New Jersey, 1993.]

To achieve that “condition of economic progress”, millions have
been marginalized as a calculated act of policy, their commons
dismantled and degraded, their cultures denigrated and devalued and
their own worth reduced to their value as labour. Seen from this
perspective, many of the processes that now go under the rubric of
“nation-building”, “economic growth”, and “progress” are first ad
foremost processes of expropriation, exclusion, denial and
dispossession. In a word, of “enclosure”.

Because history’s best-known examples of enclosure involved the
fencing in of common pasture, enclosure is often reduced to a synonym
for “expropriation”. But enclosure involves more than land and fences,
and implies more than simply privatization or takeover by the state. It
is a compound process which affects nature and culture, home and
market, production and consumption, germination and harvest, birth,
sickness and death. It is a process to which no aspect of life or
culture is immune. ..,

Enclosure tears people and their lands, forests, crafts,
technologies and cosmologies out of the cultural framework in which
they are embedded and tries to force them into a new framework which
reflects and reinforces the values and interests of newly-dominant
groups. Any pieces which will not fit into the new framework are
devalued and discarded. In the modern age, the architecture of this new
framework is determined by market forces, science, state and corporate
bureaucracies, patriarchal forms of social organization, and ideologies
of environmental and social management.

Land, for example, once it is integrated into a framework of
fences, roads and property laws, is “disembedded” from local fabrics of
self-reliance and redefined as “property” or “real estate”. Forests are
divided into rigidly defined precincts – mining concessions, logging
concessions, wildlife corridors and national parks – and transformed
from providers of water, game, wood and vegetables into scarce
exploitable economic resources. Today they are on the point of being
enclosed still further as the dominant industrial culture seeks to
convert them into yet another set of components of the industrial
system, redefining them as “sinks” to absorb industrial carbon dioxide
and as pools of “biodiversity”. Air is being enclosed as economists
seek to transform it into a marketable “waste sink”; and genetic
material by subjecting it to laws which convert it into the
“intellectual property” of private interests.

People too are enclosed as they are fitted into a new society where
they must sell their labour, learn clock-time and accustom themselves
to a life of production and consumption; groups of people are redefined
as “populations’, quantifiable entities whose size must be adjusted to
take pressure off resources required for the global economy. …

enclosure transforms the environment into a “resource” for national or
global production – into so many chips that can be cashed in as
commodities, handed out as political favours and otherwise used to
accrue power. …

Enclosure thus cordons off those aspects of the environment that are
deemed “useful” to the encloser — whether grass for sheep in 16th
century England or stands of timber for logging in modern-say Sarawak
— and defines them, and them alone, as valuable. A street becomes a
conduit for vehicles; a wetland, a field to be drained; flowing water,
a wasted asset to be harnessed for energy or agriculture. Instead of
being a source of multiple benefits, the environment becomes a
one-dimensional asset to be exploited for a single purpose – that
purpose reflecting the interests of the encloser, and the priorities of
the wider political economy in which the encloser operates….

Enclosure opens the way for the bureaucratization and enclosure of
knowledge itself. It accords power to those who master the language of
the new professionals and who are versed in its etiquette and its
social nuances, which are inaccessible to those who have not been to
school or to university, who do not have professional qualifications,
who cannot operate computers, who cannot fathom the apparent mysteries
of a cost-benefit analysis, or who refuse to adopt the forceful tones
of an increasingly “masculine” world.

In that respect, as Illich notes, “enclosure is as much in the
interest of professionals and of state bureaucrats as it is in the
interests of capitalists.” For as local ways of knowing and doing are
devalued or appropriated, and as vernacular forms of governance are
eroded, so state and professional bodies are able to insert themselves
within the commons, taking over areas of life that were previously
under the control of individuals, households and the community.
Enclosure “allows the bureaucrat to define the local community as
impotent to provide for its own survival.”[FN I Illich, ‘Silence is a
Commons’, The Coevolution Quarterly, Winter 1983.] It invites the
professional to come to the “rescue” of those whose own knowledge is
deemed inferior to that of the encloser.

Enclosure is thus a change in the networks of power which enmesh
the environment, production, distribution, the political process,
knowledge, research and the law. It reduces the control of local people
over community affairs. Whether female or male, a person’s influence
and ability to make a living depends increasingly on becoming absorbed
into the new policy created by enclosure, on accepting — willingly or
unwillingly — a new role as a consumer, a worker, a client or an
administrator, on playing the game according to new rules. The way is
thus cleared for cajoling people into the mainstream, be it through
programmes to bring women “into development”, to entice smallholders
“into the market” or to foster paid employment.[FN P. Simmons, ‘Women
in Development’, The Ecologist, Vol. 22, No.1, 1992, pp.16-21.]

Those who remain on the margins of the new mainstream, either by
choice or because that is where society has pushed them, are not only
deemed to have little value: they are perceived as a threat. Thus it is
the landless, the poor, the dispossessed who are blamed for forest
destruction; their poverty which is held responsible for
“overpopulation”; their protests which are classed as subversive and a
threat to political stability. And because they are perceived as a
threat, they become objects to be controlled, the legitimate subjects
of yet further enclosure. …

People who would oppose dams, logging, the redevelopment of their
neighbourhoods or the pollution of their rivers are often left few
means of expressing or arguing their case unless they are prepared to
engage in a debate framed by the languages of cost-benefit analysis,
reductionist science, utilitarianism, male domination — and,
increasingly, English. Not only are these languages in which many local
objection — such as that which holds ancestral community rights to a
particular place to have precedence over the imperatives of “national
development” — appear disreputable. They are also languages whose use
allows enclosers to eavesdrop on, “correct” and dominate the
conversations of the enclosed. …

Because they hold themselves to be speaking a universal language,
the modern enclosers who work for development agencies and governments
feel no qualms in presuming to speak for the enclosed. They assume
reflexively that they understand their predicament as well as or better
than the enclosed do themselves. It is this tacit assumption that
legitimizes enclosure in the encloser’s mind – and it is an assumption
that cannot be countered simply by transferring what are
conventionbally assumed to be the trappings of power from one group to
another….

A space for the commons cannot be created by economists,
development planners, legislators, “empowerment” specialists or other
paternalistic outsiders. To place the future in the hands of such
individuals would be to maintain the webs of power that are currently
stifling commons regimes. One cannot legislate the commons into
existence; nor can the commons be reclaimed simply by adopting “green
techniques” such as organic agriculture, alternative energy strategies
or better public transport — necessary and desirable though such
techniques often are. Rather, commons regimes emerge through ordinary
people’s day-to-day resistance to enclosure, and through their efforts
to regain livelihoods and the mutual support, responsibility and trust
that sustain the commons.

That is not to say that one can ignore policy-makers or
policy-making. The depredations of transnational corporations,
international bureaucracies and national governments cannot be allowed
to go unchallenged. But movements for social change have a
responsibility to ensure that in seeking solutions, they do not remove
the initiative from those who are defending their commons or attempting
to regenerate common regimes — a responsibility they should take
seriously.

Might there be good reason NOT to rush into a vast expansion of government world-wide?

I excerpt below, in chronological order, portions of my prior posts here that refer to Elinor Ostrom (the political scientist who recently was awarded the Nobel prize in economics) and are indebted to her thinking.

Perhaps items 3 and 10 are most accessible for readers in a hurry to find links to her own work.

1.   Too Many or Too Few People? Does the market provide an answer?, Sep 28 2007:

Too many or too few? Good question, Dan.
I agree with you that the population question is like any other aspect
of the social order: best addressed by the market and by free societies.

There are just a few small problems – even within the developed
world (and very clearly outside of it), there are many important
resources that are unowned and thus not fully priced in the “market” economy.

Unowned resources include almost all of Nature.  Primary
productivity (the amount of vegetation produced from photosynthesis)
has changed little, so as we use technology and our organizational
abilities to divert more and more of it to feed us, this is an
inevitable cost to other species, either directly or in the form of
altered environments that support less life (and less diversity of
life).

In altering our environments to suit us, we are of course no
different from other life forms that compete for resources to live and
propagate, but with our technical and organizational abilities, mankind
has clearly triumphed over the rest of nature (except perhaps evolving
microbes, to whom we represent an increasingly large and relatively
untapped food source). But at what cost?

Through the centuries we have wiped out many wild systems of food
and other resources – because they were never owned, and because our
improving technology enabled us to race each other to take the
resources before others (or from others, in the case of many native
peoples). Not only Jared Diamond`s “guns, germs and steel”, but
also forms of social organization have played deciding roles in the
competition between human societies for survival, growth and
dominance.  In this regard, societies that recognize and protect
property rights and utilize free markets have proven clearly superior
in the competition with other societies to obtain and utilize available
resources.

But our struggle has been not only to capture resources and to use
them before others do, but also to manage and protect them
effectively.  Evolving ownership systems have been a key means of
limiting wasteful “tragedy of the commons” struggles (see Yandle; von Mises),
but even where ownership systems have been implemented, we have
generally replaced complex natural systems with simpler systems
designed solely to feed us (and particularly so where, due to higher
consumptive demand, we have replaced common property systems with
private property systems (Ostrom)).

Meanwhile, virtually all of the natural world – the world’s oceans,
atmosphere, tropical reefs, tropical forests and other great commons –
remain unowned and thus unmanaged and unregulated (or indigenous
occupants have been forced aside).  For example, the great cod fishery
off of the Grand Banks that fed Europe for centuries has now
disappeared, and other fishery stocks worldwide are crashing – to be
“replaced” by “farmed” fish that are fed to a substantial degree by
catching and grinding up fish stocks that humans prefer not to consume
directly, and in part by fish firms that are established by destroying
the mangroves that are estuaries to various fisheries.  The same is
true of the replacement of vast tracts of tropical forests with
soybeans or oil palm plantations, with the rapid increase in
atmospheric CO2 (and attendant risks to climate) and with the
correspondingly geolologically rapid increases in ocean acidification (and
threats to plankton, corals and shellfish).

While populations in the developed economies are now relatively
stable, demand from our markets (as well as the burgeoning developing
markets) continues to strip out unowned (or mismanaged “public”)
resources from the oceans or undeveloped countries, aided by
kleptocratic elites who are happy to steal from the peoples they
supposedly represent in order to line their own pockets.  

As Dan points out, property rights failures in poorer nations
contributes to population growth there by delaying the demographic
transitions that we have experienced.  Developed economies face similar
problems with respect to “public”, state-owned lands, for which
rent-seeking by and sweet deals to insiders are enduring problems and
sources of politcal conflict (as markets cannot work to allocate
resources).

Dan states that the stunningly rapid growth of human populations
from the Renaissance to the present (6+ billion now expected to nearly
double again soon) “actually represents the rise of capitalism and
capital development … [and]  shows … the stunning capacity of
freedom to provide for the whole world.”  While partly correct, this
misses completely the question of our massive impact, within a very
short period of geological time, on the environment in which we evolved
over millions of years, the fact this has occurred because clear and
enforceable property rights have not been created in many of the
resources that have been consumed, and the corollary fact that
we continue to lack the ability to manage our impact on our endowment
of natural resources.

The market clearly does NOT send accurate pricing signals with
respect to goods that are unowned or ineffectively owned; these goods
are either unpriced or underpriced, so the effect is overconsumption
until the point that the resource is greatly degraded, at which point
attention is turned to the next unowned resource. Thus, human
populations are responding to rather imperfect market signals.  And
where resources are unowned, individuals and groups with differing
values and desires cannot adjust or realize those desires by means of
private, market transactions.  As a result, we are seeing a recourse to
the public and political arenas – and the inevitable discordant debates
– as various parties seek to use either moral suasion or the levers of
government (locally, nationally and internationally) to advance what
they consider to be their own interests.  (Of course, in a “tragedy of
the commons” situation, all resource users share an interest is the
future availability of a resource; the difficulty is in the prisoners’
dilemma negotiations at the primary user level about how to allocate
short-term pain in the interest of long-term gains, compounded in the
case of multinational resources by rent-seeking with each national
participant.)

A cynic may say that our ongoing assault on nature is only
“natural”, presents no moral or philosophical issues and that we hardly
owe any responsibilities to “nature” or even “future generations” –  so
let’s just all keep on partying, consuming for today, and patting
ourselves on the back at how marvelous our market systems are.  And
that we should keep on hurling invective at those evil “enviros” who
want to crash the party and drag us all back to the Stone Age.

Perhaps I suffer from a want of sufficient cynicism.

2.    Using the State to solve common resource problems?, Oct 12 2007:

How exactly do you transfer commons into private ownership in a fair way, even for easily divided up stuff like land?

Libertarians do not insist that open-access resources (or common
property resources/CPR) be divided up by creating individual property
rights; cooperative ownership  via formal agreements or informally
developed practices and customs (such those developed by Maine
lobstermen, English angling clubs, indigenous peoples and Wikipedia and
online communities) may work better at solving the prisoners’ dilemma
issues and are just as acceptable.

But technological advances and greater demand often swamp CPR
regimes, so such regimes remain vulnerable if they are not accorded
legal protection. My understanding of the UK enclosures in this regard
is that they were actually a legislative theft of common property by
the powerful.

Can states play positive roles in solving problems? At least
internally, it is rather clear that the answer is that the state works
best by allowing, and providing judicial mechanisms to enforce, private
transactions, and works least well when it tries to specify detailed
and rigid “solutions” itself – since the government itself never has
perfect information, often plays favorites and once a regulatory regime
is put in place, parties have no ability to work out their differences
directly with each other, but are forever in the position of trying to
influence the state and in adversarial positions vis-a-vis each other. 
But states can also play a positive role by disseminating information
and by acting to facilitate deals between various resources users,
particularly in cross-border/multi-state problems.

Elinor Ostrom is the guru of CPR regimes; anyone interested
should look into her fascinating and highly-regarded work, particularly
her seminal Governing the Commons (1990).

[She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society,
and a recipient of a number of prestigious awards. Her other books
include Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources (1994); The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations (2003); The Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (2005); Understanding Institutional Diversity (2005); and Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (2007).]

Here is one link to get readers started:  Elinor Ostrom et al.,
Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science 9
April 1999: http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf

Technology seems to provide us ability to create property rights regimes in ocean fisheries.

The
stickiest problems are those where the resource is located in a country
where we cannot ourselves create or enforce legal rights and in the
atmosphere, which no one owns and to which all have access. 
Unfortunately, many libertarians don’t even want to acknowledge, much
less discuss, these problems. Since they are not confined to any one
country, clearly we need to coordinate with others – for which
purposes our state apparatus cannot be avoided.

Reaching any kind of effective solution for problems of this type
will require much more focussed attention and bridge-building (abroad
and at home), and if libertarians do not want to be part of the
discussion, clearly they will have little influence on the results.

3.    Sophomoric optimism?, Oct 16 2007:

Our states are merely one subset of the wide universe of formal and
informal institutions through which we cooperate with one another. 
States are not a market, to be sure, but then neither are corporations,
and there is a spectrum of ownership types between the two.  We can
study all of these institutions and use that knowledge to direct how we
make use of them.  Such study has informed, for example, the deliberate
shifts in policy that have led to the ongoing (yet incomplete)
privatization of the former USSR and of China. 

A study of institutions governing common pool resources by guru Elinor Ostrom makes the following point:

 “Whether people are able to self-organize and manage CPRs also depends on the broader social setting within which they work. National governments can help or hinder local self-organization. “Higher”
levels of government can facilitate the assembly of users of a CPR in
organizational meetings, provide information that helps identify the
problem and possible solutions, and legitimize and help enforce
agreements reached by local users. National governments can at times,
however, hinder local self-organization by defending rights that lead
to overuse or maintaining that the state has ultimate control over
resources without actually monitoring and enforcing existing
regulations.

“Participants are more likely to adopt effective rules in
macro-regimes that facilitate their efforts than in regimes that ignore
resource problems entirely or that presume that central authorities
must make all decisions.If local authority is not formally recognized by larger regimes, it is difficult for users to establish enforceable rules. “

Elinor Ostrom et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science, 04/09/99 http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf

Was von Mises foolish to suggest we can use the state to reform our institutions?

“It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are
external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals or
firms, the economic calculation established by them is manifestly
defective and their results deceptive. But this is not the outcome of
alleged deficiencies inherent in the system of private ownership of the
means of production. It is on the contrary a consequence of
loopholes left in this system. It could be removed by a reform of the
laws concerning liability for damages inflicted and by rescinding the
institutional barriers preventing the full operation of private
ownership.”

http://mises.org/humanaction/chap23sec6.asp

And Cordato, for suggesting that Austrians take particular policy approaches to environmental issues?

“For Austrians then, public policy in the area of the
environment must focus on resolving these conflicts over the use of
resources that define pollution, not on obtaining an ultimately
unobtainable “efficient” allocation of resources. … For Austrians, whose goal is to resolve conflicts, the focus is on clarifying titles to property and rights enforcement.

http://mises.org/daily/1760

Sorry, but I cannot believe that we are condemned always to repeat
all mistakes, despite our rather constant human nature.  Rather, as Yandle notes, our very history as a species is about our success in evolving, devising and adopting ways to manage shared problems.   http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064

This is a message of profound optimism, not cynicism — said the fool.

4.    Ron Bailey of Reason congratulates Al Gore , Oct 15 2007:

1.  You were right last year when you
said that “In the end, the debate over global warming and its obverse,
humanity’s energy future, is a moral issue.”
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/113924.html

2.  I share your understanding of the
economics and institutional problem and agree that a straightforward
explanation of these is important for very many.

3.  However, you forget what
evolutionary psychology, Ostrom and Yandle have explained to us so well
about how our innate moral sense drives and underpins mankind’s success
as a species by enhancing our ability to cooperate and to overcome
commons issues.
Ostrom: http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf
Yandle: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064

Our long history of developed rules and
institutions (informal and formal now overlapping) are based on our
moral sense and the effectiveness of these rules depends critically on
our moral investment in accepting their legitimacy – witness our views
on murder, theft, lying and “not playing by the rules” – and in
voluntarily complying with them.

Our moral sense reinforces our judgments
about when rules/institutions are not working and the need to develop
new ones in response to changing circumstances and new problems.  When
we see a problem that we think requires change, it is unavoidable that
we respond the the status quo, the behavior of people within it and the
need for change with a moral sense. 

This is simply a part of our
evolutionary endowment.  (Of course, other parts of our endowment
accentuate our suspicions of smooth talkers and help us catch free
riders and looters and to guard against threats from outsiders.)

4.  Accordingly, while it’s unclear how
deliberate Gore’s talk of “a moral and spiritual challenge” and
“lifting the global consciousness” is or whether this is a
productive approach for some people, I think it is fairly clear that,
in order to build consensus for a solution to the climate commons
problem (and other difficult commons problems) and to ensure that any
agreed solutions are actually implemented, we will need to bring our
moral senses to bear.

In other words, it is RIGHT to worry
about climate change, but no meaningful/effective “solution” can be
reached or implemented unless it is FAIR and the parties involved have
sufficient TRUST (backed by information) in each other.

5.    Not Climate Change Welfare, But Capitalism and Free Markets, Jan 22 2008:

[F]ar from “forc[ing] rich countries to become poor”,
figuring out how to manage a global commons like the atmosphere, while
it may have the effect of imposing a cost on the release of carbon, is
basically aimed at privatising externalities, with the intention of
increasing the efficiency of private transactions and net wealth.  Climate
change is, of course, just one of a broad range of pervasive problems
that occur when markets encounter resources that are not clearly or
effectively owned or managed.  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/09/28/too-many-or-too-few-people-does-the-market-provide-an-answer.aspx

3.  Most importantly, while Lockitch correctly diagnoses the illness
– poor countries need to “embrace free markets and private property
rights and attract the investment of profit-seeking entrepreneurs to
create wealth and drive economic growth” – he simply fails to address what wealthy nations SHOULD be doing, if anything, to assist the cure.  This,
of course, is the main dodge, because Lockitch fails to own up to the
true difficulties involved in trying to help the developing nations. 

Trying to build “soft” infrastructure in the form of rule of
law and property rights (ending kleptocracy and theft of “public”
resources) is tremendously difficult – perhaps a problem that is even
more difficult than the wealthy nations deciding how to share the pain
of GHG reductions (as I noted in comments to a post on Amazonian deforestation here: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001043lahsen_and_nobre_20.html)  Heck,
the wealthy nations have a hard enough time doing the easiest things to
speed development of poorer nations, which is simply to open import
markets by removing domestic tariffs, import restrictions and subsidies. 
Rather, it seems that the richer nations have to feed their more
powerful elites first, while hamstringing competition from poorer
nations in products for which they should be able to exploit a
comparative advantage.  If Lockitch was truly interested in
helping the poor of developing nations, you’d think he’d note how
enduring rent-seeking at home serves to keep the poorer nations down.

And if the wealthy nations should do something to help
poorer nations, which seems implicit in Lockitch’s analysis (if not
conventional aid, then aid to build soft, governance infrastructure),
then can’t some of those efforts easily dovetail with efforts to
establish carbon pricing in the wealthy countries?  Why couldn’t aid
budgets be funded by carbon taxes at home, for example?  And can’t
demand for “carbon credits” help to establish incentives to improve
governance infrastructure in poorer nations?  In other words,
“mitigation” (efforts to limit climate change) in developed
nations need not conflict with any efforts to help poorer
nations “adapt” to climate change or otherwise become wealthier.

4.  Lockitch asserts that the concern of enviros for the world’s
poor is “feigned”, but this is a cheap and unproductive ad hominem –
and one that can easily be turned around.  While some enviros may not
understand the institutional sicknesses that hinder development, this
illness has been fed much more by governments and corporations at home
than by enviros, many of who have been involved in the long,
hard effort to build local infrastructure and to protect traditional
private and community property rights. 

On the other hand, just what is it that evidences that
Lockitch himself – or other skeptics – have any “real” concern for the
world’s poor?  Does the wheel of this concern ever hit the road, or is
it simply spinning noisily, to welcoming nods from  domestic special
interests who benefit from the continuation of climate externalities?

A key insight of Austrian economics relating to the environment is that man does not harm the environment per se, but that social
welfare or efficiency problems arise because of interpersonal conflict
associated with irresolvable inefficiencies – inefficiencies that
cannot find a solution in the entrepreneurial workings of the market
process because of institutional defects associated with the
lack of clearly defined or well enforced property rights.  (See Roy
Cordato, http://mises.org/daily/1760). 
It is both ironic and disappointing that many Austrians and others
similarly minded, rather than focussing on the difficult task of
conflict resolution in the case of the climate, seem to prefer the
emotional rush of conflict itself over analysis and bridge- and
consensus-building.  But this is nothing new (and is certainly
tempting, given our tribal nature)(http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/17/holiday-joy-quot-watermelons-quot-roasting-on-an-open-pyre.aspx). 

No one owns the world’s atmosphere, so all are entitled to
their opinions about managing it.  And clearly the world continues to
struggle with the rapid exploitation of other unowned, “public” or
poorly defined or protected physical resources, in the face of growing
populations, growing markets and technological advances that lower the
costs of access to the commons.  I suggest that rather than ad
hominems, we would be better served by frankly acknowledging problems
of this nature and starting to build shared understandings.  The writings of Elinor Ostrom are a good place to start:  http://www.conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-7e8akm.pdf

In honestly engaging on these issues, it is perfectly
appropriate – nay, essential – to be aware of the self-interests of
various participants and to caution against the problems of
rent-seeking, “rent-farming” by politicians, and frequently unaligned
incentives of bureaucracies.

5.  Finally, this is a quibble, but Lockitch is wrong to assert thay developing nations need to “industrialize”.  What they need to do is to better govern themselves by protecting investments, markets and human rights, and then getting out of the way of their people. 
What results will be these countries’ own path, which will naturally
differ from Western industrialization (leapfrogging it in some ways).

6.   Rob Bradley cheers on coal, but are all those who want to better manage commons and environmental impacts “Malthusian” idiots, or only in the case of coal?, Feb 5 2009:

Rob Bradley has a new post up at MasterResource, cheering on big (and now “clean”) coal, which has apparently received assurances from the Obama administration – after being bad-mouthed by NASA scientist Jim Hansen, Steven Chu and Obama himself – that, despite pressures from the “Malthusian anti-energy crusade” regarding climate change impacts, the recent massive TVA fly-ash spill and opposition to destructive mountaintop removal practices in Appalachia, coal will remain profitable during Obama’s term and central to US energy supplies.  Hooray!

But I wasn’t quite clear on all of Rob’s message, so I asked him a few questions in the comment thread:

Rob, are the John Badens, Terry Andersons, Bruce Yandles, Elinor Ostroms
and others who want to find ways to manage our commons better – by
improving ownership, incentives and pricing signals – also part of a[n
evil] “Malthusian crusade”?

I just wanna make sure I know who to hate.

As for that big fly-ash breach/spill in
Tennessee, I’m glad that you didn’t point out how this was a result of
government ownership of TVA, with the added benefit that costs will be
borne not only by direct and indirect victims, but by taxpayers as
well. No sense in pointing out how government is so often in the way,
particularly if it detracts from our “we hate enviros!” message. Last
thing we ever want to do is to reach a shared understanding with
enviros of the institutional underpinnings of problems, since that
means our funders might lose some of their fairly purchased,
government-given special privileges.

While it’s clear that “free-market” Rob cares little about whether the coal industry continues
commercial activities that shift the environmental costs and risks
(including potential costs arising from GHG emissions) to others,
I forgot to ask Rob whether, as a hearty cheerleader for those poor
coal underdogs, he also supports their position that the government
should subsidize their change in business model by (a) having Uncle Sam pay the bulk of capital costs for IGCC (integrated gas combined cycle plant) [something like $1 billion for the first one with CCS], (b) giving them a further break (reduced royalties) on the sweet deals they already have
for stripping coal from public lands and (c) – now that the federal
government is getting into the busy of running the financial sector –
making sure that power producers that want to use coal have easy access
to credit, by twisting the arms of those uppity Wall Street financiers
who with their fancy new “Carbon Principles” and “Enhanced Due Diligence” seem a bit too reluctant to extend credit for coal-fired power plants.

Here’s hoping Rob weighs in further.  I want to make sure I’m not
messing up when I try to distinguish the “white hats” from the “black
hats”.   From what I can tell so far, seeking to manipulate government
policy for your own benefit is evil – as long as you’re not a coal
firm – and we call the evil ones “Malthusians”.  Right?

7.     More stupid from Tierney; this time on “Kuznets curve” and the dynamics of “wealthier and greener”, May 12 2009:

Tierney seems to believe that the Kuznets curve means that greater
wealth magically makes for a cleaner environment.  To the contrary, it
is the hard work of people, expressing their desires to protect their
own property and to realize other preferences regarding shared
resources, to increase wealth by finding means (property rights
institutions, litigation and government regulation) to end tragedy of
the commons-type situtations, who improve their environment.  That is, working to close externalities leads to both wealthier and greener societies.  

(I`ve remarked on the Kuznets curve before; interestingly, conservatives seem to misunderstand it more than liberals.)

So
I tried to offer a more libertarian understanding, which I`ve taken the
liberty of memorializing here (with typo correction and emphasis and
further links added):

Andrew, food for thought on enviro Kuznets:

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=kuznets
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/01/22/poor-countries-need-capitalism-not-climate-change-welfare.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/09/27/too-many-or-too-few-people-does-the-market-provide-an-answer.aspx

Unfortunately, Tierney simply fails to understand that the enviro
Kuznets curve does not tell us that problems relating to environmental
cost-shifting or to the over-exploitation of unowned commons are best
resolved by ignoring them and simply hoping for the best. Rather, it
affirms that as people become more wealthy, they care more about
protecting the environment and put more elbow grease into achieving
improvements – via improved property rights protection, improved
information disclosure, greater consumer pressure and even through
greater regulation (which is the path the West has largely followed),
and reaching agreements with others sharing the relevant resource).

In other words, the work relating to global, regional and various
national commons (atmosphere, seas, forests, water, etc.) is still
ahead of us. Libertarians can advocate for property rights (and
privatization of public lands) as ways to have a more efficient (and
just) path on the curve, or they provide implicit support for powerful
and dirty industries by standing by and waiting until citizen pressure
groups force government to act in heavy-handed ways.

April 22, 2009 at 2:11 pm

•  
  • Andrew. I suggest that you start with this short article by Yandle.

    I have plenty more links on my blog to him, Terry Anderson, Mises, Cordato, Block, Rothbard and others on Austrian approaches to environmental issues, fisheries, and climate. Ron Bailey (at Reason) has good posts on fisheries; leading enviro groups all agree that more privatization is desirable:http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/01/15/for-crashing-fisheries-coalition-of-mainline-us-enviro-groups-calls-for-property-rights.aspx

    Commons remain commons either because government ownership
    prevents privatization (as in the Amazon, US public lands and most
    fisheries management) or because full privatization is difficult. There
    are many examples of the latter case that involve semi-privatization
    and commons management, like traditional forestries, fisheries and water rights. Elinor Ostrom is the expert on commons; I have plenty of links to her too. …

    
    
  • April 23, 2009 at 2:48 am

    People and firms invest all the time in doing
    things in response to incentives, both positive and negative; viz. they
    also try to reduce costs, including the costs their activities impose
    on others if those they injured have rights of recourse. The effort to
    reduce costs is one of the chief factors driving technological advances.

    Surely you`re not suggesting that the best way to encourage
    wealthier societies is to free people from responsibility for the
    damages they cause others? That`s hardly a Lockean or libertarian view.
    A “Laissez Faire approach” leaves government out, in favor of voluntary
    transactions and enforecment of property rights, including rights not
    to be injured. The regulatory state has in fact been a boon to the most
    powerful producers, by giving them rights to pollute, often
    grandfafthering dirty plants, while forcing the highest costs on more
    nimble and cleaner producers. If you^re interested in learning
    about libertarian approaches to the environment, again, I suggest you
    look at Rothbard, Cordato, Block and others, whom I link to on my blog.

    You seem to make reference to the enviro Kuznets curve, and how
    wealthier societies bring pollution dow, while completely missing the
    dynamics. Wealthier societies clean up because they insist on
    bringing an end to tragedy of the commons-type exploitation of
    resources. A society that focusses on property rights typically has a
    lower curve than societies that fail to enforce property rights (needed
    for Coasean bargaining) in favor of government regulatory approaches.
    Our own curve remains too high, because wealthier investors prefer to
    use regulation to shift costs to the rest of society.

8.   Libertarians to lefty-enviros: without community-based property rights, sustainable fisheries are impossible, May 11 2009:

Elinor Ostrom has
also been a leader in documenting the ways that a community of users
(NOT the dread and sloppily misused “soc-ial-ism”) may effectively
manage a shared resource.

Readers might be interested in the World Bank`s Oct 2008 report, “The Sunken Billions; The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform”.

With support from the World Bank, PERC is in the middle of hosting a conference
on approaches to sustainable fisheries (and on ending the massive
over-harvesting and wasted subsidies and mal-investment under current
regulatory approaches).

I also urge readers to look at what the organization Defying Ocean’s End (co-founded by Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Ocean Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, The World Conservation Union, and World Wildlife Fund) has to say about protecting fish:

“Most of the solutions that have been
implemented or proposed to fix the world’s fisheries center on
command-and-control measures: regulators or courts telling fishermen
how to fish through the imposition of controls on effort (e.g., fishing
vessel length, engine horsepower, gear restrictions, etc.).
Prescriptions like these work against strong economic incentives for
maximizing catch, which are not addressed by such measures, and are of
course usually resisted by fishermen. Often, prescriptions create
incentives for “work-arounds” and set up a cat-and-mouse game between
fishermen and regulators – for example, if regulators impose a
restriction on vessel size, fishermen may purchase two vessels to
maintain high catch levels.

“As in most natural resource
problems, more effective solutions will address the fundamental drivers
of unsustainable fisheries. In this case, the key necessary reform will
be to designate secure catch privileges. It is important to understand
that such privileges can be allocated to different kinds of entities in
different ways, and indeed, they should be tailored to specific
fisheries and communities to fit with local customs, traditions,
values, and social structure.”

I`ve linked a number of my other posts on fisheries here.

9.   The tragedy of the panicked enviro II; understanding the “tragedy of the commons”, Aug 29 2009:

Sure,
the Western
world has managed to create many environmental problems, but we`ve
largely cleaned up our own messes, haven`t we?  While it by no means
excuses our own faults, far worse environmental problems have been
created and are still stewing in Russia and other state-directed
economies, and it`s no coincidence that the vast pollution being
created in China and India are tied to governement-owned enterprise and
an inability of injured people to sue for damages or to stop harmful
activities.  And the great waves of extinctions created as man spread
around the globe tens of thousands of years ago can hardly be laid at
the foot of either the Western world or of private property rights (nor
can the collapse of earlier civilizations).

The
“tragedy of the commons” is NOT a “simplistic market morality”, but a
description of cooperation problems and incentives relating to shared,
open-access resources.  The tragedy of the commons and problems of
cooperation – and theft – are not even limited to mankind, but permeate
nature.  This perceptive article by Bruce Yandle touches on competition
in nature, and links the ascendance of man to our evolution of
relatively enhanced cooperation:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-commons-tragedy-or-triumph/

The
“tragedy of the commons” paradigm is useful to analyze, but the
paradigm doesn`t “seek to moderate” anything, and is just as useful in
looking at the ways Western nations still contribute to environmental
problems around the world (as I point out here:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/09/28/too-many-or-too-few-people-does-the-market-provide-an-answer.aspx) as it is in examining:

– environmental devastation in Haiti (which has little or no property rights, and vast free-for-all “government” holdings),

–
deforestation in Indonesia and the Amazon:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/05/24/capitalism-the-destructive-exploitation-of-the-amazon-and-the-tragedy-of-the-government-owned-commons.aspx,

– pollution in China: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=china, and

–
crashing fisheries around the world as a result of government of marine
resources (producing free-for-alls and fleet subsidies) and a
free-for-all for other unowned or unprotected resources:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=fish.

You
say: “The rate of exploitation and the decline
of resources, water, energy, fisheries, soil, minerals, etc., all
occured under a free market, private property paradigm.”  This is
clearly demonstrably wrong, and draws entirely the wrong lessons. While
private property is certainly no panacea, neither are they what is
wrong.  Very often, is is governments that have been and are wrong,
though there is certainly some learning going on.

While
Garrett Hardin`s “The Tragedy of the Commons” certainly represents a
hypothetical situation, it is actually a very powerful analytical tool
for understanding and fashioning solutions to countless “real life”
problems. See Elinor Ostrom et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science, 04/09/99 http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf

“In real life,
corporations own, or vie to own, resources or access to them for the
purpose of extraction and profit and they seek to maximize profits
through economies of scale, that is industrial extraction methods,
drift netting, blowing up mountains, tossing mining waste into clear,
pristine lakes.“

What
you describe here is a conflict between preferences over how resources
are used.  Do you prefer a free-for-all, or a situation where those who
use a resource can protect it, negotiate with others who wish to see
other values preserved, and who are responsible for negative
consequences caused to others (not always a part of some property
rights systems), or perhaps a situation where governments make all
resource exploitation decisions?”

“The money is in the resource and when the resource is
exhausted they will move on to the next one.”

The
money is never in the “resource”, but in the ways that people can use
it or otherwise value it (and of course people also value pristine
environments).

10.  Tragedy of the panicked enviro III: learning from Elinor Ostrom about cooperative action, Aug 29 2009:

Let me add some further nuance to Mr. Worstall`s comment by saying
that Hardin`s fertile observations have fuelled extensive further
research on common property problems, with Elinor Ostrom being recognized as a leading light.

Here is one general bibliography on commons research: http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/wsl/tragedy.htm

Ostrom
has refined Hardin`s work in the following way (quoting from a review
of Ostrom`s 1990 ground-breaking and extensively researched book, GOVERNING THE COMMONS, The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action):

Ostrom uses the term “common pool resources” to denote natural
resources used by many individuals in common, such as fisheries,
groundwater basins, and irrigation systems. Such resources have long
been subject to overexploitation and misuse by individuals acting in
their own best interests. Conventional solutions typically involve
either centralized governmental regulation or privatization of the
resource. But, according to Ostrom, there is a third approach to
resolving the problem of the commons: the design of durable cooperative
institutions that are organized and governed by the resource users
themselves.

“The central question in this
study,” she writes, “is how a group of principals who are in an
interdependent situation can organize and govern themselves to obtain
continuing joint benefits when all face temptations to free-ride,
shirk, or otherwise act opportunistically.”

The
heart of this study is an in-depth analysis of several long-standing
and viable common property regimes, including Swiss grazing pastures,
Japanese forests, and irrigation systems in Spain and the Philippines.
Although Ostrom insists that each of these situations must be evaluated
on its own terms, she delineates a set of eight “design principles”
common to each of the cases. These include clearly defined boundaries,
monitors who are either resource users or accountable to them,
graduated sanctions, and mechanisms dominated by the users themselves
to resolve conflicts and to alter the rules. The challenge, she
observes, is to foster contingent self-commitment among the members ….

Throughout the book, she stresses the dangers of overly
generalized theories of collective action, particularly when used
“metaphorically” as the foundation for public policy. The three
dominant models — the tragedy of the commons, the prisoners’s dilemma,
and the logic of collective action — are all inadequate, she says, for
they are based on the free-rider problem where individual, rational,
resource users act against the best interest of the users collectively.
These models are not necessarily wrong, Ostrom states, rather the
conditions under which they hold are very particular. They apply only
when the many, independently acting individuals involved have high
discount rates and little mutual trust, no capacity to communicate or
to enter into binding agreements, and when they do not arrange for
monitoring and enforcing mechanisms to avoid overinvestment and overuse.

Ostrom
concludes that “if this study does nothing more than shatter the
convictions of many policy analysts that the only way to solve common
pool resource problems is for external authorities to impose full
private property rights or centralized regulation, it will have
accomplished one major purpose.”

A
profile of Ostrom, who is a member of the National Academies of Science
and and Editor of its Proceedings, is here:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1748208

Her work can be found here: http://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?q=Ostrom,+Elinor&hl=en&btnG=Search and

here: http://de.scientificcommons.org/elinor_ostrom

One
thing worth noting is that the historical and ongoing records are rife
with examples – such as our crashing local fisheries – where government
intervention has done more harm than good.  In these cases and in
others, Ostrom introduces an analytical approach that is acceptable
widely across the political spectrum, even if differences in opinion
will remain.  See, for example, this discussion at libertarian-leaning
George Mason U:  http://www.theihs.org/bunnygame/

… is what poor countries need.  So corrrectly argues Keith Lockitch of the Ayn Rand Institute, in a new article that responds to the agreement, by the delegates of industrialized nations at the December climate change conference in Bali, to activate an “adaptation fund” that would help undeveloped nations cope with projected climate change threats (such as disruptions to agriculture and decreased water availability).  http://americandaily.ws/index.php/article/306. 

But while thought-provoking, Lockitch fails to explore his chief premises and wastes his insights by falling into enviro-bashing – suggesting that failed development is all enviros’ fault, and that these do-gooders want to waste our tax dollars while keeping the poor in their place.  This might gratify his emotions but generates considerably more heat than light.

Lockitch correctly observes that:

• “The world’s poorest can barely cope with day-to-day survival, let alone with unproven threats projected to occur over decades. Imagine having no electricity or access to clean drinking water. Imagine having to cook your meals over an open fire, breathing smoke and ash every day. Billions around the world survive at a subsistence level because they lack the elements of industrial capitalism that we in the developed world take for granted: power plants, factories, modern roads and hospitals, cars, refrigerators, and countless time- and labor-saving devices.
• “What poor countries need is not climate adaptation welfare … ; what poor countries need is to become rich countries. They need to embrace free markets and private property rights and attract the investment of profit-seeking entrepreneurs to create wealth and drive economic growth.”

This last point is Lockitch’s most powerful, as it is clear that it has been corrupt, kleptocratic governance and the lack of clear and enforceable property rights that has hamstrung development in the third world.

However, Lockitch’s analysis is disappointing in several regards:

1.  He fails to explain that “climate change welfare”, in the form of transfer payments to developing nations and funding of particular “adaptation” projects, is just as likely to be wasted and diverted to the pockets of local elites and First World contractors as have been the past several decades of “development aid”.  Clearly, simply throwing good money after bad is no solution.  It is puzzling that Lockitch fails to affirmatively make his strongest case.

2.  He falls prey to “Enviro Derangement Syndrome” and unfairly lays the suggestion of “climate change welfare” at the feet of enviros, even though it has long been a part of the mainstream discussion that developing nations, while being least prepared to cope with climate change and having made only minor contributions to it, are likely to bear the greatest brunt of climate changes. 

Says Lockitch:  

“If environmentalists were really concerned about people in undeveloped countries, they would be helping them to bring about what they really need: industrial development. … Yet, it is precisely the adoption of industrial capitalism by undeveloped countries that environmentalists reject. Not only do they not want poor countries to become rich, they are trying hard to force rich countries to become poor by capping carbon emissions and abandoning industrialization. Despite their feigned concern for the world’s poor, the measures proposed by environmentalists pose a far greater threat than any possible changes to the earth’s climate.”

The charge of pushing “climate change welfare” as a means of keeping developing nations down is a rather grotesque one to lay at the feet of environmentalists, many of who for decades have been working at helping local groups to protect their property rights against governments and powerful elites.

While Lockitch is certainly correct to note the ambivalence that some enviros express regarding to further development in the poorer nations, such ambivalence reflects real problems, as noted below.  But obviously it is governments, and not enviros, who are running the international climate discussions.  “Environmentalists” are certainly players, but that there are plenty of others with agendas of their own surely can’t escape the thinking man’s attention, can it?

Further, “conservative” and “skeptical” analysts like Bjorn Lomborg (http://www.lomborg.com/cool_it/) and Indur Goklany (http://members.cox.net/goklany/Richer-but-warmer%20RV.pdf) have also prominently argued that the wealthy world, in lieu of establishing carbon prices at home, should be making investments in helping the third world to adapt and develop.  Even further, libertarian analysts like Jonathan Adler (law prof. at Case U. and blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy) have argued that since the developed nations are chiefly responsible for climate change, they owe an obligation to compensate the developing world for damages (http://www.perc.org/publications/percreports/march2005/global_warming.php).  Adler’s conclusion flows directly from Lockean property rights principles.

In addition, Lockitch’s assertion that “the measures proposed by environmentalists pose a far greater threat than any possible changes to the earth’s climate” is unexplained and unsupported – what measures?  How are they a threat to the world’s poor?  The general shape of the international discussion (and certainly under Kyoto) is that the developed nations will act first, to be followed by developing nations as their wealth (and climate contributions) grow.  How are unilateral actions by wealthy nations to address climate change hamstringing the poor?  The chief policy tool discussed so far – pricing carbon emissions in the developed world – should dampen demand for fossil fuels in the wealthier countries, thereby dampening price pressure and resulting in a net price subsidy to developing nations.  In response to such measures, industry in wealthy nations will develop more efficient energy technologies and reduce the costs of such technologies, for the indirect benefit of the developing nations, which will not shoulder any burdens for their growing carbon emissions until later.  Aren’t these net subsidies to poorer nations?

And far from “forc[ing] rich countries to become poor”, figuring out how to manage a global commons like the atmosphere, while it may have the effect of imposing a cost on the release of carbon, is basically aimed at privatising externalities, with the intention of increasing the efficiency of private transactions and net wealth.  Climate change is, of course, just one of a broad range of pervasive problems that occur when markets encounter resources that are not clearly or effectively owned or managed.  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/09/28/too-many-or-too-few-people-does-the-market-provide-an-answer.aspx

3.  Most importantly, while Lockitch correctly diagnoses the illness – poor countries need to “embrace free markets and private property rights and attract the investment of profit-seeking entrepreneurs to create wealth and drive economic growth” – he simply fails to address what wealthy nations SHOULD be doing, if anything, to assist the cure.  This, of course, is the main dodge, because Lockitch fails to own up to the true difficulties involved in trying to help the developing nations. 

Trying to build “soft” infrastructure in the form of rule of law and property rights (ending kleptocracy and theft of “public” resources) is tremendously difficult – perhaps a problem that is even more difficult than the wealthy nations deciding how to share the pain of GHG reductions (as I noted in comments to a post on Amazonian deforestation here: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001043lahsen_and_nobre_20.html)  Heck, the wealthy nations have a hard enough time doing the easiest things to speed development of poorer nations, which is simply to open import markets by removing domestic tariffs, import restrictions and subsidies.  Rather, it seems that the richer nations have to feed their more powerful elites first, while hamstringing competition from poorer nations in products for which they should be able to exploit a comparative advantage.  If Lockitch was truly interested in helping the poor of developing nations, you’d think he’d note how enduring rent-seeking at home serves to keep the poorer nations down.

And if the wealthy nations should do something to help poorer nations, which seems implicit in Lockitch’s analysis (if not conventional aid, then aid to build soft, governance infrastructure), then can’t some of those efforts easily dovetail with efforts to establish carbon pricing in the wealthy countries?  Why couldn’t aid budgets be funded by carbon taxes at home, for example?  And can’t demand for “carbon credits” help to establish incentives to improve governance infrastructure in poorer nations?  In other words, “mitigation” (efforts to limit climate change) in developed nations need not conflict with any efforts to help poorer nations “adapt” to climate change or otherwise become wealthier.

4.  Lockitch asserts that the concern of enviros for the world’s poor is “feigned”, but this is a cheap and unproductive ad hominem – and one that can easily be turned around.  While some enviros may not understand the institutional sicknesses that hinder development, this illness has been fed much more by governments and corporations at home than by enviros, many of who have been involved in the long, hard effort to build local infrastructure and to protect traditional private and community property rights. 

On the other hand, just what is it that evidences that Lockitch himself – or other skeptics – have any “real” concern for the world’s poor?  Does the wheel of this concern ever hit the road, or is it simply spinning noisily, to welcoming nods from  domestic special interests who benefit from the continuation of climate externalities?

A key insight of Austrian economics relating to the environment is that man does not harm the environment per se, but that social welfare or efficiency problems arise because of interpersonal conflict associated with irresolvable inefficiencies – inefficiencies that cannot find a solution in the entrepreneurial workings of the market process because of institutional defects associated with the lack of clearly defined or well enforced property rights.  (See Roy Cordato, http://mises.org/daily/1760).  It is both ironic and disappointing that many Austrians and others similarly minded, rather than focussing on the difficult task of conflict resolution in the case of the climate, seem to prefer the emotional rush of conflict itself over analysis and bridge- and consensus-building.  But this is nothing new (and is certainly tempting, given our tribal nature)(http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/17/holiday-joy-quot-watermelons-quot-roasting-on-an-open-pyre.aspx). 

No one owns the world’s atmosphere, so all are entitled to their opinions about managing it.  And clearly the world continues to struggle with the rapid exploitation of other unowned, “public” or poorly defined or protected physical resources, in the face of growing populations, growing markets and technological advances that lower the costs of access to the commons.  I suggest that rather than ad hominems, we would be better served by frankly acknowledging problems of this nature and starting to build shared understandings.  The writings of Elinor Ostrom are a good place to start:  http://www.conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-7e8akm.pdf

In honestly engaging on these issues, it is perfectly appropriate – nay, essential – to be aware of the self-interests of various participants and to caution against the problems of rent-seeking, “rent-farming” by politicians, and frequently unaligned incentives of bureaucracies.

5.  Finally, this is a quibble, but Lockitch is wrong to assert thay developing nations need to “industrialize”.  What they need to do is to better govern themselves by protecting investments, markets and human rights, and then getting out of the way of their people.  What results will be these countries’ own path, which will naturally differ from Western industrialization (leapfrogging it in some ways).

Jon Bostwick agrees on another post that “Man is clever but not wise (“homo sapiens” is a misnomer)”, but further comments (emphasis added):

“True. But humanity is wise. Men create cultures, economies and law.

“Man’s flaw is that he is over confident of his own intelligence. He tries to control things he doesn’t understand, like culture, economies, and law.

“You have just made an excellent case for why government involvement will not improve the environment. Because governments, like man, are not wise.”

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/12/libertarian-reticience-other-than-to-bash-enviros.aspx 

This is too simple, as well as self-contradictory. Humanity is wise because he collectively (but non-deliberately?) creates “cultures, economies and law” (let’s not forget governments), but individuals are foolish when they seek to use institutions to achieve particular purposes?

Our states are merely one subset of the wide universe of formal and informal institutions through which we cooperate with one another.  States are not a market, to be sure, but then neither are corporations, and there is a spectrum of ownership types between the two.  We can study all of these institutions and use that knowledge to direct how we make use of them.  Such study has informed, for example, the deliberate shifts in policy that have led to the ongoing (yet incomplete) privatization of the former USSR and of China. 

A study of institutions governing common pool resources by guru Elinor Ostrom makes the following point:

 “Whether people are able to self-organize and manage CPRs also depends on the broader social setting within which they work. National governments can help or hinder local self-organization. “Higher” levels of government can facilitate the assembly of users of a CPR in organizational meetings, provide information that helps identify the problem and possible solutions, and legitimize and help enforce agreements reached by local users. National governments can at times, however, hinder local self-organization by defending rights that lead to overuse or maintaining that the state has ultimate control over resources without actually monitoring and enforcing existing regulations.

“Participants are more likely to adopt effective rules in macro-regimes that facilitate their efforts than in regimes that ignore resource problems entirely or that presume that central authorities must make all decisions.If local authority is not formally recognized by larger regimes, it is difficult for users to establish enforceable rules. “

Elinor Ostrom et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science, 04/09/99 http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf

Was von Mises foolish to suggest we can use the state to reform our institutions?

“It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals or firms, the economic calculation established by them is manifestly defective and their results deceptive. But this is not the outcome of alleged deficiencies inherent in the system of private ownership of the means of production. It is on the contrary a consequence of loopholes left in this system. It could be removed by a reform of the laws concerning liability for damages inflicted and by rescinding the institutional barriers preventing the full operation of private ownership.”

http://mises.org/humanaction/chap23sec6.asp

And Cordato, for suggesting that Austrians take particular policy approaches to environmental issues?

“For Austrians then, public policy in the area of the environment must focus on resolving these conflicts over the use of resources that define pollution, not on obtaining an ultimately unobtainable “efficient” allocation of resources. … For Austrians, whose goal is to resolve conflicts, the focus is on clarifying titles to property and rights enforcement.

http://mises.org/daily/1760

Sorry, but I cannot believe that we are condemned always to repeat all mistakes, despite our rather constant human nature.  Rather, as Yandle notes, our very history as a species is about our success in evolving, devising and adopting ways to manage shared problems.   http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064

This is a message of profound optimism, not cynicism — said the fool.

[updated] A great new post by libertarian Ron Bailey of Reason here:

Congratulations to Al Gore
But be wary of the man’s proposed solutions for global warming.
Ronald Bailey | October 12, 2007
http://www.reason.com/news/show/122960.html

1.  Here are some excerpts (emphasis added), followed by a copy of my comments over at Reason:

[Gore is] wrong to characterize global warming as a moral and spiritual problem. Man-made global warming is not some kind of environmental sin. It’s just another commons problem that has emerged as human civilization continues to develop. Most environmental problems arise in what are called open-access commons. That is, people pollute air and rivers, overfish lakes and oceans, cut down rainforests, and so forth because no one owns those natural resources and therefore no one has an interest in protecting them.

The point is clearest in the case of tropical forests and fisheries. No one owns the forests or fisheries, so anyone may exploit them. No one has an incentive to leave any trees or fish behind because, if they do, someone else will harvest them and get the benefits for themselves. In other words, those who immediately benefit from exploiting the resource do not bear the long-run costs of its ultimate destruction. This mismatch between benefits and costs is a recipe for disaster. Similarly, no one owns the global atmosphere, so there is no incentive for anyone to protect it from various pollutants, including greenhouse gases that tend to raise average global temperatures.

Generally, humanity has solved environmental problems caused by open-access situations by either privatizing the relevant commons or regulating it.  …

As a skeptic of government action, I had hoped that the scientific evidence would lead to the conclusion that global warming would not be much of a problem, so that humanity could avoid the messy and highly politicized process of deciding what to do about it. Although people of good will can still disagree about the scientific evidence for climate change, I now believe that Gore has got it basically right. The balance of the evidence shows that global warming could well be a significant problem over the course of this century. …

Yale economist William Nordhaus … calculates that the optimal policy would impose a carbon tax of $34 per metric ton carbon in 2010, with the tax increases gradually reaching $42 per ton in 2015, $90 per ton in 2050, and $207 per ton of carbon in 2100. A $20 per metric ton carbon tax will raise coal prices by $10 per ton, which is about a 40 percent increase over the current price of $25 per ton. A $10 per ton carbon tax translates into a 4 cent per gallon increase in gasoline. A $300 per ton carbon tax would raise gasoline prices by $1.20 per gallon. Following this optimal trajectory would cost $2.2 trillion and reduce climate change damage by $5.2 trillion over the next century. …

Man-made global warming is an economic and technical problem of the sort that humanity has solved many times. For example, forests are expanding in rich countries because they have well-developed private property rights. Also in rich countries, regulations have helped once polluted rivers and lakes to become clean and have drastically cut air pollution. One of the keys to solving environmental problems is economic growth and wealth. …

In any case, global warming is not the result of environmental sin; it is the result of human progress creating another commons problem. … I have no doubt that man-made global warming is an economic and technical problem that an inventive humanity will solve over the course of the 21st century.

Still, congratulations are in order to Al Gore for being recognized by the Nobel committee for his persistence in trying to get humanity to pay attention to this new commons problem.

2.  Here is a digest of my comments to Ron:

Basically, a great post, but I’ve got a few small quibbles.

1.  You were right last year when you said that “In the end, the debate over global warming and its obverse, humanity’s energy future, is a moral issue.”
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/113924.html

2.  I share your understanding of the economics and institutional problem and agree that a straightforward explanation of these is important for very many.

3.  However, you forget what evolutionary psychology, Ostrom and Yandle have explained to us so well about how our innate moral sense drives and underpins mankind’s success as a species by enhancing our ability to cooperate and to overcome commons issues.
Ostrom: http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf
Yandle: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064

Our long history of developed rules and institutions (informal and formal now overlapping) are based on our moral sense and the effectiveness of these rules depends critically on our moral investment in accepting their legitimacy – witness our views on murder, theft, lying and “not playing by the rules” – and in voluntarily complying with them.

Our moral sense reinforces our judgments about when rules/institutions are not working and the need to develop new ones in response to changing circumstances and new problems.  When we see a problem that we think requires change, it is unavoidable that we respond to the status quo, the behavior of people within it and the need for change with a moral sense. 

This is simply a part of our evolutionary endowment.  (Of course, other parts of our endowment accentuate our suspicions of smooth talkers and help us catch free riders and looters and to guard against threats from outsiders.)

4.  Accordingly, while it’s unclear how deliberate Gore’s talk of “a moral and spiritual challenge” and “lifting the global consciousness” is or whether this is a productive approach for some people, I think it is fairly clear that, in order to build consensus for a solution to the climate commons problem (and other difficult commons problems) and to ensure that any agreed solutions are actually implemented, we will need to bring our moral senses to bear.

In other words, it is RIGHT to worry about climate change, but no meaningful/effective “solution” can be reached or implemented unless it is FAIR and the parties involved have sufficient TRUST (backed by information) in each other.

5.  You have understated the AGW problem, especially in light of the inertia both in our energy systems and in the climate, the long duration of CO2 and other GHGS, and the rapidity with which the climate is already changing – faster than even this year’s IPCC reports: http://www.carbonequity.info/docs/arctic.html

6.  It is surprising that in referring to Nordhaus you have not indicated the ways in which it seems clear that Nordhaus has understated the costs and risks of climate change and the utility of acting sooner rather than later, as noted by Weitzman, Sterner & Persson, Quiggin and others, or that by “revenue recycling” as noted by McKitrick we can substantially reduce the costs of carbon abatement policies.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/Weitzman/papers/JELSternReport.pdf
www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-07-37.pdf
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/11/17/stern-on-the-costs-of-climate-change-part-1/
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/co2briefing.pdf

7.  You fail to note that while there are real costs to our economies to build climate change institutions, once established in principle any resulting carbon pricing reflects real costs and is not a “cost” to the economy.

8.  It is a puzzle that you did not note that the most powerful way to call forth the investment and behavior changes that would help us to “find a cheap, low-carbon source of energy” and to limit GHG emissions would be to find ways that would effectively price GHG emissions.

9.  Finally, one further comment on this:

“One of the keys to solving environmental problems is economic growth and wealth.  … So keep in mind that anything that unduly retards economic growth also retards ultimate environmental clean-up, including global warming.”

Not sure what you’re driving at here.

As far as developing countries go, efforts by Western nations to address climate change are actually net subsidies to them (by dampening Western demand for fossil fuels) and are providing incentives and investment for growth.

And as for Western economies, at least in principle internalizing externalities by enclosing commons (that have provided value which has not been factored into GDP) doesn’t retard economic growth, but enables it by forestalling the destruction of resources, permitting greater wealth-generating private transactions and reducing inefficiency.

How exactly do you transfer commons into private ownership in a fair way, even for easily divided up stuff like land?

That’s the trillion dollar question that someone asked me on a recent thread (http://blog.mises.org/archives/007152.asp#comments) regarding my suggestion that better definition and enforcement of property rights is key to addressing climate change and other environmental problems in the developing world.  I have excerpted and augmented my response here:

Libertarians do not insist that open-access resources (or common property resources/CPR) be divided up by creating individual property rights; cooperative ownership  via formal agreements or informally developed practices and customs (such those developed by Maine lobstermen, English angling clubs, indigenous peoples and Wikipedia and online communities) may work better at solving the prisoners’ dilemma issues and are just as acceptable.

But technological advances and greater demand often swamp CPR regimes, so such regimes remain vulnerable if they are not accorded legal protection. My understanding of the UK enclosures in this regard is that they were actually a legislative theft of common property by the powerful.

Can states play positive roles in solving problems? At least internally, it is rather clear that the answer is that the state works best by allowing, and providing judicial mechanisms to enforce, private transactions, and works least well when it tries to specify detailed and rigid “solutions” itself – since the government itself never has perfect information, often plays favorites and once a regulatory regime is put in place, parties have no ability to work out their differences directly with each other, but are forever in the position of trying to influence the state and in adversarial positions vis-a-vis each other.  But states can also play a positive role by disseminating information and by acting to facilitate deals between various resources users, particularly in cross-border/multi-state problems.

Elinor Ostrom is the guru of CPR regimes; anyone interested should look into her fascinating and highly-regarded work, particularly her seminal Governing the Commons (1990).

[She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a recipient of a number of prestigious awards. Her other books include Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources (1994); The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations (2003); The Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (2005); Understanding Institutional Diversity (2005); and Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (2007).]

Here is one link to get readers started:  Elinor Ostrom et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science 9 April 1999: http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf

Technology seems to provide us ability to create property rights regimes in ocean fisheries.

The stickiest problems are those where the resource is located in a country where we cannot ourselves create or enforce legal rights and in the atmosphere, which no one owns and to which all have access.  Unfortunately, many libertarians don’t even want to acknowledge, much less discuss, these problems. Since they are not confined to any one country, clearly we need to coordinate with others – for which purposes our state apparatus cannot be avoided.

Reaching any kind of effective solution for problems of this type will require much more focussed attention and bridge-building (abroad and at home), and if libertarians do not want to be part of the discussion, clearly they will have little influence on the results.

[Previously posted (with some tweaks) on a recent thread (http://blog.mises.org/archives/007152.asp#comments) in response to someone who is concerned about environmental problems but is unfamiliar with Austrian approaches.]

[My very first post on this LvMI-hosted blog. Also, I see this was my first “Avatar”-related piece.]

Dan McLaughlin asks the first of these interesting questions on the Mises blog,  http://mises.org/daily/2718.  The second question is mine, and I addressed it briefly in the blog responses to Dan.

I take the liberty of posting that response here (revised slightly and with a few further comments and emphasis):

Too many or too few? Good question, Dan. I agree with you that the population question is like any other aspect of the social order: best addressed by the market and by free societies.