"....When government uses laws to punish the kind of cheating which can lead to the Tragedy of the Commons, it actually is exercising property rights, in a sense. But for the Libertarians, the idea of using government coercion this way is axiomatically bad, since (capitalized) Libertarianism is a political movement built out of a relatively small number of basic axioms, one of which is that government regulation is always a Bad Thing.
Given that the use of criminal penalties against the cheaters seems to be the only way to keep it from happening in a lot of cases, Libertarians usually answer that it could also be prevented if property rights could be broadened, though that's usually presented as a philosophical claim without any details. On a few occasions I've tried to ask such people to fill in those all important details where the Devil lives, and have never gotten a coherent or convincing answer. I've concluded that it's dogma, similar to the kinds of dogma I hear from some religious types.
It turns out that they're wrong, because they're using too narrow an interpretation of "the commons", and because they assume that people who have property rights will invariably decide that maximizing long term yield is in their own self interest.
The problem is that the fundamental principle involved in the Tragedy of the Commons applies far more broadly than they give it credit for. Philip talks about immunization within the context of showing how he doesn't agree with the Libertarians about all things, but doesn't seem to realize that it's an example of a commons, though his arguments make clear that he dimly feels it intuitively...."
What is really frustrating is that while the $1.1 bn might be true, his budget proposals also call for what will be a 6 percent real cut for BIA across the board and the schools are currently taking layoffs. This is everything detestable about the administration's down is uppism in microcosm.
My search at Clueless gives:
http://denbeste.nu/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?p=1&lang=en&mode=all&q=government
I like this:
"....When government uses laws to punish the kind of cheating which can lead to the Tragedy of the Commons, it actually is exercising property rights, in a sense. But for the Libertarians, the idea of using government coercion this way is axiomatically bad, since (capitalized) Libertarianism is a political movement built out of a relatively small number of basic axioms, one of which is that government regulation is always a Bad Thing.
Given that the use of criminal penalties against the cheaters seems to be the only way to keep it from happening in a lot of cases, Libertarians usually answer that it could also be prevented if property rights could be broadened, though that's usually presented as a philosophical claim without any details. On a few occasions I've tried to ask such people to fill in those all important details where the Devil lives, and have never gotten a coherent or convincing answer. I've concluded that it's dogma, similar to the kinds of dogma I hear from some religious types.
It turns out that they're wrong, because they're using too narrow an interpretation of "the commons", and because they assume that people who have property rights will invariably decide that maximizing long term yield is in their own self interest.
The problem is that the fundamental principle involved in the Tragedy of the Commons applies far more broadly than they give it credit for. Philip talks about immunization within the context of showing how he doesn't agree with the Libertarians about all things, but doesn't seem to realize that it's an example of a commons, though his arguments make clear that he dimly feels it intuitively...."
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/10/PropertyRightsandtheTrage.shtml
Posted by abc125 | Link to this comment | 08- 6-04 7:01 PM
What is really frustrating is that while the $1.1 bn might be true, his budget proposals also call for what will be a 6 percent real cut for BIA across the board and the schools are currently taking layoffs. This is everything detestable about the administration's down is uppism in microcosm.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 08- 8-04 7:54 AM
Benton,
What do you mean by cut?
Posted by abc125 | Link to this comment | 08- 8-04 5:41 PM