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The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments Against Common Ownership Before Hardin
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Stuart Banner
Published/Copyright:
August 14, 2018
Abstract
The Tragedy of the Commons tends to be remembered today as the canonical statement of the idea that commonly-owned resources will be overused. But this idea was well known for centuries before Hardin wrote. Hardin acknowledged that he got the example of cattle in a common field from the early nineteenth century economist William Forster Lloyd, and by Lloyd’s time the idea was already familiar and was already being applied to the analysis of overpopulation, Hardin’s primary concern. This paper will trace the history of the idea that common ownership is inefficient, and will suggest why The Tragedy of the Commons nevertheless quickly attained its canonical status.
Published Online: 2018-08-14
© 2018 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments Against Common Ownership Before Hardin
- Before the Tragedy of the Commons: Early Modern Economic Considerations of the Public Use of Natural Resources
- Commons and Environmental Regulation in History: The Water Commons Beyond Property and Sovereignty
- Cold-War Commons: Tragedy, Critique, and the Future of the Illiberal Problem Space
- The “Commons” Discourse on Marine Fisheries Resources: Another Antecedent to Hardin’s “Tragedy”
- Savagery, Civilization, and Property: Theories of Societal Evolution and Commons Theory
- Historicizing Elinor Ostrom: Urban Politics, International Development and Expertise in the U.S. Context (1970-1990)
- Indigenous Peoples, Political Economists and the Tragedy of the Commons
- Commons and Cognition
- Confronting Hardin: Trends and Approaches to the Commons in Historiography
- Give Us Back Our Tragedy: Nonrivalry in Intellectual Property Law and Policy
- Re-romanticizing Commons and Community in Israeli Discourse: Social, Economic, and Political Motives
- Impeachment by Judicial Review: Israel’s Odd System of Checks and Balances
- Israel’s “Constitutional Revolution”: A Thought from Political Liberalism
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments Against Common Ownership Before Hardin
- Before the Tragedy of the Commons: Early Modern Economic Considerations of the Public Use of Natural Resources
- Commons and Environmental Regulation in History: The Water Commons Beyond Property and Sovereignty
- Cold-War Commons: Tragedy, Critique, and the Future of the Illiberal Problem Space
- The “Commons” Discourse on Marine Fisheries Resources: Another Antecedent to Hardin’s “Tragedy”
- Savagery, Civilization, and Property: Theories of Societal Evolution and Commons Theory
- Historicizing Elinor Ostrom: Urban Politics, International Development and Expertise in the U.S. Context (1970-1990)
- Indigenous Peoples, Political Economists and the Tragedy of the Commons
- Commons and Cognition
- Confronting Hardin: Trends and Approaches to the Commons in Historiography
- Give Us Back Our Tragedy: Nonrivalry in Intellectual Property Law and Policy
- Re-romanticizing Commons and Community in Israeli Discourse: Social, Economic, and Political Motives
- Impeachment by Judicial Review: Israel’s Odd System of Checks and Balances
- Israel’s “Constitutional Revolution”: A Thought from Political Liberalism
