The Meaning,Prospects, and Future of the Commons: Revisiting the Legacies of Elinor Ostrom and Henry George

Elinor Ostrom's work on the commons has convinced mainstream economists that “collective” governance of the commons can overcome the “tragedy of the commons” and “free‐rider problems.” Yet, a more systematic appraisal of Ostrom's work shows that it contains no concept of justice. Her idea of rights is extremely limited, often tied to the notion of joint, rather than equal, rights. Indeed, for Ostrom, the notion of the commons is socially separatist and not ecological. Ostrom uses historical examples, but without analyzing how common possession historically evolved and was undermined by external forces. Hence her proposed “collective action” to save the commons actually accelerates the real threats to the commons. A strikingly different and more holistic approach to the commons is offered by Henry George, who posits the commons as the most important path to social, economic, and ecological sustainability. Unlike Ostrom, who studied the commons “scientifically” to show that some goods are neither private, public, nor club‐based, George studied the commons to understand and remove injustice at the roots. His approach is more critical and certainly more relevant today in showing that another world is possible. However, George's work too, requires significant changes to update its framing of the meanings, prospects, and future of the commons.     

Resource allocation at an income-sharing community: An application of Elinor Ostrom's commons framework

Elinor Ostrom's framework for commons management is used here to analyse ethnographic material from long-term fieldwork in an income-sharing community in the United States. By requiring participants to pool labour and share resources for survival and well-being, income-sharing communities align with Ostrom's allocation design for common-pool resources. These communities can figure as a node within the hybrid and polycentric networks designated by Ostrom for equitable and effective commons management, which requires both effective institutional arrangements and shared social capital among system participants. While a case is made for analysing resource-sharing practices at these communities with Elinor Ostrom's framework, shortcomings and possible future directions are indicated.     

Saving the Commons in an Age of Plunder

Land ownership, as commonly understood today, originated with the enclosure movement during the English Tudor era almost four centuries ago. Karl Polanyi referred to this “propertization” of nature as the “great transformation.” That land, water, and air was a social commons is now archaic and forgotten, and with it the classical economic concept of rent, which was, in theory, once paid to royalty as the earth's guardian. Garrett Hardin's article, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” raised alarm about the abuse and loss of this realm, and he recommended constraints and privatization to prevent this. Most people view titles to landed property much as they do their household goods, but Henry George saw that the earth should be seen as a common resource and its value taxed to benefit everyone. This would restore economic equilibrium to market exchanges and pay for government services. The capture of natural resource rents can supplant taxes on wages and capital goods, and it comports with all textbook principles of sound tax theory. This policy can be the modern replacement for the commons, and implementing resource rent capture is both economically and technically feasible.     

PLANNING THROUGH EXCLUSIVE DIALOGUE: BASIC LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM THE PRIVATE ESTATE

Empirical evidence suggests that private estates where land is managed as a multi-tenant property by a single private company with a continuing interest in the value of that property tend to be better run than estates that are subdivided into multiple parcels of separately managed land with the commons managed via some form of political decision-making. Public policy, particularly in the UK, has hindered the growth of successful multi-tenant private estates.     

How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation? Evidence from Japan*

Exploiting unique panel data that include direct measurements of resource allocation within households, we investigated the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. Based on a collective model of the household, we developed reduced‐form and structural‐form estimation equations that allow us to focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. We found one additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share by at least two percentage points. This may be because she substitutes more say in decisions on the children for her own private expenditure share.     

Interview with Nancy Reid

Nancy Reid was born in September 1952 in Niagara Falls, Canada. She graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor in Mathematics and a major in Statistics in 1974. She pursued her training in Statistics at the University of British Columbia (UBC) where she obtained a Master's in Applied Mathematics in 1976 and at Stanford University, where she graduated with a PhD in Statistics in 1979. After spending one year at Imperial College in London visiting Sir David Cox, she joined UBC as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics, where she had an important role in the creation of the Department of Statistics. In 1986, she moved to the University of Toronto, where she has been since then as a faculty in the Department of Statistics. Nancy has served as Chair of the Department between 1997 and 2002. Nancy's research in conditional inference, higher order asymptotics and composite likelihood has been influential in Statistics. Her outstanding contributions to Statistics were recognized nationally and internationally with many awards, including the President's Award of the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS), Gold Medal awarded by the Statistical Society of Canada and Elected Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. She received the Doctor of Mathematics, Honoris Causa, University of Waterloo. Nancy served with distinction as Editor of the Canadian Journal of Statistics and President of the Statistical Society of Canada and President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. In 2014, she was appointed as Officer of the Order of Canada for her outstanding achievements, exemplary leadership and service to Canadians. The following conversation took place at the JSM 2016 in Chicago, on August 2 and 3, 2016.     

Development and Wealth: A Georgist Perspective

This essay addresses concerns of economic and wealth distribution, especially as they challenge the developing world. The foundation for any new framework of economic thought must embody a structure that allows for a sustainable future, not only for individuals but also for whole societies and economic units, and the assurance of minimal standards of living for the entire world's people. The Georgist position is that all the natural resources of the earth and sky should require payment back to society for the privilege of their use. Hence the recovery of rent is the proper source of finance for government services, restoring what is otherwise an imbalance between the public and the private realms of society. The Georgist philosophy offers economic justice and clarity of vision, restoration of and protection for the commons, and protection for the environment of the earth in a deft and gentle way that is within the capacity of governments to implement.     

A Dynamic Study on Ecological Disaster,Government Regulation,and Renewable Resources

This article develops a dynamic model to investigate renewable resource markets under different property rights. We find that different property rights regimes in renewable resource markets yield very different equilibria. Under private property rights, the valve point increases with the natural growth rate, productivity, number of firms, and marginal costs. Under common property rights, “the tragedy of the commons” inescapably occurs. This study suggests how to avoid ecological disaster by implementing a set of public policies.     

Henry George and the Institution of Private Property in Land: A Property Rights Approach

Abstract . Conflicting statements concerning whether the implementation of Henry George's single tax proposal would destroy the institution of private property in land have appeared in the literatures of economics and other disciplines. A number of writers have implied that the taxation of Ricardian rent is equivalent to land nationalization. In the main, followers of George have denied that the single tax would abolish private property in land. Their claim is based on the fact that land titles would remain in private hands under the single tax. Since the whole question of private property is beset with ideological difficulties, a property rights approach is applied to this issue in an attempt to resolve the controversy. The conclusions are that the actual implementation of George's system would not destroy private property in land and that it is incorrect to equate the single tax with land nationalization.     

Two-sided communication in competing mechanism games

We consider multiple-principal multiple-agent games of incomplete information. We identify a class of two-way communication mechanisms which mirror those considered in the single principal analysis of Myerson (1982). In such mechanisms, every agent truthfully reveals her type to all principals, and obeys the private recommendations she receives from each of them. We show that there is a rationale in restricting attention to this class of mechanisms: if principals use these mechanisms, there is no unilateral incentive to deviate towards more sophisticated ones. We develop three examples to analyze possible extensions and limits of our approach. The first two examples show that the restriction to direct and incentive compatible mechanisms is not sufficient to provide a complete characterization of all pure strategy equilibria. The third one shows that private recommendations play a fundamental role in competing mechanism games, suggesting that one cannot safely restrict to one-sided communication mechanisms.     

Controlling Corporate Power in China: Case Studies of Seed Companies and Water Distribution

In the course of China's economic transition, the government set up a policy goal to gradually withdraw from the market, while, at the same time, increasing the intensity of anti‐corruption actions. This article reviews the development of Chinese modern corporations and corresponding policy changes. The development and expansion of modern corporations as a result of reforms that occurred after 1978 reveals the government's decision not to fully withdraw from the market. When private companies are allowed to pursue maximum profits, especially in areas of public resources and services, society and the environment suffer severe negative consequences. Case studies of corporate control of seed companies and water utilities demonstrate in detail the damage caused by privatization. In order to protect the interests of society from corruption, government must concentrate on reducing the rent‐seeking behavior of corporations and collusion between businesses and government officials. The Chinese government's fight against corruption in recent years has been based on its market involvement, as well as on its determination to confine the power of corporations, which is a tough game.     

完善我国民办高校法人治理结构的构想及措施研究

民办高校需要构建现代大学制度,法人治理结构是现代大学制度的核心。民办高校法人治理结构是民办院校从自然人治理转向法人治理的保证,有利于形成集体决策和权利制衡机制,有助于促进民办学校运营管理的民主参与。通过中外大学治理结构的比较,我国民办高校法人治理结构主要存在产权不明晰、董事会成员构成不合理、机构不健全等问题。完善我国民办高校法人治理结构可以从落实民办高校法人财产权、全面提升董事会决策能力、健全内部监督机制等方面入手。     

Collective Action and Property Rights: A Planner's Critical Look at the Dogma of Private Property

The focus of this essay is success in collective action. It is based on a critical review and synthesis of the literature on collective action and property rights. I make three key arguments in the essay. First, contrary to the narrow conventional wisdom, self‐interested behavior can lead to successful collective action in both commonly managed resources and open‐access situations. The literature documents and explains a number of examples of success. Second, and nonetheless, collective action can be problematic and may require institutional responses, but privatization is not a panacea. Paradoxically, privatism can be a key source of the problems in collective action. And third, since the conventionally postulated, simple one‐to‐one relationship between a private property rights regime and an efficient outcome is not true, and given planners’ institutional interests, they should take a leading role in publicly advocating the potential viability of common property and collective action. Another important objective of the essay is to introduce to the readers a vast body of non‐traditional literature that has relevance for urban studies and planning practice. I include the literature on private property rights, ‘the tragedy of the commons’, ‘the inverse commons’, ‘the comedy of the commons’, and ‘the tragedy of the anticommons’. Cet essai s’intéresse au succès de l’action collective. Il s’appuie sur une critique et une synthèse des références sur l’action collective et les droits de propriété. Trois arguments sont exposés. D’abord, a contrario d’un avis étroit et conventionnel, l’intérêt personnel peut conduire à une action collective réussie tant pour des ressources gérées en commun que pour des situations en accès libre; des documents retracent et expliquent bon nombre de cas de succès. Ensuite, et néanmoins, une action collective peut poser problème et exiger des réponses institutionnelles, quoique la privatisation ne soit pas la panacée; paradoxalement, le ‘privatisme’ peut se révéler une source essentielle de difficultés en cas d’action collective. Enfin, comme le principe classique de relation simple, un pour un, entre un régime de droits de propriété privée et un résultat efficace n’est pas vérifié, et compte tenu des intérêts institutionnels des urbanistes, ceux‐ci devraient prendre un rôle moteur en défendant publiquement la viabilité de la propriété commune et de l’action collective. L’essai a comme autre objectif important de présenter aux lecteurs un vaste corpus de textes non traditionnels pertinent pour les études urbaines et la pratique de l’urbanisme. La conclusion inclut des références sur les droits de la propriété privée, ‘la tragédie des biens communs’, ‘les communs inversés’, ‘la comédie des communs’ et ‘la tragédie des anti‐communs’.     

Private Property in the Context of Community

The dominant philosophy of private land ownership—that private property exists for the benefit of its owner and that use and ownership should be determined by market forces—is not the only philosophy in the American tradition. Classical republicanism's proprietarian perspective was equally in favor of private property, but held that private property exists for the benefit of society. This article begins by presenting the proprietarian view of private property rights, drawing on the legal scholarship where this perspective has been revived. Next, I use the case of contemporary land reform in Scotland to exemplify the rationale for this perspective. Lastly, I attempt to import the lessons of Scottish land reformers without importing their model, instead considering ways in which private land ownership might be embedded in non‐market institutions in the United States.     

Cost-sharing in directed networks: Experimental study of equilibrium choice and system dynamics

This study reports the results of an experiment on directed networks with positive externalities induced by cost-sharing. Subjects participated in a network game in which they had to choose between private and public transportations. If a player chose public transportation, then she shared the travel cost equally with other players making the same choice, whereas if she chose private transportation, then her travel cost was fixed. Travel costs on the private route were manipulated across the two experimental conditions. In one condition, these costs were homogeneous among players; in the other condition, they were heterogeneous among players and only privately known. We found that half (none) of the player groups in the homogeneous (heterogeneous) condition converged toward the efficient equilibrium. Examination of the system dynamics shows that convergence toward efficiency was facilitated by: (1) the existence of an intermediate equilibrium choice; and (2) strategic teaching by which a farsighted player chooses strategies with poor short-term payoff in order to shift group decisions to the efficient equilibrium and thereby increase her own long-term benefit.     

Rethinking Common Versus Private Property

The Commons/Green Movement seems to have accepted that the current system is based on the principles of private property, and then has juxtaposed the notion of common property to private property. In fact, the current system is based on violations of the principle on which private ownership is supposed to rest, namely, the principle of people getting the fruits of their labor. The Commons Movement should critique the current system as an abuse of private property both in how it treats the products of labor as well as how it treats that which is not the fruits of anyone's labor (natural resources). When private property is refounded on its just foundation, then economic enterprises would be democratic firms such as worker cooperatives, and the ground would be cleared to apply special arrangements to natural resources, which are not the products of labor.     

On the informed seller problem: optimal information disclosure

We consider a revenue-maximizing seller who, before proposing a mechanism to sell her object(s), observes a vector of signals correlated with buyers’ valuations. Each buyer knows only the signal that the seller observes about him, but not the signals she observes about other buyers. The seller first chooses how to disclose her information and then chooses a revenue-maximizing mechanism. We allow for very general disclosure policies, that can be random, public, private, or any mixture of these possibilities. Through the disclosure of information privately, the seller can create correlation in buyers’ private information, which then consist of valuations plus beliefs. For the standard independent private values model, we show that information revelation is irrelevant: irrespective of the disclosure policy an optimal mechanism for this informed seller generates expected revenue that is equal to her maximal revenue under full information disclosure. For more general allocation environments that allow also for interdependent, for common values, and for multiple items, disclosure policies may matter, and the best the seller can do is to disclose no information at all.     

"Marie Howland—19th‐Century Leader for Women's Economic Independence

Marie Howland (1836–1921) was an important working‐class figure in the early U.S. women's movement who mounted an inspired challenge to separate spheres and the prevailing domestic ideology. Well before Edward Bellamy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she called for domestic work to be respected, paid, and collectively organized. Howland made it her life's work to remove barriers to economic independence for women through the overhaul of social and economic institutions that posited the home as the center of female existence and exploited workers. She wanted women to have the economic freedom to marry for love, not economic necessity, leave a bad marriage, survive widowhood, or not marry at all. By delving into Howland's early years in rural New Hampshire and the Lowell textile mills, her close association with radical bohemians in New York City, and her later participation in experimental communities, the following treatise provides a long overdue, comprehensive account of her life and work. My inquiry reveals how Marie Howland promoted women's freedom within a class analysis, rejecting Marxism and embracing the utopian socialist theory of Charles Fourier. It also offers an in‐depth look at her popular utopian novel, Papa's Own Girl, where a cooperative community of economically independent women and enlightened men replace the patriarchy and individual competitiveness of the emerging, but by no means entrenched, industrial order. In addition, my treatise focuses on Howland's efforts to put ideas into practice. Unwilling to limit her activism to intellectual discussions, she lived in a Fourierist household in New York City, a cooperative settlement in western Mexico, and the single‐tax community of Fairhope, Alabama. She pushed the Grange and the International Workingman's Association to focus on women's issues. She also made sure that her personal relationships with men were based on free love and mutual respect, not economic necessity and legal contract. I also examine how Howland dedicated her life to changing gender and class relations, but made little effort to improve conditions for African Americans. Like many white reformers, she drew on popular scientific theories of biological difference to justify the unequal treatment of African Americans. Besides shedding light on important intellectual and social developments, like phrenology, free love, Fourierism, the Grange, and theosophy, this examination of Marie Howland reveals the complexities, possibilities, and limitations of the women's rights movement before the passage of the 19^th Amendment.     

Space Grabs: Colonizing the Vertical City

Much attention has been paid recently to land grabs in rural and urban areas of the global South, but relatively little attention has been paid to such activities in the third dimension—vertical space. Yet vertical space has also been increasingly colonized, as manifest in the transformation of mega-city skylines through the proliferating number and height of high-rises in both central cities and peri-urban developments. We investigate how floor area ratio policies, originally designed to control densification, have been reworked to facilitate densification through floor area uplift. Thus a tool originally developed to advance public welfare has been used to facilitate the profitability of real estate projects for developers and to benefit local governments. Taking DKI Jakarta as our case study, we sketch out the coevolution of this policy with urban regimes, focusing on the mid-2010s when compensation measures were formalized and made transparent. By using a particular project in Jakarta's central business district we show how the benefits of floor area uplift favor private sector developers over the local government. In a context of rapidly increasing land values, increasing demand for housing from an emergent middle class, and particularly the privatization of planning, this unevenness systematically favors the private sector.     

Henry George and the Intellectual Foundations of the Open Source Movement

The emergence of a common development platform (either in the form of open source projects or proprietary products) and the corresponding economic communities that emerge to support those platforms is similar in scale and scope to the concept of the city found in Henry George's economics of time and place. A modern counterpart to the 19^th‐century focus on land can be found in the 20^th‐century concern with the establishment of intellectual property rights that fence off a portion of the creative commons in order to construct temporary monopolies. Captured in the open source movement where licenses that specify property rights are adopted in order to provide a great deal of flexibility in terms of how ideas are used and shared, a strong connection can be drawn between this modern movement and the work of Henry George. Building a connection between the two provides greater clarity in terms of understanding how in a modern technology‐based economy, progress can be achieved without poverty.