{"id":54329,"date":"2024-11-14T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=54329"},"modified":"2024-11-13T08:39:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T13:39:03","slug":"qotd-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-in-north-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/11\/14\/qotd-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-in-north-london\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The tragedy of the commons in North London"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Despite this being North London we&#8217;re not talking about common people here and the tragedy of their entering the precincts of the progressives. Rather, the tragedy of common resources.<\/p>\n<p>One fact about those bathing ponds on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/edition\/news\/new-wave-of-hampstead-pond-bathers-are-spoiling-summer-bliss-v2cf56sl0\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Heath<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Honesty boxes for bathers to pay to swim were introduced in 2005. There were plans for a compulsory charge in 2012, but they came to nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have open access to a resource, Marxian access. We also have one other fact:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>It was once a well-kept secret. Now the bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath are among the most crowded parts of London on a hot summer&#8217;s day.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have \u2013 by one measure at least \u2013 excessive use of that resource, use that needs to be limited in some manner.<\/p>\n<p>This is a problem that has been noted before, it&#8217;s called the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/library\/Enc\/TragedyoftheCommons.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Tragedy of the Commons<\/a>. As Garrett Hardin points out there are only two ways of restricting such access, capitalist \u2013 charge for it \u2013 or socialist \u2013 regulate.<\/p>\n<p>The third option, Elinor Ostrom&#8217;s, does not work with this number of people. That communal agreement tops out at about 3,000 peeps, not 10 million.<\/p>\n<p>Which of the two solutions works depends upon the specific circumstance and isn&#8217;t the point to be made here. Rather, the lesson to learn is that Marxian access just doesn&#8217;t work when demand is at or above capacity. A useful thing to think about when contemplating other areas of the economy.<\/p>\n<p>Tim Worstall, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.continentaltelegraph.com\/economy\/hampstead-heath-ponds-and-the-tragedy-of-the-commons\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Hampstead Heath Ponds And The Tragedy Of The Commons&#8221;, <em>Continental Telegraph<\/em><\/a>, 2020-01-19.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite this being North London we&#8217;re not talking about common people here and the tragedy of their entering the precincts of the progressives. Rather, the tragedy of common resources. One fact about those bathing ponds on the Heath: Honesty boxes for bathers to pay to swim were introduced in 2005. There were plans for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25,41],"tags":[350,1342],"class_list":["post-54329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-economics","category-quotations","tag-london","tag-tragedyofthecommons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-e8h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54329"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92389,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54329\/revisions\/92389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}