Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons

[Bfgrn]

An argument Capitalism vrs Communism is a morons retreat.

Everyone that can read and has a memory more evolved than a fruit fly knows communism doesnot work in groups of more than a hundred or so.

Equally most know that captalism is preditory and consumes everything availed to it to the detriment of all who are not a part of the ownership or employ of the companies or corporations that survive by gobbling up everything else.

The truth is that they both fail in their purest forms.

Communism by the weight of trying to provide for all need......

Capitalism by consuming all resource and concentrating all power and wealthin the hands of a very few.

Pure Capitalism is every bit as vile and wrong as pure communism.

I agree Huggy, that's exactly why I say that I have witnessed 2 failed revolutions of ideology in my lifetime, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Reagan Revolution. Both failed miserably.

You witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution?

I'm old, but not that old. I did witness last 40 years of the Soviet Union.

Actually Frank, a very interesting parallel to the 'Tea Party" occurred in Russia in the late 1980's. Russian conservatives, the Stalinists, wanted their country back. It was an alliance including xenophobic fringe groups and nationalists who yearned for what they saw as the simple values of Old Russia and the Orthodox church. They wanted their authoritarian government back.

What polls show us about the teabaggers is that they too are a fringe group. Among all Americans, George W. Bush has a 27/58 positive/negative favorable rating. Among teabaggers he's viewed favorably, 57/27.

The teabaggers want THEIR authoritarian government back too...Bush & Cheney.

 

[westwall]

I agree Huggy, that's exactly why I say that I have witnessed 2 failed revolutions of ideology in my lifetime, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Reagan Revolution. Both failed miserably.

You witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution?

I'm old, but not that old. I did witness last 40 years of the Soviet Union.

Actually Frank, a very interesting parallel to the 'Tea Party" occurred in Russia in the late 1980's. Russian conservatives, the Stalinists, wanted their country back. It was an alliance including xenophobic fringe groups and nationalists who yearned for what they saw as the simple values of Old Russia and the Orthodox church. They wanted their authoritarian government back.

What polls show us about the teabaggers is that they too are a fringe group. Among all Americans, George W. Bush has a 27/58 positive/negative favorable rating. Among teabaggers he's viewed favorably, 57/27.

The teabaggers want THEIR authoritarian government back too...Bush & Cheney.

The closest the US ever came to totalitarian rule was under FDR pal. Remember the forced imprisonment of Japanese citizens? Remember how all of the New Deal regulations came into place (and didn't get us out of the depression?) remember any of that?

Then do you remember that religious group down in Texas that was destroyed? They were kooks absolutely but there were 25 children in there who were burnt to death by the federal governemnt...remember that little event? That was Clinton and Co.

Care to point out any comperable events perpetrated by Bush/Cheney on its own citizens.

 

[westwall]

Socialism? The Soviet Union was a communist country. The irony...the communists in Russia held the EXACT same beliefs as the right in America today..."ecocide" Because they are BOTH conservatives.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow and the Russian Federation escaped direct responsibility for some of the world's worst environmental devastation because many of the Soviet disaster sites were now in other countries. Since then, however, the gravity and complexity of threats to Russia's own environment have become clear. During the first years of transition and reform, Russia's response to those conditions was sporadic and often ineffectual.

Only in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a linkage identified between the increasingly poor state of human health and the destruction of ecosystems in Russia. When that linkage was established, a new word was coined to sum up the environmental record of the Soviet era--"ecocide."

The Difference Between Socialism and Communism

Socialism is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the economy works. Democracy is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the government works. "Democracy," said Marx, "is the road to socialism." He was wrong about how economics and politics interact, but he did see their similar underpinnings.

Communism is conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just the Party Secretary) have any say in how the economy works. Republicans are conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just people controlling the Party figurehead) have any say in how the government works. The conservatives in the US are in the same position as the communists in the 30s, and for the same reason: Their revolutions failed spectacularly but they refuse to admit what went wrong.

A common mistake is to confuse Socialism, the economic system, with Communism, the political system. Communists are "socialist" in the same way that Republicans are "compassionate conservatives". That is, they give lip service to ideals they have no intention of practicing.

Communism, or "scientific socialism", has very little to do with Marx. Communism was originally envisioned by Marx and Engels as the last stages of their socialist revolution. "The meaning of the word communism shifted after 1917, when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia. The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party and installed a repressive, single-party regime devoted to the implementation of socialist policies." (quote from Encarta.). Those socialist policies were never implemented.

Whereas Marx saw industrialized workers rising up to take over control of their means of production, the exact opposite happened. Most countries that have gone Communist have been agrarian underdeveloped nations. The prime example is the Soviet Union. The best thing to be said about the October Revolution in 1917 is that the new government was better than the Tsars. The worst thing is that they trusted the wrong people, notably Lenin, to lead this upheaval. The Soviet Union officially abandoned socialism in 1921 when Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy allowing for taxation, local trade, some state capitalism... and extreme profiteering. Later that year, he purged 259,000 from the party membership and therefore purged them from voting (shades of the US election of 2000!) and fewer and fewer people were involved in making decisions.

Marxism became Marxist-Leninism which became Stalinism. The Wikipedia entry for Stalinism: "The term Stalinism was used by anti-Soviet Marxists, particularly Trotskyists, to distinguish the policies of the Soviet Union from those they regard as more true to Marxism. Trotskyists argue that the Stalinist USSR was not socialist, but a bureaucratized degenerated workers state that is, a state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, while it did not own the means of production and was not a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class."

Communists defending Stalin were driven by Cognitive Dissonance. "The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, motivates the person to reduce the dissonance and leads to avoidance of information likely to increase the dissonance." They didn't want to hear any criticism, and would go out of their way to deny facts. The abrupt betrayal of ideals by Lenin and Marx left many socialists clinging to the Soviet Union even though they knew Stalin was a disaster. They called themselves Communist even though they espoused none of Stalin's viewpoints and very few of Lenin's revisionism. In Russia, Lenin remains a Hero of the Revolution. Despite having screwed things up in the first place, Stalin is revered by Communists for toppling the Third Reich.

Conservatives defending George W. Bush are in the same situation as Communists defending Stalin. Stalin was never a "socialist" and Bush was never a "compassionate conservative", but the conservatives just don't want to hear any criticism and will go out of their way to deny facts. The current construction of the conservative movement in the US descends through the anti-Communists during and after WWII, the George Wallace "America First" blue-collar workers, the racists that Wallace picked up that switched parties during Nixon's Southern Strategy, and the nascent libertarian movement championed by Barry Goldwater. Ronald Reagan's acceptance speech for Goldwater during the 1964 Republican National Convention laid out the insistence of a balanced budget: "There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States." And yet, like Lenin revising Marx, when Reagan was governor of California he didn't practice fiscal restraint. And when he was elected president in 1980 he did the exact opposite of his campaign promise and triple the deficit and there has been "no fiscal and economic stability" since his flip-flop. Fiscal restraint was never implemented.

Abrupt betrayal of ideals of Reagan when he got into power left many conservatives clinging to the Republican party even though they espoused none of Reagan's new policies. Despite screwing things up in the first place, Reagan remains a Hero of the Revolution and is revered by conservatives for toppling the Soviet Union.

Reagan isn't Lenin and Bush isn't Stalin, but the parallels are notable. George W. Bush, like Stalin, inherits a failed revolution that relies on a cult-like worship of his predecessors and a complete denial of the facts.

Let me repeat Wikipedia's quote. "Stalinism is a state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste.... at the expense of the working class." This is the exact opposite of what Marx and Engels were trying to accomplish, and is precisely what George W. Bush and the Republicans are working so hard for.

You need to take a poli sci class....or maybe a dozen or so. The Soviet Union was a Socialist Republic, it even said so in its name. A communist society has never existed in the history of the world save in very small communes...hence their name. No, The Soviet Union was a collectivist society as are all socialist countries. Every socialist country that has ever been has failed or is very close to doing so.

Socialism can not and will not work because eventually the people who produce the wealth that is then taken from them to give to the lazy bastards who choose not to work (please note I am talking about the ones who choose not to work, not the poor folks who can't...we as humans have a social contract to take care of them...that's what makes us human after all) decide "what the hell if those pricks aren't going to work then neither are we" and the country fails at that point.

And do you really think that the Bolshevik Revolution was better for the country than the Tsarist regime? I think 105 million dead people (from Stalins various pogroms) over a period of 30 years would not share your perspective.

I am beginning to see a consistent pattern to your narrative. It is either total denial or you live in some self-created alternate universe. The 'truth' is socialism has never been successfully tried in any major country. It's ironic and revealing that you mention 'it even said so in its name.' 'Words' are one of the obstacles the conservative mind can't decipher. Like I said to another 'conservative', if we follow that kind of 'logic', all Martin Luther King Jr. needed to do to end discrimination against blacks was to say "I am white"

You espouse a greater narrative and propaganda that is consistently coming from the right these days. It started around 1994 with Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich's Contract with America that just doesn't square with critical thinking, reality or rational human beings.

You want to lecture me that Democrats are the same as Republicans on environmental issues. Yet you claim to be an environmentalist. If you were an environmentalist, you'd know that is a ball faced lie. If you were an environmentalist, you'd be aware of the League of Conservation Voters and their Environmental Scorecard that ranks of every Congressman and Senator in Washington on environmental issues since 1971. The difference between Democrats and Republicans on environmental issues is VAST.

The consistent pattern is that I have actually lived under socialist rule. I lived in the Soviet Union for a fortunately brief time, I lived in New Zealand under the Lange governemnt when two thirds of the population didn't bother to work and the remaining third was wiped out under a fantastic tax burden. I travelled through Yugoslavia when Tito was still the leader and got to see first hand just how screwed up socialist rule is.

So the only difference between you and me is I am educated and well travelled compared to you. I started as a hardcore socialist then I started to read and now I am much closer to an anarchist...a real anarchist..not the socialists in sheeps clothing you see out there.

 

[Bfgrn]

I don't care if you 'call' yourself a classic Greek God. The study you posted doesn't abate the theft of the commons we face today. Your article makes a valid point in relation to Garrett Hardin's 'tragedy of the commons' where all the players are equal, accessible, live and breath and in the community that is effected. But the tragedy of the commons we face today is not being perpetrated by a neighboring 'herdsman'. Communication sounds great. Maybe we can approach corporate property and air our gripes to the guy in the guard house? But maybe if we are really resolute and adamant that we must 'communicate' with the main 'herdsman', we may be doing our communicating with a phone call, the one the police allow you when they take you into custody.

The study I posted refutes your OP, which is all it needs to do. You have since tried to insinuate that I am a conservative lackey, and demanded that I define a conservative in Russia and his desires. Why was that? Perhaps because you know deep down that I am right, and your position is indefensible.

You claim that we are now facing the problem described in the OP because corporate greed is ruining our commons, without explaining what you mean by the term commons.

I fail to see how that is possible because currently all commons I can identify is held under government control and regulation, making it impossible for anyone to actually discuss anything because the decisions about how it is going to be used has already been made, despite the fact that conditions surrounding those regulations have changed.

If you are truly capable of discussing anything beyond a sound bite, then prove it and show me where I am wrong.

Your study partially refutes a hypothetical event among medieval herders sharing a common parcel of land in Europe...And you lecture me on critical thinking and reality? WOW

My OP opened with an explanation of the meaning of the commons.

The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environment - forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that we all share. These are the tangible and intangible aspects of the environment that no-one owns but everybody enjoys.

It appears you need to critically think about: A) what reality is B) how to improve your read and comprehend skills.

Are you unaware of to the chemicals, carcinogens and caustic agents we are ALL exposed to, that we ingest, digest and absorb into our bodies? Are you unaware of the way our food supply is becoming less healthy and more toxic and lethal because of chemicals and growth inducing steroids corporate farms use to increase profit? Have you ever heard the term 'Body burden'?

Chemical Body Burden Home Page

 

[gslack]

The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environment - forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that we all share. These are the tangible and intangible aspects of the environment that no-one owns but everybody enjoys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Capitalism's most dangerous flaw is that it has no inherent method for dealing with the tragedy of the commons.

Most of capitalism's cheerleaders simply never mention the tragedy of the commons, or deny that such a thing exists. The all wise invisible hand of the marketplace, some claim, is as competent to keep us out of future trouble as it is to grant us future benefit.

But you must truly have blinders on to believe this, as the visible effects of human behavior prove it is not so.

Free market capitalism teaches us how to better our lives, and those of other people, by reaching out and taking, and by doing so more efficiently and productively. Capitalism is very bad at teaching us when to refrain from taking. That part of ourselves which steps forward to suggest that "thou shalt not"--named the "superego" by Freud--simply does not form part of the free market system. Just as the ego and the id in the Freudian paradigm must refer to something outside themselves for the restraint that so often means survival, humans must look outside the capitalist system for the self-restraint that will avoid the destruction of every commons used by us. Our history also illustrates that the destruction of the commons will not be stopped by shame, moral admonitions, or cultural mores anywhere near so effectively as it will be by the will of the people expressed as a protective mandate; in other words, by government.

Hayek, the philosopher of free markets, admits this when he says, in discussing the importance of government to a free market system:

To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition.

In fact, Hayek is dealing directly with the tragedy of the commons when he says a page later that free market pricing fails when "the damage caused to others by certain uses of property cannot be effectively charged to the owner of that property." He continues:

Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the danger for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism.

Hayek was not a libertarian; he believed in striking the right balance between government and markets. Capitalism may contribute a large part of human welfare and progress, but it cannot do so without some external constraints.

Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons

Hey bfgrn.... I got one question for ya.... WHO WROTE THAT ARTICLE????

Remember you making a big fuss over the educational website I linked to? Yeah you cried liek a punk because it was written by copywriters for educational purposes and didn't list a specific author.. Matter of fact you cried so much I had to explain how copywriters work and how educational material is put in text books....

And after all your Bullshit over that, I look here and what do I see in your OP.... A article you linked to and cited large tracts of, with no author listed....

So in all fairness I ask you who wrote that article? Did you write it? If so than you should place your name or take credit. And if not, I want to know who did....

I am starting with this problem before I even bother ripping the article to shreds.. So man up and tell us...

 

[Bfgrn]

You need to take a poli sci class....or maybe a dozen or so. The Soviet Union was a Socialist Republic, it even said so in its name. A communist society has never existed in the history of the world save in very small communes...hence their name. No, The Soviet Union was a collectivist society as are all socialist countries. Every socialist country that has ever been has failed or is very close to doing so.

Socialism can not and will not work because eventually the people who produce the wealth that is then taken from them to give to the lazy bastards who choose not to work (please note I am talking about the ones who choose not to work, not the poor folks who can't...we as humans have a social contract to take care of them...that's what makes us human after all) decide "what the hell if those pricks aren't going to work then neither are we" and the country fails at that point.

And do you really think that the Bolshevik Revolution was better for the country than the Tsarist regime? I think 105 million dead people (from Stalins various pogroms) over a period of 30 years would not share your perspective.

I am beginning to see a consistent pattern to your narrative. It is either total denial or you live in some self-created alternate universe. The 'truth' is socialism has never been successfully tried in any major country. It's ironic and revealing that you mention 'it even said so in its name.' 'Words' are one of the obstacles the conservative mind can't decipher. Like I said to another 'conservative', if we follow that kind of 'logic', all Martin Luther King Jr. needed to do to end discrimination against blacks was to say "I am white"

You espouse a greater narrative and propaganda that is consistently coming from the right these days. It started around 1994 with Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich's Contract with America that just doesn't square with critical thinking, reality or rational human beings.

You want to lecture me that Democrats are the same as Republicans on environmental issues. Yet you claim to be an environmentalist. If you were an environmentalist, you'd know that is a ball faced lie. If you were an environmentalist, you'd be aware of the League of Conservation Voters and their Environmental Scorecard that ranks of every Congressman and Senator in Washington on environmental issues since 1971. The difference between Democrats and Republicans on environmental issues is VAST.

The consistent pattern is that I have actually lived under socialist rule. I lived in the Soviet Union for a fortunately brief time, I lived in New Zealand under the Lange governemnt when two thirds of the population didn't bother to work and the remaining third was wiped out under a fantastic tax burden. I travelled through Yugoslavia when Tito was still the leader and got to see first hand just how screwed up socialist rule is.

So the only difference between you and me is I am educated and well travelled compared to you. I started as a hardcore socialist then I started to read and now I am much closer to an anarchist...a real anarchist..not the socialists in sheeps clothing you see out there.

westfall, you claim to be a geologist, yet you're silent on destructive mountaintop mining and the dumping rock and debris in waterways. You claim you are an environmentalist, yet you refuse to read a speech given by an environmentalist to an esteemed environmental group and you are unaware of the League of Conservation Voters.

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

I know your parochial indoctrination makes this fact beyond your comprehension.

And you exhibit the typical right wing malady of being 'word bound'

Misnomers are quite common in the history of political labels. Examples include the German Democratic Republic (which was neither) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's "Liberal Democrat" party (which was also neither).

Socialism has never been tried at the national level anywhere in the world. This may surprise some people -- after all, wasn't the Soviet Union socialist? The answer is no. Many nations and political parties have called themselves "socialist," but none have actually tried socialism. To understand why, we should revisit a few basic political terms.

Perhaps the primary concern of any political ideology is who gets to own and control the means the production. This includes factories, farmlands, machinery, etc. Generally there have been three approaches to this question. The first was aristocracy, in which a ruling elite owned the land and productive wealth, and peasants and serfs had to obey their orders in return for their livelihood. The second is capitalism, which has disbanded the ruling elite and allows a much broader range of private individuals to own the means of production. However, this ownership is limited to those who can afford to buy productive wealth; nearly all workers are excluded. The third (and untried) approach is socialism, where everyone owns and controls the means of production, by means of the vote. As you can see, there is a spectrum here, ranging from a few people owning productive wealth at one end, to everyone owning it at the other.

Socialism has been proposed in many forms. The most common is social democracy, where workers vote for their supervisors, as well as their industry representatives to regional or national congresses. Another proposed form is anarcho-socialism, where workers own companies that would operate on a free market, without any central government at all. As you can see, a central planning committee is hardly a necessary feature of socialism. The primary feature is worker ownership of production.

The Soviet Union failed to qualify as socialist because it was a dictatorship over workers -- that is, a type of aristocracy, with a ruling elite in Moscow calling all the shots. Workers cannot own or control anything under a totalitarian government. In variants of socialism that call for a central government, that government is always a strong or even direct democracy… never a dictatorship. It doesn't matter if the dictator claims to be carrying out the will of the people, or calls himself a "socialist" or a "democrat." If the people themselves are not in control, then the system is, by definition, non-democratic and non-socialist.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Your study partially refutes a hypothetical event among medieval herders sharing a common parcel of land in Europe...And you lecture me on critical thinking and reality? WOW

My OP opened with an explanation of the meaning of the commons.

The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environment - forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that we all share. These are the tangible and intangible aspects of the environment that no-one owns but everybody enjoys.

It appears you need to critically think about: A) what reality is B) how to improve your read and comprehend skills.

Are you unaware of to the chemicals, carcinogens and caustic agents we are ALL exposed to, that we ingest, digest and absorb into our bodies? Are you unaware of the way our food supply is becoming less healthy and more toxic and lethal because of chemicals and growth inducing steroids corporate farms use to increase profit? Have you ever heard the term 'Body burden'?

Chemical Body Burden Home Page

Is that really what your OP is about?

Recall the game of tick-tack-toe. Consider the problem, "How can I win the game of tick-tack-toe?" It is well known that I cannot, if I assume (in keeping with the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can hit my opponent over the head; or I can drug him; or I can falsify the records. Every way in which I "win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game, as we intuitively understand it. (I can also, of course, openly abandon the game--refuse to play it. This is what most adults do.)
The class of "No technical solution problems" has members. My thesis is that the "population problem," as conventionally conceived, is a member of this class. How it is conventionally conceived needs some comment. It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy. They think that farming the seas or developing new strains of wheat will solve the problem--technologically. I try to show here that the solution they seek cannot be found. The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning the game of tick-tack-toe.

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

Your OP is actually about the belief that some problems have no solution. It was written in 1968, and I grew up with the knowledge that we would soon reach a population apocalypse. There was no way that we would be able to sustain a population of over 5 billion people, there would be absolutely no way to feed that many people, there simply is not enough land.

Guess what, we can. Humans are smarter than people give them credit for, and can solve problems that baffle people when given a chance. That is what I meant when I challenged you to look at the real world, yet you continually focus on the basic tenet of your post, which has been proven wrong by history.

Do you have any idea how many so called carcinogens were in the environment in the late 60s and early 70s? How long it was projected to clean up that mess? The most optimistic estimates for the cleanup back then said we would be doing it well into the next century, yet whole areas that were ecological disasters back then are now open to the public because they are safe and clean?

The Tragedy of the Commons postulated that some problems are insoluble, just like Tic Tac Toe, it was wrong because humans adapt technology in ways we have not seen before. This is not the first time I heard about our chemical burden, I grew up with it, and am expected to live longer than my parents did, because it is complete bullshit.

 

[Oddball]

Socialism hasn't been tried!?!?!???

BWWWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environment - forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that we all share. These are the tangible and intangible aspects of the environment that no-one owns but everybody enjoys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Capitalism's most dangerous flaw is that it has no inherent method for dealing with the tragedy of the commons.

Most of capitalism's cheerleaders simply never mention the tragedy of the commons, or deny that such a thing exists. The all wise invisible hand of the marketplace, some claim, is as competent to keep us out of future trouble as it is to grant us future benefit.

But you must truly have blinders on to believe this, as the visible effects of human behavior prove it is not so.

Free market capitalism teaches us how to better our lives, and those of other people, by reaching out and taking, and by doing so more efficiently and productively. Capitalism is very bad at teaching us when to refrain from taking. That part of ourselves which steps forward to suggest that "thou shalt not"--named the "superego" by Freud--simply does not form part of the free market system. Just as the ego and the id in the Freudian paradigm must refer to something outside themselves for the restraint that so often means survival, humans must look outside the capitalist system for the self-restraint that will avoid the destruction of every commons used by us. Our history also illustrates that the destruction of the commons will not be stopped by shame, moral admonitions, or cultural mores anywhere near so effectively as it will be by the will of the people expressed as a protective mandate; in other words, by government.

Hayek, the philosopher of free markets, admits this when he says, in discussing the importance of government to a free market system:

To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition.

In fact, Hayek is dealing directly with the tragedy of the commons when he says a page later that free market pricing fails when "the damage caused to others by certain uses of property cannot be effectively charged to the owner of that property." He continues:

Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the danger for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism.

Hayek was not a libertarian; he believed in striking the right balance between government and markets. Capitalism may contribute a large part of human welfare and progress, but it cannot do so without some external constraints.

Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons

Hey bfgrn.... I got one question for ya.... WHO WROTE THAT ARTICLE????

Remember you making a big fuss over the educational website I linked to? Yeah you cried liek a punk because it was written by copywriters for educational purposes and didn't list a specific author.. Matter of fact you cried so much I had to explain how copywriters work and how educational material is put in text books....

And after all your Bullshit over that, I look here and what do I see in your OP.... A article you linked to and cited large tracts of, with no author listed....

So in all fairness I ask you who wrote that article? Did you write it? If so than you should place your name or take credit. And if not, I want to know who did....

I am starting with this problem before I even bother ripping the article to shreds.. So man up and tell us...

He probably doesn't know, which is why I linked to the entire article, and the author, to put everything in context. There was a lot of doom and gloom back in the late 60s, and Garrett Hardin was one of the worst. One thing I love about him is how I can get liberals to run kicking and screaming after they quote him when they find out how un-PC he is.

Garrett Hardin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[gslack]

The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environment - forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that we all share. These are the tangible and intangible aspects of the environment that no-one owns but everybody enjoys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Capitalism's most dangerous flaw is that it has no inherent method for dealing with the tragedy of the commons.

Most of capitalism's cheerleaders simply never mention the tragedy of the commons, or deny that such a thing exists. The all wise invisible hand of the marketplace, some claim, is as competent to keep us out of future trouble as it is to grant us future benefit.

But you must truly have blinders on to believe this, as the visible effects of human behavior prove it is not so.

Free market capitalism teaches us how to better our lives, and those of other people, by reaching out and taking, and by doing so more efficiently and productively. Capitalism is very bad at teaching us when to refrain from taking. That part of ourselves which steps forward to suggest that "thou shalt not"--named the "superego" by Freud--simply does not form part of the free market system. Just as the ego and the id in the Freudian paradigm must refer to something outside themselves for the restraint that so often means survival, humans must look outside the capitalist system for the self-restraint that will avoid the destruction of every commons used by us. Our history also illustrates that the destruction of the commons will not be stopped by shame, moral admonitions, or cultural mores anywhere near so effectively as it will be by the will of the people expressed as a protective mandate; in other words, by government.

Hayek, the philosopher of free markets, admits this when he says, in discussing the importance of government to a free market system:

To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition.

In fact, Hayek is dealing directly with the tragedy of the commons when he says a page later that free market pricing fails when "the damage caused to others by certain uses of property cannot be effectively charged to the owner of that property." He continues:

Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the danger for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism.

Hayek was not a libertarian; he believed in striking the right balance between government and markets. Capitalism may contribute a large part of human welfare and progress, but it cannot do so without some external constraints.

Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons

Hey bfgrn.... I got one question for ya.... WHO WROTE THAT ARTICLE????

Remember you making a big fuss over the educational website I linked to? Yeah you cried liek a punk because it was written by copywriters for educational purposes and didn't list a specific author.. Matter of fact you cried so much I had to explain how copywriters work and how educational material is put in text books....

And after all your Bullshit over that, I look here and what do I see in your OP.... A article you linked to and cited large tracts of, with no author listed....

So in all fairness I ask you who wrote that article? Did you write it? If so than you should place your name or take credit. And if not, I want to know who did....

I am starting with this problem before I even bother ripping the article to shreds.. So man up and tell us...

He probably doesn't know, which is why I linked to the entire article, and the author, to put everything in context. There was a lot of doom and gloom back in the late 60s, and Garrett Hardin was one of the worst. One thing I love about him is how I can get liberals to run kicking and screaming after they quote him when they find out how un-PC he is.

Garrett Hardin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah so you can show me where his name is on that article's page..... Or the original link to the author you said above you linked to.....

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

Not true.

Independent Gay Forum - Liberal Authoritarianism.

Political correctness is nothing less than authoritarianism dressed in liberal clothing, and is just as oppressive as anything done in the name of conservatism.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Hey bfgrn.... I got one question for ya.... WHO WROTE THAT ARTICLE????

Remember you making a big fuss over the educational website I linked to? Yeah you cried liek a punk because it was written by copywriters for educational purposes and didn't list a specific author.. Matter of fact you cried so much I had to explain how copywriters work and how educational material is put in text books....

And after all your Bullshit over that, I look here and what do I see in your OP.... A article you linked to and cited large tracts of, with no author listed....

So in all fairness I ask you who wrote that article? Did you write it? If so than you should place your name or take credit. And if not, I want to know who did....

I am starting with this problem before I even bother ripping the article to shreds.. So man up and tell us...

He probably doesn't know, which is why I linked to the entire article, and the author, to put everything in context. There was a lot of doom and gloom back in the late 60s, and Garrett Hardin was one of the worst. One thing I love about him is how I can get liberals to run kicking and screaming after they quote him when they find out how un-PC he is.

Garrett Hardin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah so you can show me where his name is on that article's page..... Or the original link to the author you said above you linked to.....

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

 

[gslack]

He probably doesn't know, which is why I linked to the entire article, and the author, to put everything in context. There was a lot of doom and gloom back in the late 60s, and Garrett Hardin was one of the worst. One thing I love about him is how I can get liberals to run kicking and screaming after they quote him when they find out how un-PC he is.

Garrett Hardin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah so you can show me where his name is on that article's page..... Or the original link to the author you said above you linked to.....

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

But his OP link was to here where there is no author listed on that page... Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons... I have a reason for this, he knows the reason... he tried to lie about a link I supplied and then tried to claim its lack of naming a specific author made it invalid.. He did this despite knowing full and well it was to educational media company site where they employ copywriters and do not name specific authors because they are educational and similar to text books and such...

That is my point here... he knows this...

 

[westwall]

I am beginning to see a consistent pattern to your narrative. It is either total denial or you live in some self-created alternate universe. The 'truth' is socialism has never been successfully tried in any major country. It's ironic and revealing that you mention 'it even said so in its name.' 'Words' are one of the obstacles the conservative mind can't decipher. Like I said to another 'conservative', if we follow that kind of 'logic', all Martin Luther King Jr. needed to do to end discrimination against blacks was to say "I am white"

You espouse a greater narrative and propaganda that is consistently coming from the right these days. It started around 1994 with Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich's Contract with America that just doesn't square with critical thinking, reality or rational human beings.

You want to lecture me that Democrats are the same as Republicans on environmental issues. Yet you claim to be an environmentalist. If you were an environmentalist, you'd know that is a ball faced lie. If you were an environmentalist, you'd be aware of the League of Conservation Voters and their Environmental Scorecard that ranks of every Congressman and Senator in Washington on environmental issues since 1971. The difference between Democrats and Republicans on environmental issues is VAST.

The consistent pattern is that I have actually lived under socialist rule. I lived in the Soviet Union for a fortunately brief time, I lived in New Zealand under the Lange governemnt when two thirds of the population didn't bother to work and the remaining third was wiped out under a fantastic tax burden. I travelled through Yugoslavia when Tito was still the leader and got to see first hand just how screwed up socialist rule is.

So the only difference between you and me is I am educated and well travelled compared to you. I started as a hardcore socialist then I started to read and now I am much closer to an anarchist...a real anarchist..not the socialists in sheeps clothing you see out there.

westfall, you claim to be a geologist, yet you're silent on destructive mountaintop mining and the dumping rock and debris in waterways. You claim you are an environmentalist, yet you refuse to read a speech given by an environmentalist to an esteemed environmental group and you are unaware of the League of Conservation Voters.

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

I know your parochial indoctrination makes this fact beyond your comprehension.

And you exhibit the typical right wing malady of being 'word bound'

Misnomers are quite common in the history of political labels. Examples include the German Democratic Republic (which was neither) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's "Liberal Democrat" party (which was also neither).

Socialism has never been tried at the national level anywhere in the world. This may surprise some people -- after all, wasn't the Soviet Union socialist? The answer is no. Many nations and political parties have called themselves "socialist," but none have actually tried socialism. To understand why, we should revisit a few basic political terms.

Perhaps the primary concern of any political ideology is who gets to own and control the means the production. This includes factories, farmlands, machinery, etc. Generally there have been three approaches to this question. The first was aristocracy, in which a ruling elite owned the land and productive wealth, and peasants and serfs had to obey their orders in return for their livelihood. The second is capitalism, which has disbanded the ruling elite and allows a much broader range of private individuals to own the means of production. However, this ownership is limited to those who can afford to buy productive wealth; nearly all workers are excluded. The third (and untried) approach is socialism, where everyone owns and controls the means of production, by means of the vote. As you can see, there is a spectrum here, ranging from a few people owning productive wealth at one end, to everyone owning it at the other.

Socialism has been proposed in many forms. The most common is social democracy, where workers vote for their supervisors, as well as their industry representatives to regional or national congresses. Another proposed form is anarcho-socialism, where workers own companies that would operate on a free market, without any central government at all. As you can see, a central planning committee is hardly a necessary feature of socialism. The primary feature is worker ownership of production.

The Soviet Union failed to qualify as socialist because it was a dictatorship over workers -- that is, a type of aristocracy, with a ruling elite in Moscow calling all the shots. Workers cannot own or control anything under a totalitarian government. In variants of socialism that call for a central government, that government is always a strong or even direct democracy… never a dictatorship. It doesn't matter if the dictator claims to be carrying out the will of the people, or calls himself a "socialist" or a "democrat." If the people themselves are not in control, then the system is, by definition, non-democratic and non-socialist.

I am well aquainted with Kennedy's speech..just as I am well aware of all of the other things you site.....ever been to the Peabody mine in northern AZ? I didn't think so...I have on four different occasions through the years and helped them craft a system to restore the open-cast damage they have done. What have you done?

You talk big but have done absolutely nothing to rectify the situation....you're just as bad as old fraud and konrad and spidey toober, you guys factual posture (I love that term) but DO NOTHING! You twerps try and denigrate what I say and old fraud goes so far as to say that everything I say is a lie...OK buster proove it.

Everything you people post is propaganda. I have had enough propaganda forced on me to last a lifetime. I don't need, or want, or desire any more of yours or old frauds BS. If you wish to discuss the science involved and use legitimate sources I am happy to talk to you.

But if all you are going to do is fall back on the same old ad hom attacks and circular arguments then I can happily say piss off, you're as useless as old fraud. Like I told him, if you have good information that is not tainted or manufactured out of whole cloth I am happy to read it. If you can't produce that then you have no business talking with the adults here.

 

[Bfgrn]

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

Not true.

Independent Gay Forum - Liberal Authoritarianism.

Political correctness is nothing less than authoritarianism dressed in liberal clothing, and is just as oppressive as anything done in the name of conservatism.

In the REALITY of a world filled with a dark history of authoritarian regimes, where human beings were tortured and human life extinguished, you bring THIS as some type of equivalent?

You say you are a classic liberal. Yet there is no human capital in any of your posts. You talk like a right wing pea brain.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
Douglas Adams

 

[gslack]

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

Not true.

Independent Gay Forum - Liberal Authoritarianism.

Political correctness is nothing less than authoritarianism dressed in liberal clothing, and is just as oppressive as anything done in the name of conservatism.

In the REALITY of a world filled with a dark history of authoritarian regimes, where human beings were tortured and human life extinguished, you bring THIS as some type of equivalent?

You say you are a classic liberal. Yet there is no human capital in any of your posts. You talk like a right wing pea brain.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
Douglas Adams

So then we can call you a posturing buffoon with delusions of brilliance.... Or just a DUCK...

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

Not true.

Independent Gay Forum - Liberal Authoritarianism.

Political correctness is nothing less than authoritarianism dressed in liberal clothing, and is just as oppressive as anything done in the name of conservatism.

In the REALITY of a world filled with a dark history of authoritarian regimes, where human beings were tortured and human life extinguished, you bring THIS as some type of equivalent?

You say you are a classic liberal. Yet there is no human capital in any of your posts. You talk like a right wing pea brain.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
Douglas Adams

How many dark and authoritarian regimes started with liberal ideals? I am also pretty sure that my last reply to you was invested with human capital, but maybe you have a different definition of it than I do.

 

[geauxtohell]

Ah so you can show me where his name is on that article's page..... Or the original link to the author you said above you linked to.....

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

But his OP link was to here where there is no author listed on that page... Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons... I have a reason for this, he knows the reason... he tried to lie about a link I supplied and then tried to claim its lack of naming a specific author made it invalid.. He did this despite knowing full and well it was to educational media company site where they employ copywriters and do not name specific authors because they are educational and similar to text books and such...

That is my point here... he knows this...

For fuck's sake, Fester. Must you bring your rage-a-thon circus into every fucking Bfgrn thread because you are pissed off about this or that thing that happened in some other thread?

It looks like the conversation was proceeding just fine without you, which is probably why you are so desperate to derail it now.

And no, I won't respond to your inevitable response to this thread because I don't want to derail a perfectly good conversation other people are having.

 

[gslack]

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

But his OP link was to here where there is no author listed on that page... Capitalism and the Tragedy of the Commons... I have a reason for this, he knows the reason... he tried to lie about a link I supplied and then tried to claim its lack of naming a specific author made it invalid.. He did this despite knowing full and well it was to educational media company site where they employ copywriters and do not name specific authors because they are educational and similar to text books and such...

That is my point here... he knows this...

For fuck's sake, Fester. Must you bring your rage-a-thon circus into every fucking Bfgrn thread because you are pissed off about this or that thing that happened in some other thread?

It looks like the conversation was proceeding just fine without you, which is probably why you are so desperate to derail it now.

And no, I won't respond to your inevitable response to this thread because I don't want to derail a perfectly good conversation other people are having.

And here we see big brother coming to the rescue again.... LOL, you realize how predictable this is now boys?

 

[Bfgrn]

The consistent pattern is that I have actually lived under socialist rule. I lived in the Soviet Union for a fortunately brief time, I lived in New Zealand under the Lange governemnt when two thirds of the population didn't bother to work and the remaining third was wiped out under a fantastic tax burden. I travelled through Yugoslavia when Tito was still the leader and got to see first hand just how screwed up socialist rule is.

So the only difference between you and me is I am educated and well travelled compared to you. I started as a hardcore socialist then I started to read and now I am much closer to an anarchist...a real anarchist..not the socialists in sheeps clothing you see out there.

westfall, you claim to be a geologist, yet you're silent on destructive mountaintop mining and the dumping rock and debris in waterways. You claim you are an environmentalist, yet you refuse to read a speech given by an environmentalist to an esteemed environmental group and you are unaware of the League of Conservation Voters.

Here is a true axiom that applies to all leaders and forms of government:
'While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.'
Robert Altmeyer

I know your parochial indoctrination makes this fact beyond your comprehension.

And you exhibit the typical right wing malady of being 'word bound'

Misnomers are quite common in the history of political labels. Examples include the German Democratic Republic (which was neither) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's "Liberal Democrat" party (which was also neither).

Socialism has never been tried at the national level anywhere in the world. This may surprise some people -- after all, wasn't the Soviet Union socialist? The answer is no. Many nations and political parties have called themselves "socialist," but none have actually tried socialism. To understand why, we should revisit a few basic political terms.

Perhaps the primary concern of any political ideology is who gets to own and control the means the production. This includes factories, farmlands, machinery, etc. Generally there have been three approaches to this question. The first was aristocracy, in which a ruling elite owned the land and productive wealth, and peasants and serfs had to obey their orders in return for their livelihood. The second is capitalism, which has disbanded the ruling elite and allows a much broader range of private individuals to own the means of production. However, this ownership is limited to those who can afford to buy productive wealth; nearly all workers are excluded. The third (and untried) approach is socialism, where everyone owns and controls the means of production, by means of the vote. As you can see, there is a spectrum here, ranging from a few people owning productive wealth at one end, to everyone owning it at the other.

Socialism has been proposed in many forms. The most common is social democracy, where workers vote for their supervisors, as well as their industry representatives to regional or national congresses. Another proposed form is anarcho-socialism, where workers own companies that would operate on a free market, without any central government at all. As you can see, a central planning committee is hardly a necessary feature of socialism. The primary feature is worker ownership of production.

The Soviet Union failed to qualify as socialist because it was a dictatorship over workers -- that is, a type of aristocracy, with a ruling elite in Moscow calling all the shots. Workers cannot own or control anything under a totalitarian government. In variants of socialism that call for a central government, that government is always a strong or even direct democracy… never a dictatorship. It doesn't matter if the dictator claims to be carrying out the will of the people, or calls himself a "socialist" or a "democrat." If the people themselves are not in control, then the system is, by definition, non-democratic and non-socialist.

I am well aquainted with Kennedy's speech..just as I am well aware of all of the other things you site.....ever been to the Peabody mine in northern AZ? I didn't think so...I have on four different occasions through the years and helped them craft a system to restore the open-cast damage they have done. What have you done?

You talk big but have done absolutely nothing to rectify the situation....you're just as bad as old fraud and konrad and spidey toober, you guys factual posture (I love that term) but DO NOTHING! You twerps try and denigrate what I say and old fraud goes so far as to say that everything I say is a lie...OK buster proove it.

Everything you people post is propaganda. I have had enough propaganda forced on me to last a lifetime. I don't need, or want, or desire any more of yours or old frauds BS. If you wish to discuss the science involved and use legitimate sources I am happy to talk to you.

But if all you are going to do is fall back on the same old ad hom attacks and circular arguments then I can happily say piss off, you're as useless as old fraud. Like I told him, if you have good information that is not tainted or manufactured out of whole cloth I am happy to read it. If you can't produce that then you have no business talking with the adults here.

Well good for YOU... But YOU talking about YOU is simply a diversion, while you continue to ignore the REAL issues. I don't need to be a geologist to understand the dangers of dumping rock and debris in waterways, or the dangers of heavy metals in our bodies and our children's bodies. Do YOU westfall?

You make all these claims and boasts about YOU, but if you are a thinking man and a father, then you need to add a HUGE dose of human capital into your thinking. Poison is not propaganda, it is measurable.

Good stewardship of our environment is not socialism or communism. It is sound economic policy. It is not something that can be protected solely by the invisible hand of the market. It requires government regulation and consumer protection measures.

It should be a bedrock tenet of conservatism.