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102 comments on You decide who's to blame

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oldhippie on April 16, 2006 - 4:17pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If you want to kmow about the commons why go to somewone as obscure as Garrett Hardin? Try reading Karl Marx. Actually you are not going to read any 19th century British history or literature and not pick up constant references to the commons and to the Enclosure Acts.
When there were substantial commons - common pasture and common woodlands usually, but including all sorts of commonly held land - the system worked well and smoothly for 1000 years. The theoretical problems latterday economists like to yammer on about mostly just did not arise. The problem came when common property was privatized.
I'm sure there's the possibility of researching this one online but I suggest you try the library instead. And look up enclosures or the Enclosure Acts since existence of commons is assumed.
Once you know something about commons and enclosures you will understand everything you've ever learned about Europe quite differently. And understand what an anomaly America is.
Seriously, you are not even going to understand gamewarden vs. poacher jokes if you are relying on someone so far afield as Hardin for the lay of the land on commons.
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Don Sailorman on April 16, 2006 - 5:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
As "obscure" as Garrett Hardin.

That one word speaks volumes.

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oldhippie on April 16, 2006 - 9:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, really, obscure.
Won't bother to post anymore on this site & am sure you are already glad of that. Spectator position only.
And Only in America could such an article or such a discussion of the commons exist. You can't adress peak oil or much else while being so severely provincial.
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BOP on April 17, 2006 - 12:44am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

 Don't let Don scare you off the site or stop posting. He has not read much history, and even less anthropology, and almost nothing on communal fisheries management. But then neither has Hardin.
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Don Sailorman on April 17, 2006 - 9:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks BOP, we need all the humor we can get on this site.
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fallout on April 17, 2006 - 12:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I personally hope oldhippie changes his mind, and decides to post again here. I have enjoyed his previous posts, and a little google search for "Garrett Hardin" vs. "Enclosures Act" (or even "Karl Marx") will prove him correct regarding Hardin's RELATIVE(key word) obscurity on the matter of commons.  
Being a prolific blog poster does not in any way make what you have to say any more important or accurate.

Having been a reader and contributor to TOD longer (albeit not more frequently) than Don and BOP combined, I also feel compelled to point out that being generally abrasive and/or discourteous to others are not traits that serve well either on this blog, or in post-peak life.  

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oldhippie on April 17, 2006 - 10:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Since you are so kind, I will post once more, on this probably dead thread. Don Sailorman does not scare me off. I rather like him. A fellow cyclist. A fellow curmudgeon.

The problem is the futility of this endeavour.

Good Lord I probably ran into Garrett Hardin 3 decades ago when some young naiive econ professor ran that article past me. And now he has a new life on the net. Back then I think I bothered to debate it. Looking at that shite again, having been trained as an historian, it just feels like a slap in the face.
There was once, and may be again, a stripe of American scholar who would pick up something plain as dirt, simple as breathing, but unknown to America. Who would know if the facts were wrong? Who would catch that he had no grasp of the field?  Dress it up with a metric. Reference a name physicist, mathematician, philosopher, whatever. Cover by publishing in a journal where no one knows. The audience really was born yesterday. And this stuff now lives forever.

What really bothers me about Hardin is that he committed that essay in 1968. Probably the last time we all really had the chance to live.

Anyone still with me? Read the knave of the soixant-huitards, Guy Debord. The whole oeuvre is 3 inches of shelf, unless you read French and can score a copy of the filmscripts - then it's 5 inches. But would anyone on this board be able to read it? Or read the illustrated version from Grant Morrison.

Anyway this board has people who know lots and lots about about petroleum engineering and the oil biz, subjects of much interest where I should only listen.

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Don Sailorman on April 18, 2006 - 7:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oldhippie,
Of course you should not go away! We have a lot in common, as you pointed out.

We are in the mess we are in BECAUSE the ideas of Hardin are relatively obscure.

I in no way intended to attack you--but rather to deplore the ignorance of the powers that be as to what our fundamental problems are.

Peace.

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102 comments on You decide who's to blame

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