Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode it could happen here.
Speaker 1: I'm your guest host of this episode where I'm hoping
Speaker 1: to take a moment to discuss the commons, the principles
Speaker 1: of successful commons management, and why sitting attempts to establish
Speaker 1: the comments of field. My name, by the way, is
Speaker 1: Andrew of the YouTube channel Andrewism. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on YouTube dot com slash Andrewism. I'm joined here with
Speaker 1: my two cool hosts that will be Garrison Davis Hello,
Speaker 1: and James Stout. Hi. Awesome. But before I get into
Speaker 1: exactly what makes the commons work, I least want to
Speaker 1: discuss what exactly the comments are, because despite being you know,
Speaker 1: common throughout human history, a lot of people can't imagine
Speaker 1: how they might have worked what they are. Of course,
Speaker 1: the commons is a very specific definition of particular context
Speaker 1: of you know, feudalism and whatnot. But even outside of that,
Speaker 1: the idea of the commons is essentially the resources accessible
Speaker 1: to all members of society, the totality of the material
Speaker 1: riches of that community or even of the world, regarded
Speaker 1: as their whole inheritance, rather than being subject to inclosure
Speaker 1: and to privatization. Even today, despite the process of inclosure,
Speaker 1: which is with you of its own podcast episode or
Speaker 1: series of podcast episodes or book. Even even today, they
Speaker 1: are still you know, viable existing commons institutions, and they've
Speaker 1: in some cases endured for well over how and years.
Speaker 1: Most famously Helena Ostrom, the economists who explored the concept
Speaker 1: in depth and de punct the tragedy of the Commons,
Speaker 1: wrote in her book Governing the Commons that from you know,
Speaker 1: the alpine meadows of Torbell, Switzerland, to the three million
Speaker 1: hectares of Japanese for us, to the irrigation systems of
Speaker 1: Spain and Philippines, the possibility of community of popular rather
Speaker 1: than public or state or private or corporate ownership exists.
Speaker 1: The possibility of communal ownership as opposed to capitalist or
Speaker 1: state ownership exists. There's also the communal land of Chiapas
Speaker 1: in Mexico after the successful Zapatista revolution, and of course,
Speaker 1: as I discussed in previous episode, there are the commons
Speaker 1: of Barbuda, where the entire island of the twin island
Speaker 1: nation of Antigue and Barbuda is owned collectively by all
Speaker 1: Barbudas and regarded as their collective heritage. These projects. Of course,
Speaker 1: an art static the commons and Brobuda, for example, existed
Speaker 1: for about a hundred years, but had some precedents prior
Speaker 1: to that, and are now honestly being encroached upon. After
Speaker 1: the soul shock doctrine of the hurricanes that ravaged the
Speaker 1: island has opened up an opportunity for Antique Brobbuda's government
Speaker 1: sort of swooping and privatized the land um for the
Speaker 1: benefit of foreign companies and foreign resorts. So the Commons
Speaker 1: is not this timeless internal institution that can't be interrupted,
Speaker 1: that's never change um to in the case in cheap Us,
Speaker 1: you know, they had similar projects, similar institutions prior to colonization.
Speaker 1: Colonization ruled in and interrupted all that, and thanks to
Speaker 1: the Zapleas Revolution they were able to institute some semblance
Speaker 1: of that sort of commons institution, of that communal land
Speaker 1: um for their collective benefits. They responwned to experience conditions,
Speaker 1: to circumstances, to serve or in some cases to eventually
Speaker 1: not to the people. But of course not all commons
Speaker 1: are able to work, not all commons institutions operate effectively,
Speaker 1: and she talks about why using various case studies to
Speaker 1: illustrate her points. In the course of governing the commons,
Speaker 1: she used, of course, the existence case studies to develop
Speaker 1: cuitain principles that she believed make the commons work, the
Speaker 1: principles that she found in common between Switzerland and Japan,
Speaker 1: the Philippines and Spain, and then use those principles to
Speaker 1: examine the common its institutions that didn't work, identified which
Speaker 1: principles were missing from the equation. But I'm talking a
Speaker 1: lot about what these principles about, these principles of successful
Speaker 1: commons management, and I haven't broken down what they are exactly.
Speaker 1: So to get into that, the principles of successful commons management,
Speaker 1: as followers number one, clearly defined boundaries. Boundaries in the
Speaker 1: sense of having of those involved, the appropriators of the commons,
Speaker 1: the people who directly access in the commons, having a
Speaker 1: clear sense of structure and characteristics of the resource system itself,
Speaker 1: whether it be through a scientific study or through generationally
Speaker 1: preserved folk knowledge, as well as knowledge and a clear
Speaker 1: sense of who is involved and withdrawn from and sustaining it.
Speaker 1: Even if you know, even in the case where the
Speaker 1: entire world has been common, where all land has been
Speaker 1: returned to common land to the ownership of none and
Speaker 1: everyone simultaneously in such a case. In individual instances of
Speaker 1: common pool resources, whether it be a forest or a fishery,
Speaker 1: or a lake or groundwater basin, the people most directly
Speaker 1: access in those that that segment of the Commons, that system,
Speaker 1: that common pool resource needs to have a clear sense
Speaker 1: of exactly what that resource entails UM, the limits of
Speaker 1: that resource, the renewability of that resource, UM, and who
Speaker 1: is involved in withdrawing from and sustaining that resource, so
Speaker 1: that they're able to collaborate. If you know, as in
Speaker 1: the case with the tragedy of the Commons, everybody is
Speaker 1: just this isolated actor, not communicate and at all not collaborating.
Speaker 1: There's no collective institution in place to help them, you know,
Speaker 1: work it out. You basically gonna end up in a
Speaker 1: case like the targity of the Commons, where the system
Speaker 1: is depleted because nobody has a sense of what anybody
Speaker 1: else is doing. UM, there's no there's no open channel
Speaker 1: of communication, which brings us, of course to collective decision
Speaker 1: making power. That's the third principle. So I'm jumping ahead slightly,
Speaker 1: but it flows better this way um having collective decision
Speaker 1: making power over the commons, meaning there's an institution in
Speaker 1: place that those who are drawing from the Commons are
Speaker 1: able to come together and discuss the rules of the Commons.
Speaker 1: How are they going to draw from the Commons, how
Speaker 1: are they going to deal with the Commons, how they're
Speaker 1: gonna deal with each other as they deal with the Commons,
Speaker 1: and so on. And to afford the idea of rules
Speaker 1: is not anti anarchists as a concept, um, just the
Speaker 1: idea that there is not you know, popular inputs and
Speaker 1: collective inputs and free association in place UM. And so
Speaker 1: with consensus, with this institution of collective decision making power,
Speaker 1: people be able to come up with and modify the
Speaker 1: rules as it suits their situations, as it's as it
Speaker 1: suits their shifting circumstances um. And of course, and this
Speaker 1: is the second principle, that their appropriation and provision rules
Speaker 1: of the Commons are compatible with local conditions. The whole
Speaker 1: ideas that do not relying on any external authorities to
Speaker 1: come up with these rules, to commit to these rules,
Speaker 1: to bind themselves to these rules, even when the temptations
Speaker 1: to violate those rules apply. So as a practice of
Speaker 1: you know, developing community, you need to have some sense
Speaker 1: of shared norms and developing those shared norms over time
Speaker 1: regard and behavior, and of course, as in the case
Speaker 1: in almost of all societies, of course, reputation and one's
Speaker 1: reputation will play a rule. Um, if you are known
Speaker 1: to be consistently violating the commons rules, of course they're
Speaker 1: going to be social consequences to that. That's just a
Speaker 1: natural consequence. Just because the commons exist doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: people are free of the consequences of how they use
Speaker 1: those comments. Just like in the case of the environment.
Speaker 1: You know, just because you can cut down all the
Speaker 1: trees in the forest doesn't mean you're free of the
Speaker 1: consequences from cutting on the trees of that forest. Your
Speaker 1: actions are still going to have consequences, whether it be
Speaker 1: environmental or social. There are of course limits, as there
Speaker 1: as there are in any other aspect of life. But
Speaker 1: of course simple norms regarding behavior or concerns about reputation
Speaker 1: may help. But you're also going to need the fourth
Speaker 1: and fifth principles established in some form effectively maintain social harmony.
Speaker 1: The fourth principle is of course, monitoring, which is the
Speaker 1: process of continuously evaluating the conditions of the common pool
Speaker 1: resource itself as well as the behavior of the appropriators.
Speaker 1: Now to monitoring. It's kind of spooky, right. It sounds
Speaker 1: a little bit like Big brothers watching you kind of fight.
Speaker 1: But that's not really the intention. It's just the idea
Speaker 1: that it's just this this constant, informal process of looking
Speaker 1: at and observing and collecting data on the conditions of
Speaker 1: the commons, the conditions including how people behave with the
Speaker 1: commons as well as the you know, commons themselves, the
Speaker 1: resources themselves, how much of them we have, how quickly
Speaker 1: they're being you know, renewed, that sort of thing. And
Speaker 1: and through that process of each person, each appropriator of
Speaker 1: the commons, institutions um monitoring the system continuously, you begin
Speaker 1: to learn what rules work and what rules don't, and
Speaker 1: so you can adapt your rules to suit the circumstances,
Speaker 1: to suit how people actually behave, which is something that
Speaker 1: centralized and hierarchical institutions have a bit of trouble doing.
Speaker 1: Because when you have this horizontal common institution, you're able
Speaker 1: to look at, okay, this is how things are going
Speaker 1: so far, and let me we can we can now
Speaker 1: talk about it we're constantly in this dialogue. We're all
Speaker 1: able to contribute our information in this horizontal system and
Speaker 1: adapt our rules and our behavior to suit. Whereas in
Speaker 1: the pyramid structure of a hierarchical and centralized organization, but
Speaker 1: further up the pyramid ecal yes, the more power there
Speaker 1: is as centralized institutions tend to have, but also less
Speaker 1: information because the narrowing of the pyramid leads to less
Speaker 1: and less information from the bottom filtering up to the top.
Speaker 1: And so when you have these centralized institutions, rules are
Speaker 1: a lot more rigid because they're not able to respond
Speaker 1: quickly and effectively and as informed as informedly um to
Speaker 1: the situations as they arise. That's also why eight of
Speaker 1: the planet's bio diversity is being protected by a very
Speaker 1: small percentage of indigenous people because they are on the ground.
Speaker 1: Because they are they're interact with the systems in real time,
Speaker 1: they're able to respond directly and quickly to changes in
Speaker 1: that part ability two changes in behavioral in order to
Speaker 1: maintain and sustain that system. Whereas you find that a
Speaker 1: lot of conservation projects, a lot of restoration projects, in
Speaker 1: environmental frustoration projects are feeling you know, I recently read
Speaker 1: an article about how a lot of these tree planting
Speaker 1: initiatives that governments have been doing these days, while you know,
Speaker 1: it gets them good, publicity gets them good, you know, social, social, political,
Speaker 1: international clouds. When you go back one year, two years,
Speaker 1: three years down the line, almost all, if not all,
Speaker 1: the trees are dead. The communities living by these reforestation projects,
Speaker 1: we're not involved in the process. They don't have any
Speaker 1: say in the selection of the trees. In fact, the
Speaker 1: trees aren't always even choosen in a coote into the
Speaker 1: local conditions. They often isn't enough biodie flicity in terms
Speaker 1: of the trees. I mean when it comes to a forest,
Speaker 1: and that's what people don't understand. Forests are living organism.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it has multiple layers, has multiple past.
Speaker 1: You can just PLoP us at the trees down and
Speaker 1: expect things to work out. Okay, you know, um James C.
Speaker 1: Scott talks about this in Seeing like a state. You
Speaker 1: can't just in these states they start these sort of
Speaker 1: forestry projects. They try to legible, legibilize, you know, these forests,
Speaker 1: these simple rules and organizations, and you cut out all
Speaker 1: the fluff, all the shrubbery, all the other plans that
Speaker 1: are competing Coote and coote, you end up with a
Speaker 1: dead system, you know, they put the system that is
Speaker 1: very fragile, is not able to respond to changes in
Speaker 1: the environments they rise because it does not have the
Speaker 1: buffer as of a complex web of life in place.
Speaker 1: Indigenous groups and really anybody who is grounded in the
Speaker 1: local context is able to most effectively engage and respond
Speaker 1: because they have access to that information, because they're able
Speaker 1: to see the shocks to the system, the buffers, what works,
Speaker 1: what doesn't. Human culturists are able to, you know, to
Speaker 1: have these intensive systems because they are constantly monitoring coming
Speaker 1: full circle here, constantly monitoring the feedback that they're getting
Speaker 1: from their systems. And of course there's a fifth principle.
Speaker 1: You know, in these sort of situations, you're still going
Speaker 1: to have a couple opportunistic people, maybe attempt may be
Speaker 1: tempted to take advantage of the trust presence in the
Speaker 1: group um. And when I say opportunistic people, I don't
Speaker 1: mean to create this other, this old group. I just
Speaker 1: mean us in the sense of, you know, you have,
Speaker 1: like we all do, moments of weakness, right, and then
Speaker 1: those moments of weakness, it can be easy for some
Speaker 1: to falter, and in that falter and jeopardize the security
Speaker 1: of the system as a whole, and so the fifth
Speaker 1: Prince will successful. Common spanagement is the practice of accountability
Speaker 1: and systems of accountability through graduated sanctions. Of course, empathy
Speaker 1: needs to maintain throughout the process. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that every infraction must automatically responded to with sanctions. Like again,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to do something, it's just obviously when
Speaker 1: you have a system that has and I know I'm
Speaker 1: reference to nine like a right finger, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's fine reference nine correctly as opposed to
Speaker 1: like someone who hasn't read it or read anything else
Speaker 1: that he wrote. Yeah, yeah, we can take it. But
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, not every situation gonna respond to its sanctions. Obviously,
Speaker 1: empathation remunitae throughout the process. Um, But when you have
Speaker 1: a system in which a lot of people are dependent
Speaker 1: on the sustainability not just people living right now, but
Speaker 1: generations to come, and that's not something we accustomed to
Speaker 1: thinking about, but generations still coming out and think about
Speaker 1: with these sort of commons institutions, you can't do as
Speaker 1: the capitalists do and just let people do whatever with
Speaker 1: minimal if any environmental protections with minimal if any like
Speaker 1: standards in place. Yes, infractions varying severity and stuff, But
Speaker 1: when the livelihood of the entire community is that state,
Speaker 1: you know, things can be so easy. When infractions are
Speaker 1: just you know, temporary deviations or unthreatening to the overall
Speaker 1: survival of the CPR, then you know, tolerance can be high.
Speaker 1: But it depends on the circumstance. And that's why it
Speaker 1: really is important that the prior four principles or in place.
Speaker 1: You know, you have the clearly defined boundaries, you have
Speaker 1: the rules of the commons established by collective decision making
Speaker 1: power over the commons, with a constant process of monitoring
Speaker 1: in place. Because again, the responsiveness of the people on
Speaker 1: the ground is a lot more in tune with the
Speaker 1: conditions of the commons and with the needs of the
Speaker 1: people themselves, because they are the people. And the fifth
Speaker 1: principle and the fourth principle, all the other principles would
Speaker 1: be nothing without the sixth principle, which is the presence
Speaker 1: of conflict resolution mechanism. Humans are kind of human, you know,
Speaker 1: we make mistakes. We have disagreements, and it needs to
Speaker 1: be some sort of means of discussing and resolving conflict
Speaker 1: in a healthy and effective way. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of processes in place UM. A lot of communities, Galterian
Speaker 1: communities throughout history have used some sort of system of mediation. UM.
Speaker 1: There's also arbitration, which chance be more common in state societies.
Speaker 1: And they are also new models and methods of justice
Speaker 1: being established and drawn from from the past as well
Speaker 1: that we can look into. But they are conflict resolution mechanisms.
Speaker 1: They have to be in place the successful comments management.
Speaker 1: We live in a society, and society includes conflict. Conflict
Speaker 1: is not always necessarily a bad thing, but it's a
Speaker 1: thing and you ignore it and expected to go away.
Speaker 1: The seventh principle is the freedom to organize, and this
Speaker 1: principle is, you know, the basis upon which the other
Speaker 1: principles arrest. In some places, people have a lot of
Speaker 1: autonomy to self organize free of state control. In other
Speaker 1: places they don't. In other places, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: state encroachment on the commons because that has been the
Speaker 1: mission of the state to further their ten drils. In
Speaker 1: every sphere of life and existence. So obviously the end goal,
Speaker 1: but one of the end goals the complete abolition of
Speaker 1: the state, and obviously the process upon which we reached
Speaker 1: those end goals would require pre figurative politics in the
Speaker 1: sense of establishing the institutions that we want in the
Speaker 1: future society in the here and now and building that
Speaker 1: dual poll capacity to provide a competitive excuse the capitalists terminology,
Speaker 1: but a competitive model that can you know, compete with,
Speaker 1: rise from and separately from eventually replace um the existing systems,
Speaker 1: and that's the process of social revolution. Have a video
Speaker 1: coming up on that in December. Lastly, and this does
Speaker 1: not apply to every instance of commons management, but in
Speaker 1: some cases you need the eighth and finale principle for
Speaker 1: successful commons management, and that is nested enterprises, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, basically the same principle as an anarchist confederation.
Speaker 1: You know, if a particular community is access in a
Speaker 1: commons institution that other communities are access in, or if
Speaker 1: the commons that a group of communities are access in
Speaker 1: a part of a larger regional commons or archipelogic commons
Speaker 1: or continental commons, then he wants to have means of
Speaker 1: collaboration partom up of course, part of organizations, but you know,
Speaker 1: maintain the power the local level while coordinating these larger
Speaker 1: scaled commons and ensuring that there's a smooth running and
Speaker 1: smooth communication between the appropriators, you know, the people involved.
Speaker 1: These principles very clearly differentiate between success and the failure cases.
Speaker 1: To reiterate the commons and the principle of successful commons
Speaker 1: management as follows, clearly defined boundaries, rules compatible with local conditions,
Speaker 1: collective decision making power to establish those rules, monitoring to
Speaker 1: ensure that those rules are compatible with people and conditions.
Speaker 1: Graduated sanctions to ensure that rules are kept up with
Speaker 1: and the commons are protected from potential threats, conflict resolution
Speaker 1: mechanisms because humans are going to human freedom to organize,
Speaker 1: particularly in the fragilely stages of establishing these projects and
Speaker 1: nested enterprises confederation from the bottom up. In certain failure cases,
Speaker 1: we see that, you know, none of the principles apply um.
Speaker 1: For example, in the book eleanor Austrom references these two
Speaker 1: Turkish fisheries, the bay of his Mirror and boardroom, where
Speaker 1: there was severe rent dissipation continuing unabated. Of course, the
Speaker 1: book was written a while ago, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how the situation has evolved since then. But rent dissipation
Speaker 1: is basically a circumstance in which the commons cornpool resources
Speaker 1: are being depleted severely and the sustainability of those comments
Speaker 1: are at stake. And so with all those principles in place,
Speaker 1: to all that doesn't happened. Um you get a situation
Speaker 1: like what's going on? But what was going on in
Speaker 1: the Bay of His Mirror and put in the Kirin
Speaker 1: the oil irrigation project in Sri Lanka, they did have
Speaker 1: clayer boundaries, that one principle in place, but the other
Speaker 1: principles were not. In Mojave, California, they did have the
Speaker 1: institution of collective choice, they did have contact resolution mechanisms,
Speaker 1: and they did have the recognized right to organize, but
Speaker 1: the other principles are not in place, and so that
Speaker 1: institution was also a failure. Or we could look at
Speaker 1: the case in the Mabella fishery also in Sri Lanka,
Speaker 1: where renticipation had become a very severe problem, particularly after
Speaker 1: nine Now, they did have rules in place, they did
Speaker 1: have a monitoring system, but unfortunately, you know, despite having
Speaker 1: those rules, is probably having you know, regulating regulating the
Speaker 1: access to the beach and the use of the beach
Speaker 1: scenes and the control of the number of nets to
Speaker 1: be used. I mean, they really did try. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a problem of ignorance the issuers that although they were
Speaker 1: aware of the consequences of adding too many nets and
Speaker 1: drawing too much from the fishery, the issue became that
Speaker 1: the appropriators, the fishermen themselves, they don't have the autonomy
Speaker 1: to make an enforce the rules of the fishery that
Speaker 1: was deprived of them, and so the institution was not
Speaker 1: able to sustain itself in the long term. So in
Speaker 1: all these cases, you know, no more of the three
Speaker 1: design principles actually characterized any of these cases, and so
Speaker 1: they were unable to solve the problems that they faced.
Speaker 1: They're of course also issues where they are viable but
Speaker 1: fragile common system where you know, they have more of
Speaker 1: the principles in place, but they still lack all of them.
Speaker 1: So awesome Sri Lanka. There's a gal oil where boundaries
Speaker 1: and membership would clay designated, where rules have been devised
Speaker 1: and monitored, where collective choice arenas have been set up,
Speaker 1: but they you know did not have the autonomy and
Speaker 1: they do not have collect conflict resolution mechanisms in place,
Speaker 1: and so the institution is not as as robust as
Speaker 1: it could be. Of course, when it comes to the
Speaker 1: Commons and existing institutions, existing fragile institutions exist in successful institutions,
Speaker 1: existing failures of institutions. That does not necessarily need to
Speaker 1: limit all imagination of possibilities, but it's good to be
Speaker 1: informed as to what has worked in the past and
Speaker 1: what hasn't. We can still imagine future scenarios and experiments
Speaker 1: and how they might play out. But the point is
Speaker 1: if we're trying to reinstate the Commons, we need to
Speaker 1: understand what makes them work, at least what has made
Speaker 1: them work in the past and in the present. More
Speaker 1: information of the Commons and also the potential of library economy,
Speaker 1: you can check out my videos on the Commons and
Speaker 1: the library economy on my channel YouTube dot com slash Andurism.
Speaker 1: You can also check out Eleanor Ostrom's book Governing the Commons,
Speaker 1: as well as a book called Eleanor Ostrom's Rules for Radicals,
Speaker 1: which I haven't read yet, but I felt it was
Speaker 1: pretty good. If you like what I do. You'd like
Speaker 1: to support me, you could follow me on pitture dot
Speaker 1: com slash same true and on Twitter com slash underscore
Speaker 1: same true. That's all I have for today. It could
Speaker 1: Happen here piece. It could Happen Here as a production
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