Rafael, One option I like and believe has shown itself to be effective in some cases and at different scales, is based on Thaler/Sunstein’s notion of “nudges,”<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_(book)> decision architectures, and liberal paternalism (great book if you need one to read), some of which was implemented under US President Obama as Sunstein was his policy czar. Basic idea is to take advantage of “what happens if people do nothing” (alteratively phrased as “do people have to opt in or opt out” – so, for example, “motor voter” in the US leads those applying for drivers licenses automatically registers them to vote simultaneously and has, I believe, dramatically increased voter registration in US states that have adopted it. Ditto that for “when you start a job, you will have your company save for retirement and maybe have a company “match” automatically, but you can opt out if you do NOT want that, which dramatically increases retirement savings. In the environmental sphere, my (ancient) assessment of why tanker owners have oil-pollution-reducing equipment on board is because they don’t have to say “please add ‘oil-pollution-reducing equipment’ to my tanker, but instead have it installed by default (similar to why almost all cars in the US have pollution-reducing catalytic converters – most people would not add them to their car, but very few disable them. There are numerous examples. I won’t vouch for any of the effectiveness of any of these, but its ONE approach that seems to “travel well” across levels of governance and appears to be relatively effective in many settings (though, the collective wisdom of GEPED can surely show why this doesn’t work in many settings). Ron
From: Rafael Friedmann [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, August 31, 2020 10:58 AM To: [email protected]; Ronald Mitchell <[email protected]> Cc: GEP-Ed List <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [gep-ed] RE: Tragedy of the Commons I’d like to see examples of how we’ve been able to effectively counter the interests of the few to continue with Business-as-usual overexploitation or exclusion of externalities and limited analyses of broader systemic impacts. This is the crux more than how much we liked or not TOC and Hardin. Give me solutions! Give me examples of what has worked – but on a massive scale—which is what is needed to actively and successfully tackle the broad impacts we are seeing and will otherwise experience with global climate change. Rafael From: DG Webster<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 31, 2020 10:13 AM To: Ronald Mitchell<mailto:[email protected]> Cc: GEP-Ed List<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [gep-ed] RE: Tragedy of the Commons Hi Ron, Thanks for raising the discussion. I was horrified when I first read the full version of Hardin't ToC piece, having only read excerpts in various courses. My last book, Beyond the Tragedy in Global Fisheries, is essentially a long, drawn-out refutation of the ToC as the fundamental problem in fisheries governance. It's probably too fisheries-centric for most but the core concept of power disconnects links up Ostrom, Buck, and other great suggestions here. In short: When the people making decisions about resource use (through markets, government, etc.) are able to insulate themselves from the costs of overexploitation, power disconnects are wide and environmental damage will be high. When the people making decisions about resource use are vulnerable to those costs, then power disconnects are narrow and they're likely to figure out some way to manage resources sustainably. This could include rules to govern the commons, but extends to laws, science/tech, etc. More importantly, this perspective asserts that social justice isn't a nice add-on to environmental protection but a fundamental requirement. Of course, others make similar arguments, many in re: pollution as Dana pointed out. Would be great to see more interdisciplinary work on the concept. See attached for an interdisciplinary paper that uses power disconnects as part of a critique of ITQs and other panaceas in fisheries. best, dgwebster -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/MWHPR10MB1887E4634AE251B99DF74C71CB510%40MWHPR10MB1887.namprd10.prod.outlook.com.
