I too am all for Ostromized cooperative management of common property resources, but the Oglalla acquifer spans too large an area to be managed that way. Unsustainable water mining is a problem in large parts of the plains and arid west and demands far-reaching policies which will affect settlement patterns and not merely agricultural techniques. I agree with Brad that choices will have to be made at higher levels, and one argument for using prices to implement them is that any other system would be draconian. (Note: this does not mean that markets in water as a commodity are the answer, because the common resource problem, the discounting problem, environmental interactions/nonconvexities all point to market failure at the level of the whole system. I am advocating using prices as a transmission mechanism for decisions made by other means.) My position is one of unblemished virtue in this discussion, of course, because I live in the pacific northwest, currently soaked with water. Peter Dorman Michael Perelman wrote: > > Hardin's story is a myth. In truth, the communities that he describes had > customs and institutions that kept the amount of livestock in check. But after > the land became privatized all hell broke loose. > > Brad might be correct about his understanding of the wells, but I want to > correct his historical allusion (illusion) about the tragedy of the commons. > -- > > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Chico, CA 95929 > 530-898-5321 > fax 530-898-5901
