Re: [ox-en] Commons in a taxonomy of goods
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan meretz.de>
- Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:00:14 +0200
On 2010-06-15 21:17, Diego Saravia wrote:
_Free goods_ (also: Res nullius, Terra nullius or no man’s land)
are legally or socially unregulated goods under free access. The
often cited „Tragedy of Commons“ is a tragedy of no man’s land,
which is overly used or destroyed due to missing rules of usage.
Such no man’s lands do exist yet today, e.g. in high-sea or
deep-sea.
but not only a legal classification,
you have scarce or economic goods, and free goods
Scarcity is not a goods property, but a social form of goods to be
produced (namely: commodity).
economic goods could be rival/non rival and exclusive/non exclusive
All goods can be rival/non rival and be made exclusive/non exclusive.
that gives you 4 categories: public, private, common, and club goods
Although usual, that's a false classification, because it presumes, that
both rivalry and excludability is a property of the good, but being
exclusive/non exclusive is not (it's a result of an activity, thus
social).
so you have 5 basic categories: free: public, private, common, and
club goods
That's the outdated traditional classification which has to be overcome.
commom goods usually are defined in terms of non excludable/rival
Not true for digital commons.
Commons is a social form of producing goods, not a property of the good
itself.
However, I admit that traditional economic theory is not able to picture
this interrelation.
Ciao,
Stefan
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