Can you explain what you mean about tragedy of the commons not being a thing? It seems inherently obvious. Like do you think it’s not applicable politically, or even in thought experiments like cows in a meadow it still doesn’t apply? In my mind, tragedy of the commons perfectly explains why large corporations pollute instead of respect the environment.
More often than not it’s a thought-terminating cliché. Large corporations polluting isn’t a “tragedy of the commons” issue either, the tragedy of the commons refers to everyone having unmanaged and unfettered access to a resource or tool. That’s a private corporation taking the shortest path to profit.
“Totalitarianism” is not and never will be necessary. Authority is, as revolution, for example, is an authoritarian act against the bourgeoisie. However, the theory of “Totalitarianism” from Arendt is mostly liberal bogus.
Okay fine fine. I’m more of a self-described authoritarian really.
That’s a private corporation taking the shortest path to profit.
Well for instance, if there was only one singular mega-corporation with no competition, I don’t think it would destroy the environment, at least not in a way that would reduce its future profits. My observation is that corporations tend to be more forward-thinking about their own profits than I tend to expect from the way they’re structured. But you can get an advantage over other corporations in the short-term if throw environmentalism to the wayside. In other words, the shortest path to profit and the tragedy of the commons are exactly linked.
I don’t know what a “self-described authoritarian” is, either. That isn’t a political stance.
If there was one singular megacorp, governing all of industry, there would be no competition as you said, and therefore Capitalism would die. The death of Capitalism is inevitable, but reaching such a point would see revolution immediately.
It sounds like you’re basically saying competition is the problem. But competition has benefits and downsides; one of the downsides is tragedy of the commons, which I think is bad enough it warrants eliminating capitalism all by itself. You haven’t really provided a good argument that tragedy of the commons isn’t a real concern.
I don’t believe the death of capitalism is inevitable – that’s why we need to work hard to end it. (Edit: I guess we essentially agree, the difference is fatalism?)
I think the biggest issue here is that we aren’t really speaking on common ground. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, and can offer theory to show what that means but will put that aside for now.
The “tragedy of the commons” is not what you are using it to mean. You are referring to a lack of regulation as “tragedy of the commons,” which is not the correct usage of it.
Secondly, Capitalism erases its own foundations, it naturally centralizes and erases profit and competition, ergo it inevitably produces crisis and its own erasure.
I am correctly using tragedy of the commons. A well-understood solution to the tragedy of the commons is regulation. This is equivalent to saying a lack of regulation can cause the tragedy of the commons.
The tragedy of the commons is a general-purpose game theory concept. It applies any time there is a communal resource exploitable by multiple participants. In the abstract: any time you can do something for personal gain but for the detriment of everyone overall. Admittedly, in the case of unsafe dumping, the resource must be unintuitively defined as the cleanliness of the river or something like that, but the same principle applies as in the more clear-cut (heh) example of foresting.
(Wikipedia claims pollution is a “negative commons”; the theory still applies, but the resource is defined strangely.)
Can you explain what you mean about tragedy of the commons not being a thing? It seems inherently obvious. Like do you think it’s not applicable politically, or even in thought experiments like cows in a meadow it still doesn’t apply? In my mind, tragedy of the commons perfectly explains why large corporations pollute instead of respect the environment.
More often than not it’s a thought-terminating cliché. Large corporations polluting isn’t a “tragedy of the commons” issue either, the tragedy of the commons refers to everyone having unmanaged and unfettered access to a resource or tool. That’s a private corporation taking the shortest path to profit.
“Totalitarianism” is not and never will be necessary. Authority is, as revolution, for example, is an authoritarian act against the bourgeoisie. However, the theory of “Totalitarianism” from Arendt is mostly liberal bogus.
Okay fine fine. I’m more of a self-described authoritarian really.
Well for instance, if there was only one singular mega-corporation with no competition, I don’t think it would destroy the environment, at least not in a way that would reduce its future profits. My observation is that corporations tend to be more forward-thinking about their own profits than I tend to expect from the way they’re structured. But you can get an advantage over other corporations in the short-term if throw environmentalism to the wayside. In other words, the shortest path to profit and the tragedy of the commons are exactly linked.
I don’t know what a “self-described authoritarian” is, either. That isn’t a political stance.
If there was one singular megacorp, governing all of industry, there would be no competition as you said, and therefore Capitalism would die. The death of Capitalism is inevitable, but reaching such a point would see revolution immediately.
It sounds like you’re basically saying competition is the problem. But competition has benefits and downsides; one of the downsides is tragedy of the commons, which I think is bad enough it warrants eliminating capitalism all by itself. You haven’t really provided a good argument that tragedy of the commons isn’t a real concern.
I don’t believe the death of capitalism is inevitable – that’s why we need to work hard to end it. (Edit: I guess we essentially agree, the difference is fatalism?)
I think the biggest issue here is that we aren’t really speaking on common ground. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, and can offer theory to show what that means but will put that aside for now.
The “tragedy of the commons” is not what you are using it to mean. You are referring to a lack of regulation as “tragedy of the commons,” which is not the correct usage of it.
Secondly, Capitalism erases its own foundations, it naturally centralizes and erases profit and competition, ergo it inevitably produces crisis and its own erasure.
I am correctly using tragedy of the commons. A well-understood solution to the tragedy of the commons is regulation. This is equivalent to saying a lack of regulation can cause the tragedy of the commons.
The tragedy of the commons is about random people misusing public goods, not corporations practicing unsafe dumping.
The tragedy of the commons is a general-purpose game theory concept. It applies any time there is a communal resource exploitable by multiple participants. In the abstract: any time you can do something for personal gain but for the detriment of everyone overall. Admittedly, in the case of unsafe dumping, the resource must be unintuitively defined as the cleanliness of the river or something like that, but the same principle applies as in the more clear-cut (heh) example of foresting.
(Wikipedia claims pollution is a “negative commons”; the theory still applies, but the resource is defined strangely.)