The Tragedy of the Privates

Private property is rooted in the philosophical thought experiment that is the “tragedy of the commons”. By this “Hardin refers to a tragedy of overgrazing and lack of care and fertilization which resulted in erosion and underproduction so destructive that there developed in the late 19th century an enclosure movement” (Cox 52). By this logic private property is validated because without owner ship then there is no responsibility for maintenance to any one individual making the commons a place where all take from but none contribute to. The result is a destruction of the environment needed to produce value. By taking land from the commons and making it private the idea is that individuals now how vested interests in maintaining the land and making it productive. Yet, when we critically examine the condition of the planet today we can see that private property may actually lead to a sort of tragedy of the privates. As we have seen private property has not quite been enough to produce sustainable productive structures. Rather “logical imperialism allows imperial countries to carry out an ‘environmental overdraft’ that draws on the natural resources of periphery countries” (Clark and Foster 330). Moving to privatize the next piece of land to fully exploit when the last one has been depleted. Not for a community but for a subset of businessmen, investors, and asset holders. Thus, we see that “Capitalist accumulation and the "market economy" are fundamentally parasitical regimes” (O’connor 1).

This capitalist accumulation made possible by private property which ravishes our commons unlike any community could have. Unlike a community of farmers corporations are created for the sole purpose of the exploitation of private property. Those that share a commons arguablely have more of an interest than corporations to maintain productive land because they themselves must live in it. Unlike, corporations people cannot justify up and moving when their environment becomes destroyed because they are tied to the land through tradition. culture, and family to name a few. Communities that must share a commons will eventually come to understand that “The positional economy is the set of dependencies and power relationships in which the effectiveness of specific individuals’ or groups’ economic resources and consumer goods is contingent on their position vis- ‘a-vis others” (Curran 34). Privatization makes the problem of environmental destruction powerless because privatization leads naturally into the commodification of natural resources. The cost of destruction is only taken into account in contrast to the maximum value that could be extracted before that point. If the maximum value is greater than the cost then complete environmental destruction is justified.

The tragedy of the commons is only a reality when we stop listening to the land. When we only take the removed narrative of capitalism does it make sense that land held in commons would be unproductive. Unproductive to capitalist exploitation yes. The tragedy of the commons is solved by understanding that we must live in common regardless of weather we like it or not. Private property is obviously not delivering on its promise of solving environmental destruction due to overuse. I believe that “People can learn to “listen to the land” and discern its sacred voices” (Ray and Parson 528). In this way we can have a commons without having to resort to the tragedy of capitalism by listening to the land which would also require a listening of each-other,

A liberal and Keynesian upon reading of the above argument would think the author was out of their mind. The liberal tradition establishing the very basis for the need of private property to establish law and order. It is out of a liberal mindset that the tragedy of the commons makes sense. Yet, liberalism does not take into account co-operation or assemblages of life. It assumes that humans in common will not cooperate if not for individual gain. Private property being a way delineate credit in the face of the inability to organize community cooperation. At the core of liberalism being the idea that individualism pushes competition resulting in increased productivity. A Keynesian, though not completely in line with traditional liberalism seeks to support it or lets say not let it get out of control. It sees the contradiction of private property (capitalism) and long term prosperity. Keynesian thought identifies that if left to its own devices liberalism and private property will ravish the earth to its last drop of water. It does not in anyway have mechanisms to stop its “productive forces”. This is why from time to time the levers of the economy must be pulled to maintain a balance. At times to redistribute and force the ruthless “progress” of liberalism to go back and make sure it doesn't run out of landscapes to destroy. The solution of abolishing private property as we know it would be preposterous to Keynes because it would mean a complete destabilization of the economy sending the world into an unknown realm of brutality. He does not think that we can “listen to the land” but that we can “listen to the economy”. Letting it tell us when the complete exploitation is on the horizon as to allow us a moment of retrieval of the commons in order to continue the destruction of them.

A critical perspective is what is advocated for at first. A critical lens to the solution of “the tragedy of the commons”. It asks if the “solution of capitalist private property” actually results in law, order, and environmental stability. Or does private property simply place the cost of environmental destruction on the commons while taking its productivity into the private. In this way not solving the environmental destruction described in the tragedy of the commons but built upon its assumption,

Works Cited

Clark and Foster (2009). Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift: Unequal Exchange and the Guano/Nitrates Trade.

Cox, Susan Jane Buck (1985), No Tragedy of the Commons. Environmental ethics, 7: 49-61.

Curran, D. (2017), The Treadmill of Production and the Positional Economy of Consumption. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 54: 28-47.

O'Connor, Martin. (2009). The second contradiction of capitalism. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 5.

Ray and Parson. Re Imagining Radical Environmentalism, Chapter 38.