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PHILOSOPHY - Rational Choice Theory: Tragedy of the Commons [HD] - YouTube
Channel: Wireless Philosophy
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(intro music)
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Hi! My name is Jonny Anomaly, and I teach
at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill.
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Today, I'm gonna talk about the
Tragedy of the Commons.
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Let's start with an example.
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When Polynesians arrived in Hawaii
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over a thousand years ago, they
encountered a flightless bird which
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archaeologists now call "moa-nalo,"
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the Hawaiian words for "lost bird."
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Because the birds had no natural
predators, they lost the capacity to fly
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and were easy prey for hungry Hawaiians.
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All Hawaiians would be better off
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preserving enough birds to replenish
the natural stock of food,
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but since the birds were an unowned
resource, each Hawaiian had a strong
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incentive to eat the
bird into extinction,
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and that's exactly what they did.
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Commons tragedies occur when resources
are either unowned or commonly owned,
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and when the benefits of
use go to each person
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while the costs are shared
by everyone in a group.
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To make the previous example precise,
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suppose there are twenty Hawaiians.
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Each Hawaiian gains five utility points
from killing and eating a bird,
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while all Hawaiians as a
group lose ten utility points
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every time another bird bites the dust.
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Since my fraction of the collective
loss to twenty people
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is only half a utility point,
but I gain five points,
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I get four and a half points, on
net, by killing endangered bird
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that I would prefer to preserve.
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The most interesting thing about commons
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tragedies is that, like the
prisoner's dilemmas,
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they show that it can be fully rational
for each member of a group
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to act in a way that leaves everyone in
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the group worse off than they
would be if they could cooperate.
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Notice that common strategies,
like prisoner's dilemmas
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don't necessarily arise
because of self-interest.
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I may hunt an endangered species
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so that I can feed my family and friends
or donate the meat to some other cause
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that I consider worth promoting.
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So, how do we avoid commons strategies?
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The most common solution is property
rights, which lead individual owners
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to internalize both the
benefits and the costs
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of their use a scarce resource.
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John Locke and David Hume saw this is a
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crucial function of property rights.
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Property rights can be used to preserve
scarce resources, like endangered species.
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But they can also be a tool for
increasing social welfare
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by incentivizing the production
of new and better resources.
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Since most productivity gains come
from ideas for transforming existing
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resources into new products,
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intellectual property is an especially
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important form of
private property rights.
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It is easy to see how ownership over
external objects would induce
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owners to preserve and
improve natural resources.
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But intellectual property, ownership
over ideas, is a bit more subtle.
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While there's quite a bit a controversy
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about how efficient particular systems
of intellectual property are,
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many economists believe that without
allowing people to own ideas,
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they would have less incentive to conduct
costly research and development campaigns
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to create new medicines, new kinds of
computers, or new genres of music.
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All of these ideas create social value.
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But without the right to take exclusive
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ownership over the ideas,
at least for a while
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inventors would not be able
to recoup the time and money
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they spent coming up with them.
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Still, private property is not a panacea.
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Property rights are costly to enforce, and they
may stymie innovation in certain domains.
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Consider the problem of patent trolls, people
who make their living buying patents
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with no intention of using them.
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Patent trolls sue companies that use
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technologies which resemble
the patents they've purchased.
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In many cases, companies find it cheaper
to pay off the patent trolls than to
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wage a costly court battle against them.
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This leads to a misallocation of resources
and rewards people who make money
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without producing any real value.
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Property rights have to be
enforceable to work well.
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Enforcement is costly, since it requires
monitoring violations, prosecuting
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violators, and settling disputes.
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Some countries are too poor to be able
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to monitor property rights effectively,
and others are too corrupt.
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In these cases, Elinor Ostrom has shown
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that local commons tragedies, like
overfishing a lake or overgrazing
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cows on a common pasture, can sometimes
still be solved by communities.
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In place of formal property
rights and court adjudication,
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members of small communities often rely
on social norms that determine how
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property can be acquired,
used, and traded.
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People who violate local property norms
are ostracized, or excluded from
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enjoying important social benefits.
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In these cases, our concern
for a good reputation
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and for the benefits of living in a
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community can solve commons tragedies,
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but only when monitoring
social norms is cheap
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and group cohesion is strong.
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I'd like to end with a challenge for you.
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Think about a commons trategy
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witnessed in the last month, and try to
figure out why it hasn't already been
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solved through social norms
or through legal sanctions.
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