Governing the Commons

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1. 01

   A community can manage a shared resource — a forest, an irrigation canal — together, without needing either the state or a single private owner.

   Governing the Commons · 1990

   Many believed that if a pasture belongs to everyone, each person brings too many cows and the grass runs out for all. Ostrom studied real villages worldwide and found local rules, written by the people themselves, that prevented exactly this problem. Communities can make good rules, if allowed to.

   “Instead of there being a single solution to a single problem, I argue that a great variety of institutional arrangements can work to manage common-pool resources.”

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