• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship
    • Faculty Scholarship Series
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship
    • Faculty Scholarship Series
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of openYLSCommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    The Comedy of the Commons: Commerce, Custom, and Inherently Public Property

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    The_Comedy_of_the_Commons___Co ...
    Size:
    1.455Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Rose, Carol
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/1090
    Abstract
    The right to exclude others has often been cited as the most important characteristic of private property. This right, it is said, makes private property fruitful by enabling owners to capture the full value of their individual investments, thus encouraging everyone to put time and labor into the development of resources. Moreover, exclusive control makes it possible for owners to identify other owners, and for all to exchange the fruits of their labors, until these things arrive in the hands of those who value them most highly—to the great cumulative advantage of all. Thus exclusive private property is thought to foster the well-being of the community, giving its members a medium in which resources are used, conserved and exchanged to their greatest advantage. There is nothing new about this set of ideas; Richard Posner, a modern-day proponent of neoclassical economics, remarks that the wealth-enhancing value of property rights "has been well known for several hundred years." Posner cites Blackstone for this proposition, and indeed, since the advent of eighteenth-century classical economics, it has been widely believed that the whole world is best managed when divided among private owners. The obverse of this coin is the "tragedy of the commons." When things are left open to the public, they are thought to be wasted by overuse or underuse. No one wishes to invest in something that may be taken from him tomorrow, and no one knows whom to approach to make exchanges. All resort to snatching up what is available for "capture" today, leaving behind a wasteland. From this perspective, "public property" is an oxymoron: things left open to the public are not property at all, but rather its antithesis.
    Collections
    Faculty Scholarship Series

    entitlement

     
    DSpace software (copyright © 2002 - 2025)  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.