BillG:

I completely agree that the “tragedy of the commons” is not per se from having a commons, but from having an “UNMANAGED commons” as you put it. One can find many examples of adequately managed commons – largely customary rights – but many examples of poorly- or non-managed commons, for which different solutions may be needed (such as privatization of government lands, or laws or treaties providing for management of global fisheries).

It’s clear that solution lie in finding the right property rights scheme. Accordingly, I agree with much of this (but don’t need to agree to the labor basis of value):

“the pollution problem is nothing more than the fact that our pricing mechanism can not incorporate negative externalities at the point of sale.

negative externalities are a defacto tax on the wages of all those being excluded by the privatization of the sky as a sink beyond the sustainable yield…this IS the property rights violation.

the reason why can be laid directly at the foot of the neo-classical/marginalist utility economics school (of which Austrian is a derivative) by purposely conflating the natural commons for private capital.

the way to rectify the situation within a classical liberal framework is to limit the use of the common asset up to the sustainable yield (Locke’s proviso) by selling annual permits (titles) to pollute only up to that limit therefore eliminating negative externalities.

the money collected (called economic rent) for the permits are then distributed directly and in equal amounts to the owners of the commons which had been in the past the exact amount of tax they had been subjected to (negative externalities) in violation of their property rights to their labor.”

Unfortunately, there is no effective global market in greenhouse gas emissions, much less in the atmosphere as a whole, so there is no means by which private transactions can regulate GHG emissions to avoid climactic changes (just like the world’s oceans are being grossly overharvested in a largely unfettered race). Only a global scheme can effective deal with the issue, as partial programs such as Kyoto suffer from free-rider effects, as they exclude the developing world and the US/Australia.

However, it is clear that there are sufficient other negative externalities associated with fossil fuel consumption that a national carbon tax would make sense purely domestically in the US (the revenues of which could be used to replace income taxes or to fund social insurances).

This article was well done. I have been looking for just this type of article.Thank you for this information.