[A shorter version of his essay was published in The OC Register and in The Hoover Digest (1999, No. 3]
George Orwell told us that "The first duty of intelligent men is the
restatement of the obvious." So perhaps in my aspiration to being
taken to be intelligent, I wish to restate, by way of a homely example,
the obvious fact that private property rights is good for the
environment. (Of course, although it was Professor Garrett Hardin who
wrote "The Tragedy of the Commons," back in 1963, he was restating a
point made 2500 years ago by Aristotle, thus assuring Hardin's own
qualifications as an intelligent person. Aristotle said, "That all
persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may
be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in
the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there
is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the
greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks
chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when
he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other
considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he
expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often
less useful than a few." [Politics, 1262a30-37])
The gist of the thesis is, well, obvious: Private property is taken
better care of than public property. On average, that is. Public
beaches, roadsides, parks, lakes, rivers and oceans make this pretty
evident to any observant person. And so does "our" creek up in
Silverado Canyon.
This is my neighborhood. Every day I walk to the post office and
cross the bridge over Silverado Creek, a spot that should by all counts
be a wonderful feature of this generally funky community. The
neighborhood is eclectic and filled with a great variety of types and
kinds of people. I love living there -- except for this one thing: the
creek right around the bridge is a cesspool. Indeed, many of the
roads, owned, effectively, communally, show similar treatment by their
users. There is trash everywhere, at times just bits and pieces, at
others big huge chunks.
If, however, you take a peak into front or backyards you will find
that there is cleanliness galore. The private portions of much of the
neighborhood are a sight to behold. But the places that are public and
used repeatedly by the public just look awful.
As I walk to the post office nearly every day, I think about this. I
am thinking that perhaps I should buy myself some boots and get into
the creek at night and clean it up. I do, after all, pick up the trash
as I walk back with my mail under my arm, dumping the pickings into the
trash cans sprinkled alongside the road. Maybe it wouldn't be too much
for me to embark upon this public-spirited deed.
But the next thought I have is that all my efforts will be for naught.
In two days the creek will be as messy as it is now. The folks who
discard stuff there now will not stop doing so. It seems, they really
believe that here is an opportunity for them to save effort, time.
Just toss stuff where, as they appear to view matters, nobody cares if
there's a mess.
Because, let us face it, there are folks who don't mind living like
pigs. They are slobs. You may have seen this. Certainly our kids
often show such a proclivity, judging by their rooms. But there, at
least, mom and dad can run some interference. But some grow up never
to mature and then their homes will be pigsties.
Now that is lamentable but not tragic: it does not ordinarily have to
impact on the rest of us. The problem is that in public places one
person's litter becomes everyone's litter. Even if your best friend is
a slob, you need only put up with that for a little while you can
insist you meet at your own place, where everything is squeaky clean.
But this option does not exist in public places. Everyone must endure
the trash there since everyone makes use of what belongs to the public.
Moreover, such places are now increasing, what with environmentalists
insisting that more and more private property should be taken for
public use. So you can be sure that the littering, too, will increase.
Indeed, all the oil spills and other defilement of the environment
would be significantly restrained if private legal action would face
those who "do the dirty." But as it is a matter of public policy what
happens to those who damage public property, there is always the chance
that little will happen -- if, for example, a community has more
citizens who like the culprit (or are its employees). Politics changes
with the shift of voter sentiment. In one year environmentalism is all
the rage, in the next it isn't.
But the principle of private property can be left pretty much intact,
provided it amounts to a fundamental constitutional tenet of a
community. And that is just what the principle was headed for in the
United States of America.
In the US Constitution, the 5th Amendment treats private property
rights as fundamental, to be sacrificed only for a public purpose and
even then to be justly compensated. And a public purpose wasn't
supposed to be just anything that a bunch of folks screamed about. It
was to do with the pursuit of justice -- as when a court house had to
be built.
Today, however, small minorities that get out the vote, as well as
majorities, can undermine the legal protection of property rights.
What happens, then, is that the environment gets messier and messier.
Oh, here and there a sufficient constituency might exist to keep
public realms clean -- for a while. But in the long run, unless there
is a firmly established system of private property rights, the tragedy
of the commons will become widespread. Just as it is in the little
community of Silverado, where the creek keeps getting messier and
messier each day.
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PS: In July I saw that the creek had been cleaned up a bit and went in
to fetch a beer bottle that stood near the shoreline. I lost my
balance and fell in but escaped with just a few bruises. A few days
later I went back and notice that by then the mess had returned big
time. Such is the tragedy of the commons.
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*Tibor Machan lives in Silverado Creek and teaches at Chapman
University, Orange.
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