Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: self interest VS what's best for everybody/apology (fwd)

[Shava Nerad (shava]

> ####### Judy wrote: ########
> My only thought is to think about the "tragedy of the common's, Garrett
> Hardin's famous  piece about villages with common grazing land.  for the
> individual, it was always a small loss of quality in grazing to add an extra
> sheep, so the commmons was overgrazed and useless to everyone.  Hardin's
> solution (he was basically talking about overpopulation) was to make 
> agreements
> among the group to protect common resources. I think the concept is very
> useful, and the tragedy, alas, very common.

Anyone who's interested in the "tragedy of the commons" updated, should
check out the work of the political ecologist Shiva Vandana.  She has a
feminist, third world, hard as nails and twice as grounded view of the
exploitation of the environment and social integrity of the third world
as the "commons" of the industrial nations.

As such things go, she's a fun read too.  She has a good sense of humor
and irony.

Shava Nerad                             Net Prophets Internet Consulting
shava [at] darkwing.uoregon.edu         netprophets [at] efn.org
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~shava/     http://www.efn.org/netprophets/
        /* original materials (c) 1996, Shava Nerad & Net Prophets */
/* see Numbers 5:11-28 for a biblical reference to ritual abortion <-felony */