Re: more perspective on rules and regs
From: Hans G. Ehrbar (ehrbarlists.econ.utah.edu)
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:07:01 -0700 (PDT)
Thank you for forwarding the New York Times article
reference.  I live at Wasatch Commons in Salt Lake City.  In
our community we tend to think that one cannot force people
to be good community members, this must and will come
voluntarily.  Of course, if we don't enforce rules, this
makes it possible for parasites to encroach, as the New
York Times article says.  What can we do about this?

I teach Marxism at the University of Utah, and from my
perspective, we should resist the temptation to fall back
onto a more rule-oriented regimen.  Reasons:

(1) It is not possible to design rules which, if followed,
turn you into a good community member.

(2) As long as capitalism is rampant, self-serving parasitic
behavior is encouraged and even necessary.  People who are
socialized this way are not necessarily bad.

(3) Our economic system is such that most people get robbed,
oppressed and exploited 8 hours a day on their jobs, and
they don't seem to mind.  But if they perceive their
neighbor to act a little selfish, they are all up in arms
about it, although the damage to them is usually not very
great.  The greatest damage is that it discourages us, but
we do have that under control.  We can just laugh it off and
not be discouraged.  If we can survive capitalism, we can
certainly survive cohousing.

(4) Participation in the community is fun and very fulfilling.
People who don't receive the benefits of this will probably
move out again.

Hans.

-- 
Hans G. Ehrbar   http://www.econ.utah.edu/~ehrbar   ehrbar [at] 
economics.utah.edu

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