Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom, "Collective Action and the Tragedy of the Commons", ed. Garrett Hardin and John Baden, Managing the Commons, San Fransisco, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1977.

The combined efforts of two different agencies pursuing related but different programs lead to a system of regulation that is reasonably honest and effective, achieve the objectives of ground-water basin management, and protect the interests of affected but unorganized individuals in the area. The existence of special taxing arrangements developed by some special-purpose districts enables them to provide the corrective feedback that Hardin argues is necessary 'to keep the custodians honest'. By focusing on the nation-state and on the need for a monopoly of coercive force, social scientists may have blinded themselves to the relevance for social analysis of the inventiveness of those who directly face common pool problems. [179]

W. Ross Ashby has demonstrated that adaptation to a complex environment is most efficient when subsystems have considerable independence and can proceed to adapt serially. Totally integrated systems may not be able to adapt to complex environments in sufficient time to enable them to survive over the long run. [179]