Robert Bish

Robert Bish, "Environmental Resource Management: Public or Private?", ed. Garrett Hardin and John Baden, Managing the Commons, San Fransisco, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1977.

In a common pool resource each individual's use increases the costs or decreases the value to other users. An example of a common pool is a water basin. [218]

Private ownership of natural resources leads to the most efficient resource use when there are no third party effects from use, and when users of the resource can easily be charged. The owner, in seeking to maximize his return, will sell the resource to the individual who places the highest value on it and excludes potential users who are not willing to pay the market clearing price. Thus the difficult problem of identifying the value of a resource is overcome when the users reveal their preferences by paying the market price. There is then no need for an administrative official to determine how much each potential user values the resource and to administer it accordingly. [221]

If public ownership did mean completely open and unrestricted access, common pool resources would quickly be destroyed from overuse because no single individual would see destructive consequences from his use, while the combined use by all individuals would likely exceed the capacity of the resource. [223]

Public ownership and management of resources will probably benefit well-organized groups as would the private assignment of property rights; although with public ownership valuable rents will be obtained by users instead of resource owners. Even public agencies may neglect third party interests. Unless individual citizens become well organized and active in the political process, their interests are neglected. And even when citizens do become interested enough to organize, their political staying power is likely to be much weaker than that of well-organized economic interests whose welfare depends on the dominance of public agencies. [225]

Unless the political organization managing the resource is designed very carefully, large numbers of individual users are more likely to be neglected under public ownership. As for information, when the resource can be sold, a private owner will obtain the most accurate information available for evaluating alternative potential users. A public official, however, will have only equally competing demands to evaluate. [225]