Concepts / Common goods

Common goods, aka common-pool resources, are rivalrous resources that no-one can be excluded from using. Oft-cited examples include fisheries, forest, grazing land, roads, and clean water.

Elinor Ostrom defined a set of principles that apply to the good governance of common goods. She demonstrated that the so-called “tragedy of the commons” was only a tragedy in theory.

That’s not to say managing common goods successfully, especially in the global context, is a walk in the park. Far from it. The Ostrom principles will help us rise up to global super wicked problems together this century, and Web3 may offer new design possibilities for this essential commoning.

 LINKS

• Ostrom, E. (1992). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Natural Resources Journal.
• Velasquez, M. et al. (2014). The Common Good. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
• Samuelson, R. J. (1992). How Our American Dream Unraveled. Newsweek, March 1, 1992.