Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
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Kevin S. Willis
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ScottC
yellojktSomewhat related to both the discussions of economics and evolution is the work of Elinor Ostrom, who passed away yesterday. Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. She was a political scientist who worked on the “tragedy of the commons” and collective action.
The WSJ announcement.
Ostrom’s Nobel page.
Commentary by Ilya Somin at VC.
A post by the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, whose work I think I’ve referenced here before.
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All Things in Moderation 
Thanks for the link. I’ve never heard of her but her work sounds fascinating. The problem of the commons is one for which there are few realistic solutions.
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The voluntary community response is certainly widespread on a small scale. That she found a community of thousands could cooperate on a venture [albeit in the Swiss Alps] was a breakthrough understanding of an alternative to government action.
Not being a purist in these things, I have to say that I think that community efforts that have seed money from an organized charity, or from a governmental entity, or wherever, are also worthy notions as they grow way beyond the need for the original NGO or GO to be involved.
I think rural electric co-ops are community ventures, at this point, for the most part.
Can you think of others? Israeli Kibbutzim, perhaps? Are there water and wastewater districts set up as community ventures rather than as local government units? How about volunteer firefighters? Farm areas sometimes had community nursery schools, or they did when I grew up on a farm.
There are also unincorporated villages. Do some of them operate on the volunteer community model?
Somin’s only criticism of the model is that it won’t scale up. What about PBS? I assume it will lose its federal funding soon. I think it will still exist.
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