The Science of Cooperation - Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom takes the prize for her commons sense

[BridgeTheGap]

Elinor Ostrom was an unusual choice for the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. She is the first woman to receive the prize, and her doctorate is in political science, not economics (though she considers herself a political economist). And while standard economics focuses on competition, her work is about cooperation.

Ostrom’s influential book Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action was published in 1990. But her research on common property goes back to the 1960s, when she wrote her dissertation on groundwater in California. In 1973 she and her husband, Vincent Ostrom, founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, which has produced hundreds of studies of the ways in which communities self-organize to solve common problems.

Many people associate “the commons” with Garrett Hardin’s famous essay “The Tragedy of the Commons.” He says that if, for example, you have a pasture that everyone in a village has access to, then each person will put as many cows on that land as he can to maximize his own benefit, and pretty soon the pasture will be overgrazed and become worthless. What’s the difference between your perspective and Hardin’s?

I don’t see the human as hopeless. There’s a tendency to presume people act just for short-term profit. But anyone who knows about small-town businesses and how people in a community relate to one another realizes that many decisions are not made just for profit, and that humans do try to organize and solve problems.

http://www.utne.com/article.aspx?id=2147487864

[billlll]

1. Co-ops- Mondragon(Spain) auto parts etc; Kansas- oil refinery

Owned by farmers. (Mc or macPherson KS)
Also in USA----

Credit Unions

Grocery co ops

Electric co ops
-------------------
PS mondragon huge...tens of .thousands of folks
Makes many things. Sweden also fond of
Co ops.

[billlll]

2. international union of co ops

Was in Uruguay last I heard.

Uru. was very LW in about 1930's.

Who has a link to site of US branch of that union? I know the site exists.
May still include a US insurance
co op. Surprise!

[PoliticAverse]

4. Co-ops vs corporations

There use to be more "mutual" (cooperative, owned by policy holder) insurance companies these seemed to have faded in favor of
for-profit shareholder owned ones.
It would be interesting to see what effect US government legal and tax policy has had on the rise of for-profit corporations vs co-ops.

[PoliticAverse]

3. Psychic Income vs $$$ income.

One needs to understand that people tend to try to maximize "psychic income" more so than pure $$$$ income.

As psychic income is very difficult to compare and measure it is usually neglected in analysis.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/psychic+income
http://www.unc.edu/depts/econ/byrns_web/Economicae/Essays/Actg_V_Econ.htm

[Kat45]

7. Phychic income--I like that. Never heard it before.

That's definitely the most important to me. I quit a crappy job even in this crappy economy because it was making me miserable 24/7 and I fortunately was able to get by with no income for a while, which I preferred to what that job was doing to me psychically. Though I tend to doubt that most people think like that. Everyone was telling me I HAD to stay with the job, "you NEED a job," even though they knew how miserable I was. I still haven't been able to find a steady job but I have not regretted leaving that one.

[kristopher]

5. Good reading for those tending towards eternal pessimism...

Thank you for sharing.

[Shanti Mama]

6. She did much of her research here in Nepal, where

community forest users groups (CFUGs) have completely reinvigorated many areas of once nationally managed forest. When these Himalayan villagers know that they depend, together, on the health of the forest they manage it beautifully. There may still be some who try to take advantage of others in any one group, but I believe the group consensus style deals with most issues very well.

[L.Torsalo]

8. This study

suggests that humans don't need centralized leadership. I agree.