Commons, Anticommons, Semicommons

Abstract

In recent years, theorists interested in the commons have increasingly broadened their gaze to take in two new entries in the property lexicon: the anticommons 1 and the semicommons.2 Notwithstanding some excellent work comparing and contrasting these templates and their associated tragedies, 3 the literature lacks a cohesive account of how they relate to each other and to larger questions of incentive misalignment.Although scholars sometimes frame the commons, anticommons, and semicommons as conceptually distinct forms, 4 each is best understood as a lens for apprehending a single core, challenging fact about resource systems -their need to accommodate multiple uses that are most effi ciently pursued at diff erent scales, whether simultaneously or over time.5 This chapter off ers a brief introduction to the commons, anticommons, and semicommons models and shows how the three fi t together in a unifi ed theoretical framework. I. THE COMMONSAlthough the underlying idea is much older, 6 Garrett Hardin (1968) popularized the phrase 'tragedy of the commons' and illustrated it with an example involving an openaccess pasture (ibid., 1244).Reasoning that each herdsman would bear only a fraction of the costs of grazing another steer but would internalize all of the benefi ts of doing so, Hardin predicted that the pasture would be overgrazed (ibid.).The same problem of incentive misalignment can lead people to underinvest in collective activities (communal farms or public television, for example), take too many resource units out of a given system (as by overfi shing), or put too many 'bads' into a system (such as smog, litter, or email spam).7 Hardin's pasture fable conjures up a distinctively compelling brand of ineffi ciency: a self-contained system that is transparently suboptimal for its own participants.Because the exploiters and the exploitees are one and the same -Hardin's herders harmed only themselves -the label of 'tragedy' seems especially apt and uncontroversial.It is not a matter of one group benefi ting at the expense of another, much less a question of whose interests should take priority.Rather, we see a group shooting itself in its collective foot through self-defeating behavior.Parties interacting in real-world resource systems rarely deliver and realize losses in such a cleanly symmetrical manner, but the stylized commons tragedy neatly excises thorny questions of distribution from the picture to focus attention on the unambiguous costs of self-interested actions. A. The Commons Without the TragedyDespite its merits as a rhetorical device, the tragedy of the commons story often fails to square with reality.The fact that a resource is held in common need not spell disaster,

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