Also common land existed for hundreds of years without the tragedy of the commons ever happening
I mean, I don't doubt people did periodically engage in short-sighted or destructive endeavors on common land. And if I weren't a lazy hog, I might look a few instances up. Certainly, with the advent of industrialism, the problem of public waste rapidly metastasized and created the need for public environmental regulations and bureaucracies.
Common land doesn't solve the problem of some asshole upriver pissing downstream. At the same time, it doesn't create the problem. Negative externalities are a consequence of unchecked corrupt human behavior, not the land-ownership model.
I mean, I don't doubt people did periodically engage in short-sighted or destructive endeavors on common land. And if I weren't a lazy hog, I might look a few instances up. Certainly, with the advent of industrialism, the problem of public waste rapidly metastasized and created the need for public environmental regulations and bureaucracies.
Common land doesn't solve the problem of some asshole upriver pissing downstream. At the same time, it doesn't create the problem. Negative externalities are a consequence of unchecked corrupt human behavior, not the land-ownership model.
As I recall there were strong rules about what people were allowed to do on common land under penalty of violence and social shame