We have spent the last two days hiking the spectacular Italian and Swiss Alps, with very much climbing and descending involved. We have climbed and dropped 6,100 feet in two days. I am very pleased at our ability to do this in our advancing years. This morning after a 2,800 foot ascent I was able to run up a hill to fetch my pack, and it felt very good to do so, as if I still had 20 year-old knees. Sadly, going down these hills, the knees are very much aged 61.
I was thinking as we walked today about “The tragedy of the commons,” a Malthusian essay put forth by Garrett Hardin in 1968. In it the author speculates that any time we have unregulated access to resources of any kind, that each individual’s tendency to maximize his own advantage invariably leads to over-utilization and eventual destruction of the resource.
It’s got two things going for it that right wingers love: One, Hardin claims that we can go on for centuries before tragedy sets in, so that they can always claim to be right in the future even if wrong in the present. Second, they have a ready-made solution to the problem: Privatize everything.
I have seen overuse of the commons in the US, where ATV’s, snowmobiles and four-wheelers destroy habitat, each one contributing just a bit. Ranchers always want more grazing rights. Our highways are overrun by vehicles so that each city is it’s own nightmare and there is hardly a thoroughfare anywhere that is not noisy and polluted.
So Hardin is on to something useful, though the American right wing is, per usual, off an a nut-bound tangent. We do need to regulate use of the commons. In that I include air, water, airwaves, land and health care.
And usually the best means by which we achieve and fairness in use of the commons is government. Hardin’s local pasture had no governing force at work, but a town council with open meetings would easily, even if noisily, have solved that problem.
The reason this all comes to mind is two days of hiking through pastures that have been tended and shared for centuries, and that are as healthy and verdant and any in the world. We have ridden on efficient and affordable buses and trains. The Internet is everywhere and easily accessible and powerful. They have excellent and affordable health care here, accessible to everyone.
The simple truth is that competition is a destructive force that needs to be hemmed in and contained. Competition is destroying the American health care system. Competition forced Wall Street rating agencies to overlook seriously flawed investments, knowing that issuers could shop around for the best rating. That aloneu nearly brought down the economy. Competition forces lying in advertising, monopolistic behavior and dishonest business practices. It’s entirely a false religion forced on us by hucksters who are paid to theorize by the very people who need to be reined in.
Europe works. It’s not perfect. They fight and screw up and get things wrong. But they do so many things better, including infrastructure, transportation and health care. It’s going to be hard to go back to the US and re-enter our lives now that we’ve seen how well it works elsewhere.
Piece of Mindful 