Intro to Climate and Sustainability

Collective action problems II

Misha Velthuis

m.velthuis@uva.nl

Thu 10 Oct 2024

Today

Collective action problems continued

Hardin

Ostrom

Collective action at UvA

Dear FNV members,

Before the summer break, hundreds of concerned employees at the University of Amsterdam indicated in an FNV members’ consultation that they want the union to advocate for their right to protest and for the demand that the UvA sever ties with institutions, organizations, and companies complicit in human rights violations and breaches of international law. They also called for a new, stricter framework to assess these partnerships.

The FNV has exhausted all institutional avenues to come to the negotiating table with the Executive Board (CvB). These efforts have failed because the CvB refuses to negotiate with the FNV. This means the door is open for collective action if members wish to pursue it.

At the start of the new academic year, the FNV asked members to express their views on the next steps through a survey. Nearly 250 FNV members at the UvA took the time to complete the survey. The results show that two-thirds of these members are willing to take action, and they believe that the FNV should organize a meeting for members and colleagues to discuss and possibly vote on proceeding with stronger actions, such as a (grading) strike.

Therefore, we invite you to join us on Wednesday, October 9, at 17:00 in OMHP, room D0.09, to discuss how to proceed. We will also give you an update about our efforts to organize against the proposed budget cuts for universities.

David Schreuders

Last Monday: Collective action problems

When the pursuit of short-term narrow self-interest undermines the pursuit of long-term collective interests.

Reception effect

The history of what?

For a renewable resource - soil, forest, fish - the sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate of regeneration of its source.

For a nonrenewable resource - fossil fuel, high-grade mineral ores, fossil groundwater - the sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate at which a renewable resource, used sustainably, can be substituted for it.

For a pollutant the sustainable rate of emission can be no greater than the rate at which that pollutant can be recycled, absorbed, or rendered harmless in its sink.

Common pool resources

Rival in consumption:

when one person's consumption comes at the expense of another person's consumption

Excludable:

when it is relatively easy to prevent people from consuming the good.

Examples

Private goods: excludable and rival

My shoes

Natural monopolies: Not rival but excludable

Once the cable is there, it doesn't affect my usage if more people make use of it. But it's easy to reserve access to those who pay a subscription.

Public goods: Not rival, not excludable

Me hearing the tornado siren does not affect other people hearing the tornado siren. And it is hard to only make the tornado siren audible for people who paid a subscription.

Common pool resources: rival and not excludable

One person catching a fish prevents some other person from catching that person.
It is difficult to patrol the oceans to prevent people from fishing.

Tragedy of the commons

Imagine a "commons": a piece of land that is owned by some community: anyone can use it (not excludable), but the gras that is eaten by one sheep cannot be eaten by another sheep (rival). In other words: a common pool resource.

Imagine that putting a sheep on the commons gives a certain benefit to the owner of the sheep (wool, milk, meat?). Let's express this as "points".

Read the table like this: if shepherd A puts 1 sheep on the commons, and shepherd B puts 2 sheep, shepherd A earns 3 points, and shepherd B earns 6 points.

It is always in the narrow self-interest of shepherd B to put 2 sheep on the "commons":

If shepherd A puts 1 sheep, it makes more sense for shepherd B to put 2 sheep (6 points) than to also put 1 sheep (5 points).
If shepherd A puts 2 sheep, it makes more sense for shepherd B to put 2 sheep (4 points) than to put 1 sheep (3 points).

Note that:

Putting more than 2 sheep causes the overall total productivity of the commons to decline (2 sheep = 10 points, 3 sheep = 9 points, 4 sheep = 8 points). (Beyond 2 sheep, the damage done by an extra sheep to the commons outweighs the benefit of the extra sheep).
Putting an extra sheep = individual gain, but collective loss.
If shepherd B would show restraint, and would still decide to put 1 sheep, even when shepherd A puts 2 sheep, shepherd A is "free riding" on the restraint of shepherd B.
If everyone choses to "free ride", everyone is worse off.

In-class assignment

Two influential views on CPR management

Garret Hardin (1915-2003)

Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012)

What does Hardin say?

Pollution

Population

Context of "Tragedy of the commons"

How to manage CPRs?

Individual self-interest?

How to manage CPRs?

~~Individual self-interest?~~

Ethics?

How to manage CPRs?

~~Individual self-interest?~~

~~Ethics?~~

Make CPR excludable

Make the costs of free-riding higher than the benefits

In-class assignment

How to manage CPRs?

~~Individual self-interest?~~

~~Ethics?~~

Make CPR excludable

It does not matter how to restrict access, as long as it happens

Break

What does Ostrom say?

Yes…

… CPRs are real.

… the risk of free-riding is real.

… we need forms of exclusion.

But …

… not everyone is purely self-interested

… privatization and collectivization are not the only options

… distribution/allocation matters

But #1

… not everyone is purely self-interested

Different users of CPRs

"those who always behave in a narrow, self-interested way and never cooperate in dilemma situations (free-riders)"

"those who are unwilling to cooperate with others unless assured that they will not be exploited by free-riders"

"those who are willing to initiate reciprocal cooperation in the hopes that others will return their trust"

"perhaps a few genuine altruists who always try to achieve higher returns for a group."

But #2

… privatization and collectivization are not the only options

Neither private, nor collective property

Group property rights: norms, trust, reputation, collective forms of monitoring, collectively shared knowledge of CPRs

Empirically substantiated (rather than theoretically deduced) case for self-organization. It did happen successfully in many places and times.

Ostrom:

"In this instance, Mongolia has allowed pastoralists to continue their traditional group-property institutions, which involve large-scale movements between seasonal pastures, while both Russia and China have imposed state-owned agricultural collectives that involve permanent settlements.

More recently, the Chinese solution has involved privatization by dividing the "pasture land into individual allocations for each herding household".

About three-quarters of the pasture land in the Russian section of this ecological zone has been degraded and more than one-third of the Chinese section has been degraded, while only one-tenth of the Mongolian section has suffered equivalent loss. Here, socialism and privatization are both associated with more degradation than resulted from a traditional group-property regime."

See: Sneath, David. "State policy and pasture degradation in Inner Asia." (1998): 1147-1148.

Neither always private, nor collective property

It depends

Institutional diversity

But #3

… distribution/allocation matters

Different ideas fit differently with different interests

Justification and performativity

Whenever someone claims "This is simply how the world works", be wary:

What world does it justify as inevitable?

What world does it create?

Who benefits from the idea that …

… people are ultimately self-interested *ssholes?

… ethical behaviour is self-defeating?

… it does not matter that much if the allocation is just, as long as the allocation happens?

… the only choice we have is full collectivization or full privatization

Thursday

Ecomodernism and its critics