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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush
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To: TigerPaw who wrote (21540)6/22/2003 2:25:57 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 93284
 
This is where you need to make the intellectual leap.

This is where you leap into the abyss.

In this circumstance I am not talking about sheep, but about opportunities. For example there is a flexible but limited number of available great opportunities.

To a great extent people make their own opportunities and the number keeps rising.

Only so many CEOs or Convienence Store managers, or real estate agents can be accomodated in a given area. This is reasonable of course, but it also makes these opportunities fit the description of a common resource and subject to the incremental erosion inherent in competition. When opportunity becomes a private resource then democracy has been replaced by some version of aristocracy.

Opportunity isn't really a resource but to the extent it is it is fine for it to be treated as a public resource. Actual businesses or jobs (to the extent they are a resource) are the private resources. Everyone should have the opportunity to try to have a decent economic position in life but the actual positions, be they jobs or business opportunities or whatever, should not be controlled by the government, and cannot truly be the commons.

The tragedy of the commons doesn't really apply here. When you are talking about a limited amount of pasture land, when one person takes it there is less for everyone else, and if no one can control it then everyone will try to take it. It’s a limited resource that can get used up. When you are talking about productive and economically rewarding positions, the existence of these positions increases the amount of wealth in society and creates opportunities for others.

BTW - What was your overall point. Can you sum it up in a sentence or two?

Tim
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