Editing Tragedy of the commons (section)

===Commons in historical reality===
[[File:Joseph Mallord William Turner - Dartmoor- The Source of the Tamar and the Torridge - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Common land in Dartmoor, England {{circa|1813}} (watercolor, [[J. M. W. Turner]])]]

The status of common land in England as mentioned in Lloyd's pamphlet has been widely misunderstood.

Millions of acres were "common land", but this did not mean public land open to everybody, a popular fallacy.  There was no such thing as ownerless land.  Every parcel of "common" land had a legal owner, who was a private person or corporation.  The owner was called the ''lord of the manor''<ref name="Hoskins 1963 4">{{harvnb|Hoskins|1963|p=4}}</ref> (which, like ''landlord'', was a legal term denoting ownership, not aristocratic status).

It was true that there were local people, called ''commoners'', defined as those who had a legal right to use his land for some purpose of their own, typically grazing their animals.  Certainly their rights were strong, because the lord was not entitled to build on his own land, or fence off any part of it,<ref>{{harvnb|Hoskins|1963|pp=5–6}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|p=60}}</ref> unless he could prove he had left enough pasture for the commoners.<ref>{{harvnb|Halsbury's Laws of England|1903|pp=505–506}}</ref>  But these individuals were not the general public at large: not everyone in the vicinity was a commoner.<ref name="Hoskins 1963 4"/>

Furthermore the commoners' right to graze the lord's land with their animals was restricted by law – precisely in order to prevent overgrazing.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hoskins|first= W. G.|year=2015|chapter=Common land and its origin|title=The Common Lands of England and Wales|editor1-last=Hoskins|editor2-last=Stamp|editor1-first=W. G.|editor2-first=L. Dudley|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=9780007342228}}</ref> If overgrazing did nevertheless occur, which it sometimes did, it was because of incompetent or weak land management,<ref>{{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|pp=121–123}}</ref> and not because of the pressure of an unlimited right to graze, which did not exist.

Hence Christopher Rodgers said that "Hardin's influential thesis on the 'tragedy of the commons' ... has no application to common land in England and Wales. It is based on a false premise". Rodgers, professor of law at [[Newcastle University]], added:

{{blockquote|Far from suffering a tragedy of the commons in Hardin's sense, common land&nbsp;... was subject to common law principles of customary origin that promoted 'sustainable management'. These were expressed through property rights, in the form of qualifications on the resource use conferred by property entitlements, and were administered by local manor courts&nbsp;... Moreover, the administration of customary rules by the manor courts represented a wholly different means for organising the management of common resources than the model posited by Hardin, which stresses the need for exclusive ownership by either individuals or government in order to promote the effective management of the resource.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rodgers|first=Christopher|year=2010|title=Reversing the 'Tragedy' of the Commons? Sustainable Management and the Commons Act 2006|journal=The Modern Law Review|volume=73|issue=3|doi=10.1111/j.1468-2230.2010.00802.x |jstor=40660736|doi-access=free |pages=462, 463}}</ref> }}

Every productive unit ("manor") had a manorial court; without it, the manor ceased to exist.<ref>{{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|p=18}}</ref> Manorial courts could fine commoners, and the lord of the manor for that matter,<ref>{{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|p=21}}</ref> for breaches of customary law, e.g. grazing too many cattle on the land. Customary law varied locally. It could not be altered without the consent of the whole body of the commoners,<ref name="Hoskins 1963 4"/> except by getting an Act of Parliament.<ref>For the disputed origins of manorial and commons law, and whether it came from ancient folk customs or from grants by early landowners, see {{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|pp=1–41}}; {{harvnb|Hoskins|1963|pp=5–8, 27–34}}.</ref>

By the time of Lloyd's pamphlet (1833) the majority of land in England had been [[enclosure|enclosed]] and had ceased to be common land.<ref>{{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|pp=113–114}}</ref> That which remained may not have been good agricultural land anyway,<ref>{{harvnb|Hoskins|1963|p=xv}}.</ref> or the best managed. Lloyd takes for granted that common lands were inferior<ref>"Why are the cattle on a common so puny and stunted? Why is the common itself so bare-worn, and cropped so differently from the adjoining inclosures?": {{harvnb|Lloyd|1833|loc=[30]–[31]}}</ref> and argues his over-grazing theory to explain it. He does not examine other possible causes e.g. common land was difficult to drain, to keep disease-free, and to use for improved cattle breeding.<ref>{{harvnb|Scrutton|1887|pp=115–121}}</ref>

Likewise, Susan Jane Buck Cox argues that the common land example used to argue this economic concept is on very weak historical ground, and misrepresents what she terms was actually the "triumph of the commons":<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cox|first=Susan Jane Buck|date=1985|title=No Tragedy of the Commons|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics1985716|journal=Environmental Ethics|volume=7|issue=1|pages=49–61|doi=10.5840/enviroethics1985716|bibcode=1985EnEth...7...49C |issn=0163-4275}}</ref> the successful common usage of land for many centuries. She argues that social changes and agricultural innovation, and not the behaviour of the commoners, led to the demise of the commons.<ref name="dlc.dlib.indiana.edu2">{{Cite journal |last1=Cox |first1=Susan Jane Buck |year=1985 |title=No Tragedy on the Commons |url=http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |journal=Environmental Ethics |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=49–61 |doi=10.5840/enviroethics1985716 |bibcode=1985EnEth...7...49C |hdl-access=free |hdl=10535/3113}}</ref> In a similar vein, Carl Dahlman argues that commons were effectively managed to prevent overgrazing.<ref name="urlSpringerLink">{{cite journal |title= The tragedy of the commons that wasn't: On technical solutions to the institutions game| doi=10.1007/BF01357919 |volume=12 |issue= 3|year=1991 |journal=Population and Environment |pages=285–296 | last1 = Dahlman | first1 = Carl J.| bibcode=1991PopEn..12..285D | s2cid=154166211 }}</ref>