Defending the commons
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As the article mentions but doesn't emphasise the problem is not so much individuals picking mushrooms to eat themselves but "commercial fungi foraging" by people picking them to sell to shops and restaurants. So, another example of the "tragedy of the commons under capitalism".Incidentally, the regulations for Richmond Park say you can't pick mushrooms (or flowers) without the permission of the Secretary of State, so I wrote asking for permission but, in a letter dated 1 April, was refused.
I was going to mention that aspect…and add how Ostrom recognised that all the societies she studied possessed what amounted to by-laws often enshrined in custom to ensure the rights were not abused.
I found a copy of the letter I sent to the local paper a couple of years ago:
Quote:I see someone has been fined for picking mushrooms in Richmond Park (Park fungus fine, December 12).This seems like a leftover from feudal times when the common people were banned from collecting wood and land usurped by the aristocracy. Or are the mushrooms reserved for the royal family and the Secretary of State?It seems I got the wrong end of the stick.
Greenwich Park is open to the public and is I suppose a 'commons'.However it has a set of by-laws one of which forbids '…the mending of chairs ' within the confines of the park.
Certainly not Tim. There was a time when chair mending was a perfectly respectable way of earning a living. Mind you it was before the advent of IKEA.
The government, under a law that was passed, conceded control of the water under a monopoly to Bechtel in a certain area. So that means that Bechtel tried to charge a fee and had the monopoly power over a very basic necessity for people. The law said even that people had to ask, had to obtain a permit to collect rainwater. That means that even rainwater was privatized. The most serious thing was that indigenous communities and farming communities, who for years had their own water rights, those water sources were converted into property that could be bought and sold by international corporations. http://www.democracynow.org/2006/10/5/bolivian_activist_oscar_olivera_on_bechtels
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