The William Forster Lloyd and Garrett Hardin Tragedy of the Commons can be seen starkly in almost every Russian house.
Whilst individual flats are often sumptuously furnished and sparklingly clean of the last trace of dust, not so the 'padyezdi' and 'ploshadki' - the landings and stairwells.
With cracked stucco walls painted a drab creamy green and concrete stairs dirty and noisome, with graffiti sprayed all over the walls and twisted bits of rusted metal protruding at dangerous angles, the route from the front door of the house to the flat door is a disgrace.
The lift is also foul and dirty and yet the mechanism controlling it is well-oiled and constantly inspected.
"They" are responsible for maintaining it, "they" sweep it perfunctorily once a fortnight, "they" are some local authority or firm whom nobody ever speaks to.
Outside one's immediate door, it's much better. Neighbours take it in turns to keep things maintained, lightbulbs are changed and mats beaten.
This is one of the tragedies of the commons. There are others. Wiki describes the phenomenon thus:
# free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, each of which is motivated to maximize his or her own use of the resource, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those to whom the resource is available. Ths creates a situation of "relentless working" of a resource until it is exhausted;
# the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, National Parks, advertising and even parking meters are all part of the commons in a modern context.
An interesting question is that of peoples moving into an area. The first people in get the choicest plots and those who follow progressively take the lesser or more outlying areas. This creates an aristocracy.
Is prior occupation, by definition legitimacy? If two peoples have occupied an area for thousands of years, e.g. descendants of Canaan and of Israel, is the one immediately prior to the other by a few years the one with the birthright? Do first sons have the right to the whole estate?
Two solutions, according to Wiki:
# The idea of dividing the commons into private parcels is often advocated by classical liberals, who tend to argue that this division should be done according to the Lockean principle of homesteading - allowing individuals to acquire property rights in a previously unowned resource by using it on a "first come first served" basis.
A corollary of this is "user pays" or "polluter pays".
# Resources that have traditionally been managed communally by local organisations are enclosed or privatised. Ostensibly this serves to "protect" such resources, but it ignores the pre-existing management, often unfairly appropriating resources.
Frankly, I don't know the solution. I do know that the solution must be agreed upon, as ever-increasing population pollutes and overuses our finite resources.
My mindset favours the classic liberal approach but what of electricity supply or telephone services?
One thing for sure - regulation must not enter into this thing or must be absolutely minimized because it raises the spectre of control by Statists, Socialists, PC devotees, Feministi, Gay mafiosi, Cabals and other evils.
The liberal idea of banding together with your immediate neighbours to maintain common resources, [the corridor outside my flat, mentioned above], seems the better solution.
This doesn't answer the question of resources exploited by individuals between settlements, i.e. the despoiling of the countryside for personal gain.
Hmmmm. It's a difficult one.
Nicolas Sarkozy's three-day cruise in 
