Notices by Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)

"Private ownership of land, and in particular absolute private ownership, is a modern idea, only a few hundred years old. 'The idea that one man could possess all rights to one stretch of land to the exclusion of everybody else' was outside the comprehension of most tribespeople, or indeed of medieval peasants. The king, or the Lord of the Manor, might have owned an estate in one sense of the word, but the peasant enjoyed all sorts of so-called 'usufructory' rights which enabled him, or her, to graze stock, cut wood or peat, draw water or grow crops, on various plots of land at specified times of year."

"'The Tragedy of the Commons' became one of the most cited academic papers ever published and its title a catch phrase. It has framed the debate about common property for the last 30 years, and has exerted a baleful influence upon international development and environmental policy, even after Hardin himself admitted that he had got it wrong, and rephrased his entire theory."