Humankind

by Rutger Bregman

  But not the conservative Garrett Hardin. His six-page paper made short work of hippie idealism. Title? ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’.

  ‘Picture a pasture open to all,’ Hardin wrote. ‘It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons.’ But what makes sense at the individual level results in a collective disaster, with overgrazing leaving nothing but barren wasteland. Hardin used the term ‘tragedy’ in the Greek sense, to mean a regrettable but inevitable event: ‘Freedom in a commons,’ he said, ‘brings ruin to all.’30

  Hardin was not afraid to reach harsh conclusions. To the question should countries send food aid to Ethiopia, his response was: don’t even start. More food would mean more children would mean more famine.31 Like the Easter Island pessimists, he saw overpopulation as the ultimate tragedy, and restriction of reproductive rights as the solution. (Though not for himself: Hardin fathered four children.)

  It’s hard to overstate the impact of Hardin’s paper, which went on to become the most widely reprinted ever published in a scientific journal, read by millions of people across the world.32 ‘[It] should be required reading for all students,’ declared an American biologist in the 1980s, ‘and, if I had my way, for all human beings.’33

  Ultimately, ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ would prove among the most powerful endorsements for the growth of the market and the state. Since common property was tragically doomed to fail, we needed either the visible hand of the state to do its salutary work, or the invisible hand of the market to save us. It seemed these two flavours–the Kremlin or Wall Street–were the only options available. Then, after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, only one remained. Capitalism had won, and we became Homo economicus.

  4

  To be fair, at least one person was never swayed by Garrett Hardin’s arguments.

  Elinor Ostrom was an ambitious political economist and researcher at a time when universities didn’t exactly welcome women. And, unlike Hardin, Ostrom had little interest in theoretical models. She wanted to see how real people behave in the real world.

  It didn’t take her long to realise there was one crucial detail Hardin’s paper had overlooked. Humans can talk. Farmers and fishermen and neighbours are perfectly capable of making agreements to keep their fields from turning into deserts, their lakes from being overfished and their wells from drying up. Just as the Easter Islanders continued to pull together, and participatory budgeters make decisions through constructive dialogue, so ordinary people successfully manage all manner of commons.

  Ostrom set up a database to record examples of commons from all over the world, from shared pastures in Switzerland and cropland in Japan to communal irrigation in the Philippines and water reserves in Nepal. Everywhere she looked, Ostrom saw that pooling resources is by no means a recipe for tragedy, as Hardin contended.34

  Sure, a commons can fall victim to conflicting interests or greed, but that’s far from inevitable. All told, Ostrom and her team compiled more than five thousand examples of working commons. Many went back centuries, like the fishermen in Alanya, Turkey, who have a time-honoured tradition of drawing lots for fishing rights, or the farmers in the Swiss village of Törbel who jointly coordinate use of scarce firewood.

  In her groundbreaking book Governing the Commons (1990), Ostrom formulated a set of ‘design principles’ for successful commons. A community must have a minimum level of autonomy, for instance, and an effective monitoring system. But she stressed that there’s no blueprint for success, because the characteristics of a commons are ultimately shaped by the local context.

  Over time, even Ostrom’s department at the university began to resemble a commons. In 1973, she and her husband established what they called the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, drawing academics from all over the world to study the commons. This workshop–a form chosen because the university had no rules dictating the structure of workshops–became a hive of discussion and discovery. In fact, it grew into something of an academic hippie commune, with parties where Ostrom herself led the singing of folksongs.35

  And then one day, years later, the call came from Stockholm. Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, the first woman ever to win.36 This choice sent a strong message. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the crash of capitalism in 2008, finally the moment had arrived to give the commons–that alternative between the state and the market–the spotlight it deserves.

  5

  It may not be breaking news, but since then the commons has made a spectacular comeback.

  If it seems like history’s repeating itself, that’s because it’s not the first time this has happened. In the late Middle Ages, Europe witnessed an explosion of communal spirit, in what historian Tine de Moor has called a ‘silent revolution’. During this period, from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, an increasing share of pastureland came under collective control, and water boards, guilds and lay group homes sprouted up like mushrooms.37 These commons worked well for hundreds of years, until they came under pressure in the eighteenth century.

  Enlightenment-era economists decided collective farmlands were not maximising their production potential, so they advised governments to create enclosures. That meant cutting collective property into parcels to be divvied up among wealthy landowners, under whose stewardship productivity would grow.

  Do you think capitalism’s ascent in the eighteenth century was a natural development? Hardly. It wasn’t the invisible hand of the market that gently shepherded peasants from their farms into factories, but the ruthless hand of the state, bayonet at the ready. Everywhere in the world, that ‘free market’ was planned and imposed from the top down.38 It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that scores of unions and worker cooperatives began forming–spontaneously and from the bottom up–laying the basis for the twentieth century’s system of social safety nets.

  The same thing’s happening again now. Following a period of enclosures and market forces (planned top-down by states), a silent revolution has been simmering at the bottom, giving rise in recent years, and particularly since the 2008 financial crisis, to an explosion of initiatives like care cooperatives, sick day pools and energy co-ops.

  ‘History teaches us that man is essentially a cooperative being, a homo cooperans,’ points out Tine de Moor. ‘We have been building institutions that are focused on long-term cooperation for a long time now, in particular after periods of accelerated market development and privatisation.’39

  So do we want less communism, or more?

  In my high school economics class, we were taught that selfishness is in our nature. That capitalism is rooted in our deepest instincts. Buying, selling, doing deals–we’re always out to maximise personal profit. Sure, we were told, the state can sprinkle a dusting of solidarity over our natural inclinations, but this can only happen from on high, and never without supervision and bureaucracy.

  Now it turns out that this view is completely upside down. Our natural inclination is for solidarity, whereas the market is imposed from on high. Take the billions of dollars pumped in recent decades into frenzied efforts to turn healthcare into an artificial marketplace. Why? Because we have to be taught to be selfish.

  That’s not to say there aren’t abundant examples of healthy and effective markets. And, of course, we must not forget that the rise of capitalism over the past two hundred years has brought huge gains in prosperity. De Moor therefore advocates what she calls ‘institutional diversity’, which recognises that while markets work best in some cases and state control is better in others, underpinning it all there has to be a strong communal foundation of citizens who decide to work together.

  At this point, the future of the commons is still uncertain. Even as communal interests are making a comeback, they’re also under siege. By multinationals, for instance, that are buying up water supplies and patenting genes, by governments that are privatising whatever th
ey can get a buck for, and by universities that are selling off their knowledge to the highest bidder. Also by the advent of platform capitalism, which is enabling the likes of Airbnb and Facebook to skim the fat off the prosperity of the Homo cooperans. All too often, the sharing economy turns out to be more like a shearing economy–we all get fleeced.

  For the moment, we’re still locked in a fierce and undecided contest. On one side are the people who believe the whole world is destined to become one big commune. These are the optimists–also known as post-capitalists, presumably because communism is still a dirty word.40 On the other side are the pessimists who foresee continued raids on the commons by Silicon Valley and Wall Street and ongoing growth in inequality.41

  Which side will turn out to be right? Nobody really knows. But my money’s on Elinor Ostrom, who was neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a possibilist. She believed there was another way. Not because she subscribed to some abstract theory, but because she’d seen it with her own eyes.

  6

  One of the most promising alternatives to the existing capitalist model has actually been around for quite a while. You won’t find it in progressive Scandinavia, in red China or in Latin America’s cradles of anarchy–no, this alternative comes, rather unexpectedly, from a US state where terms like ‘progressive’ and ‘socialist’ are used as insults. From Alaska.

  The idea started with Republican governor Jay Hammond (1922–2005), a hard-as-nails fur trapper and former fighter pilot who’d fought the Japanese in the Second World War. When in the late 1960s huge oil reserves were discovered in his home state, he decided this oil belonged to all Alaskans and proposed to put the profits into a great big communal piggy bank.

  This piggy bank became the Alaska Permanent Fund, established in 1976. The next question, of course, was what to do with all the cash. Many conservative Alaskans opposed handing it over to the state, which would only fritter it away. But there was another option. Starting in 1982, every citizen of Alaska received an annual dividend in their bank account. In a good year, it could be as much as $3,000.

  To this day, the Permanent Fund Dividend–PFD for short–is wholly unconditional. It’s not a privilege, but a right. That makes the Alaskan model the polar opposite of the old-fashioned welfare state. Normally, you first have to prove you’re sick enough, disabled enough, or otherwise needy enough to merit assistance, and not until you file dozens of forms testifying that you are past all hope do you get a scant amount of money.

  That kind of system is primed to make people sad, listless and dependent, while an unconditional dividend does something else entirely. It fosters trust. Of course there were people who cynically assumed their fellow Alaskans would squander the dividend on alcohol and drugs. But as the realists observed, that’s not what happened.

  Most Alaskans invested their dividends in education and their children. In-depth analysis by two American economists showed that the PFD had no adverse effects on employment and that it substantially reduced poverty.42 Research on comparable cash payments in North Carolina even revealed a slew of positive side effects. Healthcare costs went down, and kids performed better at school, effectively recouping the initial investment cost.43

  What if we take Alaska’s communal property philosophy and apply it more broadly? What if we say that groundwater, natural gas, the patents made possible by taxpayer money, and so much more, all belong to the community? Whenever a part of those commons is appropriated, or the planet polluted, or CO2 dumped into our atmosphere, shouldn’t we then–as members of the community–be compensated?44

  A fund like this could have another, much bigger, payoff for all of us. This citizen’s dividend, this unconditional payment premised on trust and belonging, would give each of us the freedom to make our own choices. Venture capital for the people.

  In Alaska in any case, the PFD has clearly been a big hit. Any politician who even thinks of tampering with it risks career suicide.45 Some will say that’s because everyone’s looking out for themselves. But maybe it’s so popular because–like the real democracies of Porto Alegre and Torres–it goes beyond the old opposition between left and right, market and state, capitalism and communism. This is a different road, heading towards a new society, in which everyone has a share.

  Part Five

  THE OTHER CHEEK

  ‘If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries.’

  George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

  Not long ago, Julio Diaz, a young social worker, was taking the subway from work to his home in the Bronx in New York. As he did almost every day, he got off one stop early to grab a bite at his favourite diner.

  But tonight wasn’t like other nights. As he made his way to the restaurant from the deserted subway station, a figure jumped out from the shadows. A teenager, holding a knife. ‘I just gave him my wallet,’ Julio later told a journalist. Theft accomplished, the kid was about to run off when Julio did something unexpected.

  ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ he called after his mugger. ‘If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.’

  The boy turned back to Julio in disbelief. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars,’ Julio replied, ‘then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me… hey, you’re more than welcome.’

  The kid agreed, and moments later Julio and his assailant were seated at a booth in the diner. The waiters greeted them warmly. The manager stopped by for a chat. Even the dishwashers said hello.

  ‘You know everybody here,’ the kid said, surprised. ‘Do you own this place?’

  ‘No,’ said Julio. ‘I just eat here a lot.’

  ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’

  ‘Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the kid said, ‘but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way.’

  When Julio and his mugger had finished eating, the bill arrived. But Julio no longer had his wallet. ‘Look,’ he told the kid. ‘I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill because you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.’

  The kid gave him back his wallet. Julio paid the bill and then gave him $20. On one condition, he said: the teenager had to hand over his knife.

  When a journalist later asked Julio why he’d treated his would-be robber to dinner, he didn’t hesitate: ‘I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.’1

  When I told a friend about Julio’s act of kindness, he didn’t miss a beat. ‘Please excuse me while I barf.’

  Okay, so this story is a little saccharine. It reminded me of the clichéd lessons I heard at church as a kid. Like the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:

  You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

  Sure, you think. Swell plan, Jesus–if we were all saints. Problem is: we’re all too human. And in the real world, turning the other cheek is about the most naive thing you can do. Right?

  Only recently did I realise Jesus was advocating a quite rational principle. Modern psychologists call it non-complementary behaviour. Most of the time, as I mentioned earlier, we humans mirror each other. Someone gives you a compliment, you’re quick to return the favour. Somebody says something unpleasant, and you feel the urge to make a snide comeback. In earlier chapters we saw how powerful these positive and negative feedback loops can become
in schools and companies and democracies.

  When you’re treated with kindness, it’s easy to do the right thing. Easy, but not enough. To quote Jesus again, ‘If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?’2

  The question is, can we take things a step further? What if we assume the best not only about our children, our co-workers, and our neighbours, but also about our enemies? That’s considerably more difficult and can go against our gut instincts. Look at Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, perhaps the two greatest heroes of the twentieth century. They were pros at non-complementary behaviour, but then again they were extraordinary individuals.

  What about the rest of us? Are you and I capable of turning the other cheek? And can we make it work on a large scale–say, in prisons and police stations, after terrorist attacks or in times of war?

  16

  Drinking Tea with Terrorists

  1

  In a forest in Norway, about sixty miles south of Oslo, stands one of the strangest prisons in the world.

  Here, you won’t see cells or bars. You won’t see guards armed with handguns or handcuffs. What you will see is a forest of birch and pine trees, and a rolling landscape crisscrossed by footpaths. Circling it all is a tall steel wall–one of the few reminders that people aren’t here voluntarily.

  The inmates of Halden prison each have a room of their own. With underfloor heating. A flatscreen TV. A private bathroom. There are kitchens where the inmates can cook, with porcelain plates and stainless steel knives. Halden also has a library, a climbing wall and a fully equipped music studio, where the inmates can record their own records. Albums are issued under their own label called–no joke–Criminal Records. To date, three of the prisoners have been contestants on Norway’s Idols, and the first prison musical is in the works.1