There is No Right Answer
From Zanecorpwiki
For decades, "the tragedy of the commons" has been an axiom of mainstream political-economic thought in the US. Now Ellinor Ostrom has won the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work in defense of the commons and many are taking a fresh look at the subject. Michael Heller and others are also looking at the opposite problem: gridlock and the holdup wherein too many property rights clog of the system.
In many ways "the answer" is simple: there is none. Stay flexible and be open to the correct approach given the situation. In our everyday lives, we understand this. We do different things on the weekend than we do on the weekday, we don't engage in the same behaviors when sick, our views change as we grow older as our needs and priorities change. We handle this sophisticated multi-faceted behavior easily. Indeed, living this way is easier than trying to live by a concise, rigid set of rules.
Yet when it comes to policy decisions at the societal level, we lose all this sophistication and go from simple to simplistic. There's one really good reason for this: my simple life is not your simple life. If I had to live like my neighbor, I'd find life intolerable, and vice versa. So when we have to make policy to fit everyone, our simple, adaptable and elegant way of handling challenges goes out the window and we boil everything into polarized debates that guarantee the wrong answer because neither side is correct.
It's no longer sufficient to grow as individuals. We need to learn how to grow as a society. There's no reason to think this can't be done. It's been done in the past, and while our situation is different and presents unique challenges the challenges themselves are no harder than the challenges than others have overcome. Indeed, when we look at how far humanity has progressed, it's ridiculous to think that our current problems are in any way significant.
"The answer" is almost as simple as letting go of rigid preconceptions. If you don't get in the way of progress, progress comes.
