The Moral Economy of Water: General Principles for Successfully Managing the Commons

Abstract

"Progress toward the goal of refuting and thoroughly revising the conventional "tragedy of the commons" model has been especially noteworthy with regard to one vital resource, irrigation water, which is particularly significant given the impending water crisis that threatens nearly every country in the 'developing' world. Recent research lends new support to the effort and promises to thoroughly refute and revise the conventional theory. It indicates that local people in a great many communities in several different parts of the world long ago arrived, independently, at a sustainable solution to the 'commons dilemma', creating a set of principles for sharing scarce water in an equitable and efficient manner that minimizes social conflict. Wherever communities have managed a scarce resource autonomously, and done so effectively over a long period of time, the principles of distribution and use appear in many cases to be highly similar if not exactly the same, and this seems to be true regardless of whether the resource is communally or privately owned."