See the World Like Elinor Ostrom | Will Wilkinson | Cato Institute: Commentary

See the World Like Elinor Ostrom | Will Wilkinson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "To see the world more like Elinor Ostrom is to see humans and their communities as a natural part of the natural order, not as invading aliens essentially at odds with their environment or one another. Ostrom has emphasized none of us would be here today had our ancestors failed to work together to find ways to align individual interest with public interest."

"But successful solutions to the problems of ecologically embedded common life often depend crucially on the fine-grained details of the problem. That's why top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions so often fail.

According to Ostrom, the terrain of a meadow, shape of a pond, or population of a village can make all the difference."

"Because the devil's in the details, it's hard to say in advance what mix of institutions will work best in a given place."

"Many believed that the consolidation and centralization of police authority and administration would both save money and help fight rising crime rates. But the Ostroms found that the opposite was true; people living in small jurisdictions within large metropolitan regions got better policing for less money. Public order is best assured by what may look like a chaotic hodge-podge of overlapping institutions."