Ostrom's principles for managing a commons rest on the idea that people will seek to solve the problems that they face as effectively as they can:

“As long as analysts presume that individuals cannot change such situations themselves, they do not ask what internal or external variables can enhance or impede the efforts of communities of individuals to deal creatively and constructively with perverse problems such as the tragedy of the commons.”

You cannot solve a problem until you know what it is and what is getting in the way of solving it. Once you know these things, you can bake them into the solution itself.

Solving disputes is essential to shared resources and how to do that made up the core of Elinor Ostrom's principles for managing a commons. Nordman presents a case study on the Water Tribunal in Valencia, Spain that handles conflicts related to their water irrigation system. The system is made up of 8 canals, each one making up its own district. It is a system that has been self-managed for over a thousand years.

Every Thursday, the council—made up of 1 elected representative per district—meets outside the cathedral in Valencia to handle any disputes brought forward. Key to this is that anyone who owns land in one of the districts can come before the Tribunal seeking justice. In Valencia, this has long included women. As per Ostrom's principles, conflict-management needs to be accessible.

Nordman shares a painting of this by Bernardo Ferrandiz in 1863 that portrays a woman standing before the Tribunal. It's a beautiful portrayal of a system that has effectively managed an essential, shared resource in that area for centuries. He once again notes how social shame continues plays a role here, no farmer wants to be brought before the Tribunal—so interpersonal conflict management is key.

Elinor Ostrom's Eight Design Principles for Managing a Commons (per Nordman):

• The physical and social boundaries are clearly defined;

• Locally tailored rules define resource access and consumption;

• Individuals who are most affected by the rules can participate in rule making;

• Resource monitors are accountable to resource users;

• Graduated penalties can be imposed on rule breakers;

• Conflict management institutions are accessible;

• Authorities recognize the right to self-organize;

• Complex systems are organized into layers of nested governance.

Ostrom developed these through the study and analyzing of about 5000 examples of common-pool resource management around the world. The ones that were successful, had some version of these.

Spent that last week (finally) listening to Cory Doctorow's book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to do About it. Because I've been listening—primarily while walking—I haven't had the opportunity to take notes like I normally do. I did however, stop under the shade of tree yesterday to jot this quote down.

“Before the term ecology came along, there were a bunch of people who cared about issues but didn’t think of themselves as being in the same fight. The term ecology turned all of those issues into a movement, pulling many different kinds of people with many different concerns into a broad coalition that could be more done together than they could ever do on their own.

It’s hard to overstate how important coalitions are to political struggle. Broadly speaking, if there’s a group of people who’ve been trying to change something for a long time, it’s possible that they just need to think up some cool new tactic and that’ll finally get things moving. But it’s far more likely that they just aren’t powerful enough to make the change they’re seeking.

Whenever you see a big, sudden political change—for better of for worse—you’re usually witnessing the result of a new coalition.”

Something I think about a lot is how building a better world needs models built around cooperation rather than competition. This description of coalitions really nails it. For a coalition to work, you don't have to agree on every single point around every single issue. Rather, it's about drawing wider circles of allyship, getting as many people who can support the larger goal as possible.

This is why I'm thrilled to be officially joining the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition as a board member this year. They're an organization I've supported in several ways over the last few years and have grown deeply impressed with their commitment to this sort of coalition building. They are exactly the model that we need.

Also, everyone should read Enshittification.

"I do believe in the possibility of creating a new social model. The only thing is that we now have to begin afresh. The unions, the labour halls, decentralization, the federative system—are all gone. The perverse use that has been made of them has destroyed them. The matter is all the more urgent because all our political forms are exhausted and practically nonexistent. Our parliamentary and electoral system and our political parties are just as futile as dictatorships are intolerable. Nothing is left. And this nothing is increasingly aggressive, totalitarian, and omnipresent. Our experience today is the strange one of empty political institutions in which no one has any confidence any more, of a system of government which functions only in the interests of a political class, and at the same time of the almost infinite growth of power, authority, and social control which makes any one of our democracies a more authoritarian mechanism than the Napoleonic state."

From Anarchy and Christianity, Jacques Ellul.