经济学 1990

公共事物的治理之道：集体行动制度的演进

埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆

社群能自己治理共享之物——既不必卖掉，也不必交给国家。

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In depth · the introduction

如果那个著名的「公地悲剧」——说共享一片牧场或一处渔场的人，终将把它毁掉——根本就不成立呢？

核心想法

几十年里，教科书的说法都很决绝：任何人人可用、却无人拥有的资源，注定要完蛋。每个人都赶在别人之前尽量多拿，于是共享的牧场、渔场或森林被毁掉。能提供的解药只有两种：把它围起来卖掉（私有化），或者交给政府来管。

埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆，则去实地看了看。她走访一个个真实的社群——瑞士的山村、日本的森林、西班牙的灌溉网、菲律宾的水渠——发现有些共享资源，被它们自己的使用者可持续地经营了数百年。靠这资源吃饭的人，悄悄地发明了自己的规则，彼此盯着看大家是否遵守，并处置那些占便宜的人。原来，第三条路一直都在。

它是如何诞生的

奥斯特罗姆受的是政治学训练，而那时的经济学，正越来越把人模型化为孤立的自利最大化者。她与丈夫文森特，以及印第安纳大学布卢明顿研究院的同事们，花了数十年，搜集真实社群如何治理水、鱼、牧场与森林的田野研究。1990 年的《公共事物的治理之道》，把这些证据提炼成一个论证和一套设计原则。

2009 年，这项工作为她赢得诺贝尔经济学奖——史上第一位女性得主——「以表彰她对经济治理、尤其是公地的分析」。这一抉择让许多经济学家意外：奥斯特罗姆是政治学家，她的结论来自耐心的田野、而非方程式；她的获奖，也拓宽了这门学科所认可的「证据」之边界。

它为何重要

它推翻了一条曾左右现实政策的常识——这条常识曾被用来为「把村庄土地私有化、把森林与渔场收归国有」辩护，而那样做，有时恰恰毁掉了一直让这些资源保持健康的本地制度。奥斯特罗姆表明：社群往往是它们共享之物的最佳守护者；她还给改革者一份具体的清单：自主治理在什么情形下可能奏效。

一个可以想象的画面

想象合租公寓里一个共用的厨房。若谁都不肯商量，水槽里堆满碗碟、牛奶总是不翼而飞——这就是缩小版的公地悲剧。但大多数合租屋并不会就此崩坏：室友们排出一张值日表，留意谁在偷懒，并在有人屡屡占便宜时先轻声提醒、再正色相告。无需房东，也无需变卖——只要清晰的边界、共享的规则、彼此的注视，和与过错相称的后果。把这一切放大，正是奥斯特罗姆看到的、把森林与渔场维系了数百年的东西。

它的位置

奥斯特罗姆的公地，正面对峙着加勒特·哈丁 1968 年的「公地悲剧」，也对峙着博弈论囚徒困境里那种孤立、纯然自利的行动者（参见本馆的约翰·纳什）。亚当·斯密揭示了自利如何能被市场所引导，凯恩斯指出了市场何处需要国家，而奥斯特罗姆勾勒出第三个领域——社群为自己搭建的制度——并以此重塑了气候变化时代的环境与发展政策。

The original document

Original source text

Elinor Ostrom · Cambridge University Press (1990) · series: The Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions

Chapter 1 — Reflections on the commons

Ostrom opens by confronting three influential models that all forecast ruin for shared resources: Garrett Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” (Science, 1968), the prisoner’s dilemma, and Mancur Olson’s logic of collective action. Each concludes that self-interested users, left to themselves, must over-harvest a commons to destruction.

Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. — Garrett Hardin, Science 162 (1968), the conclusion Ostrom sets out to test.

Chapter 2 — An institutional approach to self-organisation and self-governance

She defines a common-pool resource (CPR) as one from which excluding users is costly, yet from which each unit harvested is no longer available to anyone else. The question is reframed: not “market or state?” but how appropriators can supply themselves with their own institutions — rules they make, monitor and enforce.

Chapter 3 — Analysing long-enduring, self-organised, and self-governed CPRs

The empirical heart of the book examines resources governed sustainably by their users for generations: the high-mountain meadows and forests of Törbel in Switzerland; village commons in Japan; the huerta irrigation institutions of Valencia, Murcia, Orihuela and Alicante in Spain; and the farmer-built zanjera irrigation communities of the Philippines. From these she abstracts eight design principles shared by robust, long-lived commons (Table 3.1).

Clearly defined boundaries: Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself. — Ostrom, Table 3.1, design principle 1.

The remaining principles, in brief: (2) rules matched to local conditions; (3) collective-choice arrangements, so those affected can change the rules; (4) monitoring by monitors accountable to the users; (5) graduated sanctions for violations; (6) low-cost conflict-resolution mechanisms; (7) minimal recognition by external authorities of the right to organise; and, for larger systems, (8) nested enterprises — governance organised in multiple layers.

Chapters 4–6 — Institutional change, fragility, and a framework for analysis

Later chapters examine how such institutions arise and change, and why some fail — among the failures, several California groundwater basins and certain coastal fisheries — before proposing a framework for analysing self-organising and self-governing common-pool resources.

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Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University · 1990