What is a common?

The American researcher Elinor Ostrom worked at the intersection of political science and economics. In the 1960s, she pondered what it takes for common ownership to function in the long run.

She showed that people can actually cooperate and take care of common resources. In a sustainable way. Without state regulation. If they just get to meet eye to eye and work out their own rules on how to do it.

She was awarded as the first woman the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences by the Swedish National Bank in 2009.

Elinor Ostrom conducted field studies and analyses spanning decades and continents. What she concluded went completely against the prevailing ”truth” that common ownership does not work without top-down control.

Elinor Ostrom’s research showed, on the contrary, that common ownership can work excellently – if those who use the common resources together decide on the rules to apply and together ensure that the rules are followed. This provides the conditions for creating sustainable decisions and avoiding conflicts or overuse of the common resources.

Today, her conclusions on how to manage common ownership are utilized, for example, in the fishing industry. Even today’s sharing economy and peace and conflict research benefit from Ostrom’s conclusions. The lessons on participation and shared responsibility are useful both globally to meet societal challenges and locally, for example, when a housing association shares cars and bicycles.

What are common goods: The environment is the greatest common good we have, a so-called common good for which no one is responsible, but everyone depends on and can benefit from its services. Common to these natural resources is that they do not have a clearly defined owner, resulting in everyone wanting to use them but no one taking individual responsibility to ensure that a sustainable level is maintained. In today’s economic system, the environment belongs to externalities that are not taken into account in economic calculations.