What is the difference between heaven and hell?
There is a charming story that tells of two rooms in which there is a delicious banquet on the table.
In the one room, there are wails and anger as the people all have long knives and forks attached to their arms and can't eat the wonderful food as they can't bend their arms to get it into their mouths.
In the other room, there are smiles and laughter. Everyone is eating to their heart's delight even though they also have long knives and forks on their arms. The difference is that everyone is using the knives and forks to feed the person on the other side of the table.
It's the same situation, but a profoundly different result because of a different attitude of mind. It's more complicated in the real world, but there are lots of examples where a cooperative self-interest is best for everyone.
Elinor Ostrom shared this year's Nobel Prize for Economics for her refutation of "the tragedy of the commons" fable that was popularized in the late 1960s by wildlife biologist Garret Hardin. According to Hardin, the problem is that it is in every individual's interest to have as many cows as possible graze on common land, but the outcome is that over-grazing eventually ruins it.
This is refuted by Ostrom's research around the world that has shown many cases in which common property is well-managed since users "create and enforce rules that mitigate overexploitation". For instance, farmers in Valencia, Spain have managed water-irrigation canals for nearly 1000 years, and Swiss villagers have sustainably managed Alpine grazing meadows for centuries.
Ostrom makes the case for locally-based governance, rather than distant bureaucrats laying down rules that more often do harm rather than good.
"Bureaucrats sometimes do not have the correct information, while citizens and users of resources do", she said recently.
The internet is a stunning example where users of the digital commons have self-organised to come up with all sorts of mutually beneficial free applications.
There is no way that any government could have invented social media like Facebook and Twitter, or photo-sharing by Flickr, or auctions by Ebay.
The key precondition is "net neutrality" i.e. everyone has roughly equivalent access and service, without discrimination. This discourages monopolies and encourages individual creativity and competition.
It should be noted that the driving force is not selfless altruism, but a form of enlightened self-interest.
We are not required to be saints, but should recognize how sensible "rules of the game" are in everyone's interests.
The 19th century French writer Alexis de Tocqueville admired the dynamism of American society where it was recognized that "by serving his fellows man serves himself and that doing good is to his private advantage."
He used the term "self-interest properly understood", which on its own does not lead to great virtue but does establish virtuous habits over time so as to create "orderly, temperate, moderate, careful and self-controlled citizens".
He recognized, however, that this was not always self-evident, and that people needed to be educated into it.
This is the task we should all take upon ourselves so that a little more heaven and a little less hell is created on this earth.
Jack Bloom is a Democratic Alliance member of the Gauteng legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.
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