Conflicting analysis of a ‘Conflicting commons’: Comment

The criticism of Yandle's analysis is based on my interpretation of his marginal cost of monitoring. I have assumed that this represents the marginal cost of restricting freedom. This is consistent with Yandles initial discussion of the common access problem when his MC curve represented the marginal cost of restricting entry on to grazing land. But when Yandle shifts his discussion to diversity and the freedom that allows diversity, he does not construct any new figure with relabeled axes nor does he explicitly define the marginal cost curve. It is therefore possible that Yandle's interpretation of his marginal cost is different from mine. But it is hard to imagine what the alternative interpretation might be given Yandle's (1982: 323) comment that ‘As the monitor pushes the group away from diversity toward uniformity — transforming freedom into conditional liberties, he reaches the point where rents are maximized.’ It should be pointed out that my criticism of Yandle's analysis does not reduce the value of the fundamental thrust of his paper. In the absence of all restraint the exercise of freedom will lead to problems that are analogous to the overexploitation of a common access resource. No genuine social order can ignore the ‘Limits of Liberty’ (see Buchanan, 1975). Yet freedom can be restricted excessively just as any resource can be underexploited. Yandle's use of the common-access model is a helpful way of conceptualizing the notion of the optimal level of freedom despite the fact that more freedom is justified by the correct use of the common access model than Yandle's analysis indicates. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1983