I used to work for the New Zealand commercial fishing industry. New Zealand has had an ITQ regime in place since the late 1980’s. ITQ confer a property right: it’s definable, transferable and divisible. There are rights and obligations attached to ITQ. In fadt, it’s just like any other property right. So ITQs are a market mechanism to sustain fisheries.

What about emissions trading: the atmosphere is a commons – would you say emissions trading is not a market?

David:

“Re ITQs, the Economist article seems to be based on a recent Science article about a study on ITQs, which alleged that ITQs are a market-based solution because of the individual rights that resemble property rights (can be traded, etc.). In response to this argument, I consulted with Daniel Pauly, a fisheries expert at the University of Vancouver, B.C., and ended up writing a blog post, “Private Property and the Power of Magical Thinking,” — link: http://www.onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2236 — that may be the best response to your question, “market or commons”?

I say it’s a commons-based hybrid because the scheme limits the overall fish catch, something that markets (or at least, “capitalism”) has no intrinsic capacity to do. The fact that individual rights are present may be market-like and resemble conventional property rights….but the germane point is that there is an overarching agreement/ground rules for the exercise of these rights. This is a commons principle that markets do not and cannot supply on their own.

One might argue that private property rights & markets constitute a special instance of the commons, in which we consensually agree to allocate access and use rights based on our private property rights, bilateral contracts, cash payments and exchange. But this conceptualization can get confusing to explain. I find it easier to posit a market/commons dichotomy than to explain how markets constitute a special type of commons (which have asserted themselves as independent of society itself, and now function as a normative, imperialistic form of governance).”