Economist Elinor Ostrom did some essential work on this problem and demonstrated that people will manage their commons well for all if certain elements are present, and will do so even when the commons is dangerously poor in natural resources. As well, when the commons is surpassing rich in resources. Spain, Switzerland, the Philippines, and many other areas have groups successfully sharing a commons over many generations - going back almost a thousand years in one case!
This video hits close to them. It’s essential that the group have power to define and adjust the situation within itself, that the cost of monitoring compliance be small (which can include the group members taking turn as monitors, or all being constantly empowered to monitor), that all participate in resource provision (ie, maintenance, improvement), that sanctions be nominal at first but that graduate to stiffer penalties for repeated abuse (recognizing exigent circumstances can cause someone to risk breaking the common agreement for an understandable purpose - eg, crops about to fail results in taking water out of turn to save the crop), and that there be some larger body that provides institutional affirmation of the group’s rules and right to develop its own rules. There are more, 8 in total, but that’s the gist of it.
When the rules of commons government is imposed form above, by people at a distance who presume one size fits all (for example, Nova Scotia deciding to govern offshore fisheries by one standard, which fails to account for differences in inshore and offshore fish availability and equipment), the incentive to follow the rules declines; that’s exacerbated when the distant governors are susceptible to special arrangements with some commons users - or are perceived to be susceptible. Again, there’s more.
A commons can be shared when it is clear what resource is in the commons and what is private and what is ungoverned; and who has rights to appropriate from the commons (and therefore also responsibility to provision the commons); and those boundaries and responsibilities are enforced by the group, and not overruled by higher (e.g., state) authorities, but positively affirmed.
This necessarily means smaller rather than larger groups of individuals. However, as Ostrom notes, various similar groups can coordinate in next level up cooperative associations where representatives of the front line groups meet to discuss shared concerns for provisioning and appropriating a resource common to them all. For example, several groups of farmers drawing water from up and down a river can coordinate along the length of the river to assure those toward the headwaters end don’t appropriate so much water that those at the tail end go waterless in years of drought. These are, in Ostrom’s terms, nested associations. One example where it has worked is in Southern California where several water districts worked together to determine best practices for ground water management for the benefit of farmers and residents living over and drawing from the several ground water pools which, together, need to prevent creeping salinization from the Pacific ocean and need to assure water infiltrates through pools closer to mountains to those further away.
Perhaps Europe is better at this for two important reasons. One, they are much older cultures that have had to work out how to survive on their land much longer than we have in the New World where until recently there was always more land over the horizon if we wore out the land we were farming (a major reason for westward expansion was soil destruction on the eastern seaboard). Our culture became one of using up and moving on, with little incentive to manage resources “here” since there was an abundance just “over there”.
Second is the homogeneity of European societies compared to ours. Where cultures are relatively stable, and change slowly, people share worldviews and can infiltrate new lessons and approaches over time both horizontally (in this generation) and vertically (down generations). The US does not have “cultural cohesion” in that sense. What has united the disparate peoples that make up our population has been the shared opportunity to change one’s destiny by personal initiative - we can all meet on the farm soil or on the factory floor to make a better life for ourselves and our families if we cooperate for that purpose. Thus, “the business of America is business.” That works well until scarcity appears - whether long term prospects, or short term needs. In scarcity, every prudent “businessman” will maximize personal benefit at the expense of others because we’re really not a comprehensive culture, but more of an association of individuals with a shared interest in improving our own lives according to our energy, initiative, and desires.
If we look to our small, rural communities - or back to settlements in the westward expansion era - we will see that defined groups of people did (and often still do) work as communities to enforce local ordinances to keep the peace. We have not been as good at distinguishing common resource pools from either private resources or unregulated resources (thus the prairie fights over water and grazing land). Still, there are traditions in more rural towns - such as in my Vermont village - of the town gathering in annual meetings to determine who among the residents will oversee the town’s business for the coming year, and to settle shared governance rules to the satisfaction of participants. (It’s a tradition being steadily eroded, here, by the state government which, if Ostrom’s research is correct, will lead to less shared responsibility to achieve the very goals Montpelier is arrogating to itself to accomplish, as the incentive to take responsibility in order to maximize benefit is undercut.)
Modern notions of anarchism trend along the lines of smaller group organization determined by the participants, and coordinated in nests of higher level cooperation, just as Ostrom outlines. The keys are smaller groups that can meet face to face to work out common norms and to monitor one another’s compliance. It’s basic bottom-up democracy in action, represented at higher levels by representatives of those basic blocks.
Personally, I don’t think it can be accomplished in our mega-cities. They are too transient, and too diverse. And no one in a city has any responsibility for provisioning the commons that produce their food and process their detritus. That’s left to people living outside city limits who have no control over either the extraction of their resources for the people in the cities, or the dumping of trash and effluviant into their commons. In Europe (at least until the very recent mass immigration of peoples with very different cultural orientations) the homogeneity of culturally-close residents of city, town, and country makes shared values and solution-oriented policies for common resource provision and appropriation much easier to establish and to sustain over time.
The two links here are to very different professional biographies and geographical areas of operation. I do not think they are the same person.
I haven’t been able to get supplies. I have masks and gloves that I stocked up several years ago. But can’t get goggles or gowns for if I end up nursing anyone. It seems to me the health department is pretty useless and won’t be interested unless you have a strong association with China. Not sure if anything else or association with another country or anything unknown - even with suspicious symptoms would ever get a person to be tested. I doubt it. When I studied the bird flu years ago, I decided that staying isolated is the only way. Easier said than done - for longer periods anyway. I’m still getting my head around all this, having renewed my membership with PP again and checking out Dr John Campbell too. Is there a NZ group I can join?
I have a family member, that I doubt would survive if he caught the virus today. Lungs compromised because of an 8 week bronchitis episode that still has not been overcome - with two Doctors so far. I’ve been wondering if there is a way of getting oxygen for home use? If someone was to need it after getting the virus. I bought a good oximeter today.
Thanks for any help on this if there’s any out there 
This video is from last week’s meeting of Council on Foreign relations on Biosecurity and threats to global health. Dr Fauci says very clearly that the plan is to test people who are negative for flu and present with fever in 5 representative cities. It is an epidemiologic survey, not testing with the intent to treat. It says something about how we will be handling it here and it appears they are not looking for cases individually, they just want a statistical measure of probable prevalence (how many people are infected currently).
On a side note the announcements about a second wave of flu in the US will confound the data and interpretation of influenza like illness data. So they are openly admitting to not looking at individuals this is a study of the population at large. It is upsetting to me as it seems we are waiting for things to become self evident to fill up before we call it. Still, Dr Fauci is telling this truth on this one even though I don’t agree with their plan.
https://youtu.be/PNpRWPAiT3A?t=656
The Tenerife Islands hotel" H10 Costa Adeje Palace" with about 1000 guests is in lockdown after 2 Italian guests were confirmed with Covig19
In times like these always remember to cover the basics,boil all water before drinking until proof is other wise.
If a tornado were to touch down and destroy a school, would we blame Trump? My mom certainly would:
"This is what is happening now in Trump's America!" (full of outrage).Or when a forest fire jumps a fire line in the Sierra Nevada foothills:
"Governor Newsom fails again!"Such blame only makes sense if tornados and forest fires are under the control of the governmental authorities. But they are not. Nor is COVID-19. It is my opinion that the pandemic is out of the box. No government action will stop it. No testing strategy, public health isolation strategy. No containment is possible. Such actions might offer a slight rerouting of the vectors of spread, but not stop it. (Though universal and quick point of care testing could help specific patients and families know what to do.) We are caught between the public viewpoints of:
1) "That won't happen here in the USA" (and hence being unwilling to tolerate a transportation lockdown) and 2) waiting for obvious proof that it IS happening here (say, 15 -20 dead bodies in my community) when transportation lockdown will be far too late to be of benefit.So we will move between being far too early and far too late in an instant. My ED physicians facebook page is calling on all ED docs to write to the CDC and their congresspersons to urge various things. The South Korean Crisis Response Coordinator commits suicide as the cases there reach 1,000. The UK PM assures the public that it has the epidemic under control. Etc, etc. All this is based on the belief that governmental authorities have the power to control this. ------ We are on our own. Shifting gear psychologically will help us come to grips with what we personally must do, now. It brings the locus of control into our own households.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/china-apocalypse-buddhist-prophecy-locusts/
...So here is the update on multiple fronts.
First of all my wife’s family.
Her father has still not been heard of — now approaching a month. No words can express my wife’s grieving. I am running out of ways to help her cope.
Her brother and his family are still in their upper floor apartment in a major metro area — not Wuhan. The martial law and lockdown continue. They have not left their apartment in about 3 weeks. Food is delivered to them twice a week. There is no end in sight at this time. The family immediately across the hall was forcibly removed about 3 days ago because one of them was sick. My wife is concerned about their mental health – but so far they are staying healthy.
Her mother remains under in home quarantine in her apartment in a small city on the Western frontier. She seems to be fully recovered. She is eating rice that she has had piled up in her apartment for just such a reason – and refuses to eat any food that is brought to her door. This city is in the middle of a vast agricultural area. Hogs, cows and chickens are a staple of their economy. My mother-in-law has told us that the “death stench” has permeated her city the past week or so and getting worse daily. She cannot even open her windows. Why? No one is going to work – and no one is taking care of the livestock. No shipments of grain are coming in for the animals — and throughout the land the animals are starving in the pastures. The bodies by the hundreds of thousands are just laying in the sun and rotting. All this while the industrialized part of China is beginning to have severe food shortages. Something in my doctor brain is telling me that having millions of people so close to rotting animals cannot be good. What could possibly go wrong?
Three days ago, 20% of the workers in my brother-in-law’s city were ordered back to work. The photo I have attached is from American media, showing a transit train during rush hour on that day. Yep, that worked. The people of that big city are in open defiance of the Communist Party in a way that has never happened before. It has been my concern all along that the lies and fraudulent numbers coming out would reap the whirlwind for the Communist government not just from the West — but also from their own people. When exactly are the people going to feel safe going back to work? Who knows?
Some of the comments I have read on some of my previous posts have been concerned that the tone was too macabre or apocalyptic. Well, snowflakes — that is because things are very macabre and very apocalyptic in China today. The true scope of this disaster is being grossly underplayed in the American media.
My wife is a PhD graduate of Tshingua University in Beijing. It is an institution that would be similar if our Harvard, Yale, and MIT were all combined into one place. The graduates there are heavily recruited by the Communist Party – and most of them go on to work in the government, the universities, and the law. It is their version of the one-percent elite. My wife belongs to multiple social media groups of Tshingua alumni and current students. Imagine my surprise reading multiple comments repeatedly bashing the Communist government and officials and their handling of this incident. These are future and current Communists and this would have been unthinkable just a few days ago. But the real stunner came last night — another jpg of Chinese text was sent to all current students and alumnus of Tshinghua. I have enclosed the photo...
For what it’s worth, they seem to be trying to make this vaccine happen. I’m not hopeful it will work, or even be in time for most. - Wendy
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-vaccine-human-clinical-trial-ff89108d-87b0-4948-a299-59ee3369eb83.html
I think you might be onto something here. When Chris talked about all the test kits being bad. Seems kind of strange to me. What are the odds that all though kits were bad.
https://www.activistpost.com/2020/02/coronavirus-crisis-in-china-what-to-believe-brave-journalist-lifts-veil-of-secrecy.html
This interview with Jennifer Zeng by Spiro Skouras has hallmarks of authenticity. Jennifer provides insights into what China has/is doing along with other useful information.
Here it seems we are well last the worst…
https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/five-more-cases-discharged-one-new-case-of-covid-19-infection-confirmed
An illustrative example of harmful, stupid ignorance:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kelowna-realtor-meme-outrage-china-coronavirus-1.5474296
No shortage of CFS out there… 
Jan
My son was in the Peace Corps in Nepal working on food and economic security and was heavily involved with planting, growing, and harvesting moringa as well as marketing it internationally. Its positive benefits are manifold, as you stated. I used it for a while and didn’t notice much difference (but my nutrition is already excellent and energy level is high) and then I got a bad batch which turned me off to it. Quite frankly, I’d forgotten about it but will order some now. I think it’s an excellent recommendation for nutrition in general and that never hurts in terms of decreasing one’s susceptibility to disease.
It is a great idea to talk to your Mom about disruptions and acquiring some extra supplies. May I suggest you create a simple sheet with bullet points or check-off boxes for her. When a persons anxiety increases organized thought decreases. By providing a task and making it fun, your Mom will not only want to please you but will feel a sense of accomplishment as well with less anxiety.A while back I created a list for my kids should we all need to leave to go to our out-of-town location. Knowing stress would be high giving them a “here’s what to take list” would make their preparations easier. One for the kids is helpful too. Good luck and keep us posted!
Singapore’s handling and transparency of this crisis continues to amaze me! The level of detail on their Ministry of Health site is amazing. What an incredible way to make sure people have the info they need without inciting panic or suspicion.
Here is the address https://www.healthline.com/health/coronavirus-covid-19
COVID-19 versus the flu
The symptoms of COVID-19 are similar to that of the influenza (flu) virus.
The flu virus is much more common and much more deadly than the 2019 coronavirus.
At least 6.8 percent of people who developed the flu during the 2019–2020 flu season in the United States have died (as of February 2020), compared to around 2 percentTrusted Source of those diagnosed with the 2019 coronavirus. So there is no problem. what a pile of crapp! talk about bad info. Supposedly the U.S. had 4,600,000 cases of the flu 39,000 were hospitalizations and 2,100 deaths from flu so far this season. How can they get a death rate of 6.8 percent. SO I called them and left a message. Thanks CCBW
From VeganDB12 - #27“This video is from last week’s meeting of Council on Foreign relations on Biosecurity and threats to global health. Dr Fauci says very clearly that the plan is to test people who are negative for flu and present with fever in 5 representative cities. It is an epidemiologic survey, not testing with the intent to treat. It says something about how we will be handling it here and it appears they are not looking for cases individually, they just want a statistical measure of probable prevalence (how many people are infected currently). See video.” The video tells us that five cities will be virus tested and evaluated for statistical purposes and understanding. But not for treatment purposes. Do you’ll understand that we are a lab rats and they don’t give a shit? Please provide evidence I am wrong! Why are test kits in our country inaccurate? Why can’t every citizen who wants a test get one? Why doesn't every hospital and clinic have test kits? It’s like those in-charge want the virus to spread. Doubtful Granny
AKGrannyWGrit
My interpretation of this is that, they are trying to avoid the harm caused by quarantine and response to the results of testing. It is just an opinion. I am sorry I cannot think of another reason. I don’t think they are trying to finish us off, but it is a decision that makes contact tracing impossible. Perhaps it is for the best I have no idea. I know it’s upsetting but it is what they say.