In 1968, Garrett Hardin wrote what would become one of the most widely known yet fundamentally problematic works in economics: The Tragedy of the Commons. Hardin fatefully stated, "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all."

The commons that Hardin refers to can also be described as common pool resources (CPRs), or shared resources with shared rules. CPRs lack private property rights and are open-access; today's CPRs range from public schools to clean air to dog parks. Even things like broadband internet access and Wikipedia can be classified as a virtual commons. In Hardin's mind, there were only two ways to prevent destruction and depletion of the commons: creating private property rights and/or instituting extensive governmental restrictions.

As it turns out, Hardin was wrong on several issues. (Later on in the paper, Hardin laments how public welfare has increased the probability that children of poor families will survive, relieving their parents of facing the consequences of their actions.) There are a plethora of examples of community based management strategies protecting CPRs around the globe that don't employ private property rights or governmental interference. One economist, Elenor Ostrom, made it her life's work to decode successful, community-based governing of the commons. In 2009, she was the first woman to receive a Nobel prize in Economics Sciences for her "groundbreaking research demonstrating that ordinary people are capable of creating rules and institutions that allow for the sustainable and equitable management of shared resources." Upon giving Ostrom her award, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences declared, "Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized."

So, how did Ostrom so successfully challenge Hardin? She did this through decades of researching the evolution of institutions for collective action, on which she ended up writing her most influential book, Governing the Commons. Ostrom compiled a list of eight institutional design principles and demonstrated how they characterize long-lasting community based management practices. Based on case studies from around the globe, this list can be used as a framework to create community-based management strategies that are built to last. The list, which covers everything from who makes the rules to how they'll be enforced, is as follows:

1. Group boundaries must be clearly defined.
2. Costs and benefits must be matched to local needs and conditions.
3. Individuals affected by rules must be able to take part in creating and modifying these rules.
4. Monitors must be held accountable by the users or be stakeholders themselves.
5. In the case that users violate rules, there must be a graduated system for sanctioning.
6. Users and their officials must have rapid access to low cost, local means of conflict resolution.
7. External governmental authorities must respect the community's right to self-governance.
8. Responsibility for governing the common resource must be part of a tiered structure, ranging from the lowest level up to the entire, interconnected system.

Although Ostrom's design principles are based in case studies of community-based management of CPRs, this framework has the potential to extend beyond management of the commons as traditionally defined. In a piece about Ostrom's conquering of the so-called "tragedy of the commons", David Sloan Wilson, author and Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University, discusses the relevance of Ostrom's design principles:

Because of its theoretical generality, the core design principle approach is likely to apply to a much broader range of human groups than those attempting to manage CPRs. Almost any group whose members must work together to achieve a common goal is vulnerable to self-serving behaviors and should benefit from the same principles. An analysis of business groups, churches, voluntary associations and urban neighborhoods should yield the same results as [Ostrom's] analysis of CPR groups.

Moreover, there's actual evidence that Ostrom's design principles can be an effective framework to improve the quality of urban neighborhoods. In a 2013 article published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, David Sloan Wilson, Elenor Ostrom, and Michael E. Cox illustrate the success story of The West Side Community Collaborative in Buffalo, New York. Social trust, along with following the principles outlined by Ostrom, were key in reversing the "tragedy of the commons" faced by this neighborhood. Block clubs, which were recognized as legitimate by City Hall, were formed to resolve conflict and administer graduated sanctions. Although citizens didn't have the right to create new rules or building codes, they still played a role in enforcement as stakeholders.

Ostrom's principles may have a newfound relevanceIn the wake of the recent brutal police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks. In the midst of national civil unrest, activists across the country have been calling for massive defunding and abolition of police forces in favor of community-based management alternatives. If Ostrom's principles can be used to improve the quality of urban neighborhoods, could they also be used to reshape policing as we know it?

By looking to examples of successful community-based management (of which there are many), abolishing police forces as we know it and reinstating collective choice agreements might not be all that farfetched. Nomadic Gaddi shepherds in the Himalayas had robust social-trust and community-based agreements on grazing rights, alternating grazing locations throughout the year in return for free fertilization in the form of manure. In 1947, the Indian government interfered and violated Ostrom's seventh rule — external governmental authorities must respect the community's right to self-governance — which may have led to more concentrated grazing and resulting environmental degradation. Water temple irrigation systems in Bali struck a balance between water dispersal and pest control, flourishing for a millennia before Western engineers tried to modernize the water distribution. One aghast American engineer declared, "These people don't need a high priest, they need a hydrologist!" In short, they didn't; Ostrom's third rule reminds us that users who know the system most comprehensively, not foreign hydrologists, must be involved in creating the rules that will govern use of the commons. Even in the US, the lobster gangs of Maine patrol their fishing territories in a co-management system with the state, enforcing both formal and informal regulations. This is a clear, cut-and-dry example of Ostrom's fourth principle: stakeholders are users themselves and have an vested interest in maintaining the vitality of the lobster fisheries they patrol.

Without a doubt, community-based alternatives to policing as we know it will require a trial and error approach. However, politicians and community leaders aren't facing this challenge blind. Decades ago, Ostrom outlined a strong theoretical framework to help guide communities as they work to abolish institutions and create new ones that are equitable and just for all citizens. There is an abundance of economists, anthropologists, and even evolutionary biologists that are adequately prepared to help communities work through this next collective-action dilemma. The "freedom of the commons," as Harding described it, will send society hurtling not towards ruin, but instead towards justice, equity, and redemption.