[arin-ppml] Geoff's screed

[Tom Vest]

On Oct 14, 2009, at 3:22 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

> When is this community going to be able to sustain a rational  
> discussion of the basic institutional economics of IP addressing in  
> a way that incorporates two decades of institutionalism from Ostrom  
> (who just won the Nobel prize) and about 6 decades of transaction  
> cost economics?


Gee, that sounds like an excellent idea...

"In the complex and overlapping trading regimes discussed earlier, the  
rules address a wide range of rights and responsibilities relating to  
all relevant aspects of the affected ecological systems. Where hales  
assign certain people or groups rights without responsibilities,or  
responsibilities without rights, their willingness to negotiate  
modifications in the hales is likely to be limited. Elinor Ostrom has  
cautioned against the use of privatization of rights without careful  
consideration of the responsibility for managing those parts of the  
system that cannot be privatized. In groundwater resource management,  
for example, the flow of water can be privatized, but the basin itself  
must be managed jointly."

Fred Bosselman, "Swamp swaps: the 'second nature' of wetlands," in  
Environmental Law (Vol. 39 No. 3: June 2009)

"Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, reviewing studies of thousands of  
common-pool resource problems, found that the groups most likely to  
find robust, sustainable cooperative solutions share characteristics  
like mutual monitoring, frequent communication, and graduated  
sanctions for violators. Studies in laboratory settings lend further  
support to Ellickson's hypothesis, with subjects cooperating more  
often when they know interactions will be repeated and when they can  
communicate face-to-face."

Jed S. Ela, "Law and norms in collective action: maximizing social  
influence to minimize carbon emissions," in UCLA Journal of  
Environmental Law & Policy (Vol. 27 No. 1: June 2009).

Elinor Ostrom found that when people work collectively, they can  
effectively manage resources well. Her empirical research illustrates  
how communication between players increases cooperation, leading to  
higher instances of sell-governance and cooperation. CPR (common pool  
resources) demonstrates that users who depend on a resource for their  
livelihood and who have some autonomy to make their own rules are more  
likely to perceive benefits from restrictions; but without a sense of  
how their use will affect others within their community, the  
expectation of benefits is reduced. Users are also interested in the  
sustainability of the resource so the expected joint benefits will  
seem to outweigh current costs. In every situation and over time,  
individual benefits must be viewed as less valuable than the benefits  
to the community of users; collective-choice rules establish and  
operate the governance process.

Danielle M. Varda and Peter deLeon, "Toward a Theory of Collaborative  
Policy Networks: Identifying Structural Tendencies," in Policy Studies  
Journal (Vol. 37 No. 1: February 2009).

Your goal of fully privatizing and anonymizing IP number resources  
would be diametrically at odds with the broad findings of Ostrom, et al.

Time permitting, I'll try to pin up some Williamson quotes later today.

Not that I think that it'll convince you of anything -- in fact I'm  
not even sure why you made such a reference. "As libertarians, the  
verdict of the free market is more important to us the verdict of any  
expert," right Milton? [1]

The free market has spoken, and continues to speak in this matter; you  
just don't seem to understand the language it's uses in cases where  
the issues cannot be simply and cleanly boiled down to dollars and  
cents.

TV

[1] Milton Mueller, "Nuclear Power: Beyond 'For' or 'Against',"  
Illinois Libertarian (January 1978), reprinted in The Libertarian  
Forum (Vol. XII, No. 4: July-August 1979). Happy to share a copy with  
anyone who cannot find it online.