Oldal 158 [158]
OCR
156 ANDRÁS TAKÁCS-SÁNTA Laws, regulations and incentives provided by the governmental system Realizing the deterioration of the quality of the pasture, the mayor of the village summoned the aldermen for an extraordinary meeting. The municipality decided to put the pasture into municipal proprietorship and regulate the maximum number of cows: nobody could drive more than two cows to the pasture. Breaching the limit would entail serious sanctions ( large fines), to punish disobedient cattle farmers. The aldermen also decided that they would offer tax allowances to villagers who changed over to economic activities that did not depend on the commons — thereby trying to prevent more people from entering animal husbandry. Though at the beginning there was uproar and protests and several herdsmen tried to dodge the regulations (at times successfully), the measures eventually proved successful. Although nearly everyone experienced a decline in their financial standing, the farmers and their families lived happily ever after for generations. The diverse governing systems — at settlement, state or supranational (e.g. EU) levels — may provide laws, regulations and incentives in order (1) to prevent the activities of individuals, groups and organizations that are detrimental to the environment and (2) to encourage them to pursue environment-friendly activities. Today, all over the world countless institutions: laws, regulations and incentives introduced by governing systems try to enhance ecological sustainability. The decisive feature of these government measures are the efforts to get individuals (groups, organizations) to adopt eco-friendly behavior in the interest of the public good by making it the most advantageous behavioral alternative (financially or otherwise) for them. In other words, the environment-friendly alternative will be in harmony with their self-interest in the narrow sense and in the short run (note that the cattle farmers in the tragic version of the tale also adopt this approach; they do not display any sign of altruism). For example, the company which fixes the filter on factory chimneys gets a tax allowance; those who do not comply with the regulation get fines. In theory, that is, this method can result in environmentally safe behavior even in the absence of any awareness of the environment’s needs. This may be why it is perhaps the most popular of the four options all over the world. Basically, this approach implies three difficulties. The chances are high that environment-friendly behavior which is not internally motivated but rather imposed on the actors by external constraints will not last long in democratic societies (and the societies of at least the countries at the center are democratic at present), because people tend to eliminate constraints. (For instance, in the next elections they may vote out of office an environmentally sensitive political elite who have passed strict laws in protection of the environment.) Secondly, the existence of laws is not commons from diverse angles. I have adopted the psychological approach of Gardner and Stern (2002), which focuses on how to change the behavior of the actors to be more eco-friendly. There are other relevant psychological views as well (e.g. van Vugt 2009), while several others concentrate on proprietary aspects instead of behavior, and try to look at possibilities for resolving the first premise (e.g. Feeny et al. 1990). Other, more complex approaches characterize the results of various disciplines in trying to find ways to avoid the tragedy (e.g. Ostrom 2009). Since I wanted to deal with the possibilities of changing behavior, I looked for psychological approaches, out of which Gardner and Stern’s work appeared most convincing.
