IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v62y2009i1p1-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Avoiding tragedies: a Flemish common and its commoners under the pressure of social and economic change during the eighteenth century1

Author

Listed:
  • TINE DE MOOR

Abstract

Despite the wide application of the metaphor of ‘the tragedy of the commons’, there is little historical literature that points to the weaknesses of its historical basis. There is, however, sufficient qualitative and quantitative evidence to prove that commons were well regulated and organized in order to achieve a sustainable management, that also took into account the needs and wishes of its commoners. This case study of a common in Flanders looks at the evidence for this in the eighteenth century, examining bookkeeping and other archival sources. A model that incorporates the different functions of the commons (sustainability, efficiency, and utility) is explained and applied.

Suggested Citation

  • Tine De Moor, 2009. "Avoiding tragedies: a Flemish common and its commoners under the pressure of social and economic change during the eighteenth century1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(1), pages 1-22, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:62:y:2009:i:1:p:1-22
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2008.00426.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2008.00426.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2008.00426.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Humphries, Jane, 1990. "Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(1), pages 17-42, March.
    2. Shaw-Taylor, Leigh, 2001. "Parliamentary Enclosure And The Emergence Of An English Agricultural Proletariat," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 640-662, September.
    3. McCloskey, Donald N., 1991. "The Prudent Peasant: New Findings on Open Fields," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 343-355, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Josemiguel Lana Berasain & Miguel Laborda Pemán, 2013. "El anidamiento institucional y su dinámica histórica en comunidades rurales complejas. Dos estudios de caso (Navarra, siglos XIV-XX)," Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria 1307, Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria.
    2. De Vijlder, Nicolas, 2012. "A macroeconomic analysis of the land market in the count of Flanders and the duchy of Brabant. (fifteenth and sixteenth century)," MPRA Paper 39283, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. M. Casari & M. Lisciandra, 2013. "Gender Discrimination in Property Rights," Working Papers wp914, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. Orsi, Fabienne, 2013. "Elinor Ostrom et les faisceaux de droits : l’ouverture d’un nouvel espace pour penser la propriété commune," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 14.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Stead, 1998. "An Arduous and Unprofitable Undertaking: The Enclosure of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire," Economics Series Working Papers 1998-W26, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Ogilvie, Sheilagh & Carus, A.W., 2014. "Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 403-513, Elsevier.
    3. Francisco J. Beltran Tapia & Julio Martinez-Galarrage, 2015. "Inequality and poverty in a developing economy: Evidence from regional data (Spain, 1860-1930)," Working Papers 0078, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    4. Bas Bavel & Auke Rijpma, 2016. "How important were formalized charity and social spending before the rise of the welfare state? A long-run analysis of selected western European cases, 1400–1850," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(1), pages 159-187, February.
    5. Tan, Elaine S., 2002. "'The bull is half the herd': property rights and enclosures in England, 1750-1850," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 470-489, October.
    6. Runge, C. Ford & Defrancesco, Edi, 2006. "Exclusion, Inclusion, and Enclosure: Historical Commons and Modern Intellectual Property," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1713-1727, October.
    7. Elaine Tan, 2002. "Bull is Half the Herd: Property Rights and Enclosures in England, 1750-1850," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _046, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. David Stead, 1998. "An Arduous and Unprofitable Undertaking: The Enclosure of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _026, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Kumon, Yuzuru, 2021. "Wealth Inequality in Pre-industrial Rural England," IAST Working Papers 21-124, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    10. Bazillier, Remi & Girard, Victoire, 2020. "The gold digger and the machine. Evidence on the distributive effect of the artisanal and industrial gold rushes in Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    11. Leeson, Peter T. & Harris, Colin, 2018. "Wealth-destroying private property rights," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-9.
    12. Casari, Marco & Lisciandra, Maurizio, 2015. "Gender Discrimination and Common Property Resources," IZA Discussion Papers 9601, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Deschacht, Nick & Winter, Anne, 2015. "Rural crisis and rural exodus? Local migration dynamics during the crisis of the 1840s in Flanders (Belgium)," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 32-52.
    14. Penelope Francks, 2022. "Industriousness and divergence: Living standards, housework and the Japanese diet in comparative historical perspective," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(1), pages 26-46, March.
    15. Alexandra de Pleijt & Jan Luiten van Zanden, 2021. "Two worlds of female labour: gender wage inequality in western Europe, 1300–1800," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(3), pages 611-638, August.
    16. Samuel Garrido, 2010. "Mejorar y quedarse. La cesión de tierra a rentas por debajo del equilibrio en la Valencia del siglo XIX," Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria 1009, Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria.
    17. Daniel Barbezat, 2011. "The Economic History of European Growth," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 51, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Sebastian A.J. Keibek, 2016. "By-Employments In Early Modern England And Their Significance For Estimating Historical Male Occupational Structures," Working Papers 29, Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Cambridge, revised 21 Mar 2017.
    19. Bekar, Cliff T. & Reed, Clyde G., 2003. "Open fields, risk, and land divisibility," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 308-325, July.
    20. Kumon, Yuzuru & Sakai, Kazuho, 2022. "Women’s Wages and Empowerment: Pre-industrial Japan, 1600-1890," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 18/2022, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:62:y:2009:i:1:p:1-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.