Household Survival through Commons: Performance in an Uncertain World

The search for ethically responsible and scientifically precise alternatives for socially disadvantaged groups in high risk environments requires a multi disciplinary, multi market/multi institutional approach. Various groups of rural households diversify portfolios of their economic enterprises within a range defined by the ecological endowments. The access to factor and product markets, kinship networks, intra and inter household risk adjustments, public and private relief systems and finally common property resources or common pool institutions determine the composition and evolution of portfolios of different enterprises (Gupta,1981,1984,1985 ). There have been some studies on the role of commons in risk minimization strategies vis-a-vis private and open access re- sources (Gupta 1982 , 1985 , McKean 1985, Biswajit 1983, Jodha 1985, Agarwal 1990 ,Gupta and Ura 1990, Braden 1985, Buzdar ,1988 etc.). A coherent theoretical framework however, remains to be developed which situates survival through resources governed by different property right arrangements. The Austrian School has rightly questioned the dilemma of pricing resources according to equilibrium outcome or utility consideration (Buchanan ,1982). Human decisions are considered to be spontaneous, creative and dynamically subjective (Kirzner 1982). The theory of Chaos provides a way of dealing with apparent randomness in the behavior of natural and social phenomena by looking for the order at different levels. A world view in which synchronization or simultaneity rather than sequential or causal chain reaction explains human choices is characteristic of eastern societies (Peat,1987) . The search for sustainable development by definition was pursued along very different criteria in societies that have a history of thousand of years compared to other societies which, may have much shorter history . Sustainability of using natural resources in an uncertain world in which disadvantaged households may have control over very few institutions, requires understanding of cultural boundaries of consciousness. The understanding of emic rules over etic rules requires distinguishing cultural and value codes. Tolerance of good turns with bad ones sometimes in a random order has become an integral part of survival ethic in peasant societies. Study of institutions that generated this ethic becomes a necessary part of understanding the portfolio adjustments under risk and uncertainty. The evolution of survival ethic is facilitated by different cultural, religious and other social mechanisms. Different types of rules emerge to deal with multiple human objectives. Management of risks is sometimes like a game of musical chair or snake and ladder (Gupta,1987). Randomization to deal with uncertainties, as we shall see later, has been an ancient way of dealing with the problem of sustainable resource use . In fact there are examples where certain tribes converted a problem of risk into uncertainty just in order to use the rule of randomization in resources