The Importance of Sharing

(2/28/2009) - The idea of private property is one of the most important concepts underlying our modern capitalist economy and culture.  In fact, sitting here I find it difficult to even imagine a society operating without any notion of private property.  The capitalist system is defined by the fact that the means of production are privately owned.  A large portion of our legal code is dedicated to protecting it.   

The idea of private property and its application in the capitalist system has helped produce enormous gains in material wealth.  However, when taking into account that we live in a finite world, and not the infinite world assumed in the logic of ever-growing capitalism, there are many ways in which private property leads to tremendous inefficiencies.  Consider the case of the lawnmower.  When I lived in Portland, we had a push lawnmower that we used every 2-4 weeks while the grass was growing (or at least should have if we wanted to keep the grass at a socially-acceptable level).  Mowing our lawn took about a half hour, at most. 

Inefficiencies of Private Property

Let’s suppose that you mow your lawn every other week, from April to October.  Between getting out, mowing, taking a break for some lemonade, mowing some more, refueling etc., it takes about an hour to mow the lawn.  In the suburbs, like where my parents live, this might be up to four hours, but for now lets look at the city scenario because sharing would be more effective there anyways.  On the average, there are about 12 hours of daylight a day (there are more during the summer, but it wouldn’t be very neighborly to start mowing at 5:30 in the morning). 

In this scenario, you would be mowing your lawn 0.6% of the time.  If you suppose that no one is available to mow the lawn from 8:30am to 5:30pm, Monday through Friday, you would mow the lawn 1.7% of your available time.  Switch it around.  In the first scenario the mower is sitting still 99.4% of the available mowing time, or 98.3% in the second scenario. 

In Portland, most of my neighbors owned their own mower (I don’t have a lawn here in Providence, so it doesn’t work for this example).  From the standpoint of our current, hyper-individualized economic system, this makes sense.  My neighborhood was pretty middle-class, and in the U.S. every middle-class family who wants their own lawn mower can afford it.  Owning your own mower allows you to mow your lawn whenever you want, which makes it a convenient option.  It is also a more economical than hiring a crew to mow the lawn.  A new lawn mower can be had for $250, or there about, while it would probably cost at least $15-$20 a visit from the lawn care crew (its probably more). 

This use of resources – metal and plastic for privately owned mowers– is extremely inefficient in the context of the finite world.  There are is a finite supply of metal supplies accessible to humans, and an even more limited amount of hydrocarbons (i.e. oil) that can be easily turned into plastics.  Though these materials (especially the metals) are recyclable, more often than not they end up in landfills. 

The Effect of Discounting

Besides the reasons mentioned above related to individualism, the biggest reason why we don’t notice or take into account this inefficient use of resources – or pace our use of any finite resource – is that we tend to heavily discount the value of the future.  The value of money in the future (and as a result, just about everything else) is calculated by discounting its value against the present.  If you want to know exactly what discounting is, read the explanation in the link above or on other websites, as they explain it better than I can.

Discounting leads to treating future resources as far less valuable than they actually really are in a non-financial sense (you’ll be able to make just as many beams from a ton of steel in fifty years as you can today).  Lets suppose you think you can earn 5% interest on an investment (I’m going to simplify this by not including inflation). How much is $10,000 in 2050 money worth today?  To put it a different way, how much is a ton of iron ore worth today if we decided to keep it in the ground until 2050, with the assumption that the price of iron remains stable.  At a 5% discount rate, $10,000 in 2050 is worth about $872. 

The “Tragedy of the Commons”

One of the advantages of private property is that it helps avoid what is commonly known as the tragedy of the commons.  A classic illustration of this idea is the shared, unregulated pasture where any person may bring their sheep to graze.  It would benefit each individual shepherd to bring his sheep to the common land as much as possible, saving his own land for future use.  If he doesn’t, there is nothing to stop the next shepherd from bringing his flock and taking all of the common grass.  In the end of this highly theoretical scenario, the common pasture is stripped of all grass and becomes unusable for all.  A good, real-life example of the tragedy of the commons is the fishing industry.  Or, coming back to our earlier example, a publicly owned lawn mower might be treated much worse than any privately owned lawnmower. 

Alternative Methods of Sharing

There are several ways to take advantage of the material efficiencies of sharing, but without falling into some of the pit traps associated with common property.  One of my favorites sharing program is Zipcar.  If you aren’t familiar with the company, Zipcar has a variety of cars that are parked all around a growing number of metro areas around the United States.  For a small annual fee, you purchase the ability to rent these cars by the hour or day.  Though the rentals are expensive (for the user) compared to using a good public transportation, they will add up to far less than it would cost to maintain a car if you don’t need one on a regular basis – like the mower.  Membership also buys you insurance, gas, and maintenance, further reducing costs normally associated with operating a car.  Zipcar also offers advantages for the finite world.  Zipcars are used more efficiently than most cars – which often spend 90% of their time parked.  This means less steel, plastic, energy use, and more. 

Zipcar also allows access to a wide variety of cars.  Need to haul a load of firewood?  Drive a pick-up truck for the day.  Want to impress a date?  You can use a convertible Mini-Cooper.  This is a much better alternative than doing what many Americans do – owning a little-used car, or driving a larger, less efficient car everywhere because its special features, i.e. four-wheel drive or a truck bed, are necessary a few times a year. 

Modern communications help make these sorts of programs possible on a large scale.  If you have a connection to the internet – on a personal computer or a wireless device – Zipcar users can get live updates on what vehicles are available and where they are parked.  In a theoretical neighborhood lawnmower-sharing program, borrowers could reserve the mower.

Zipcar is just an example of what is possible with sharing.  I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.