Land Tenure: Communal vs. Territorial Ownership

It is frequently claimed that the system of private property and land ownership found in modern capitalist society is superior to other systems of land tenure

At least two distinct kinds of claims have been used as evidence for superiority of private property:

1) alleged universality of territoriality in other species
2) inefficiency of communal systems of ownership (or free access)

First argument, extrapolating from other species to our own, may be faulty in principle, since does not allow for possibility that humans are unique

But in any case it is empirically incorrect, since in fact many other species are not territorial; even more interesting, some species are facultatively territorial, switching to less exclusive systems of spatial organization & resource use under certain conditions

For example, various detailed studies of nectar-feeding birds have shown that they will switch from aggressive defense of a patch of flowers to peaceful coexistence, depending on the rate at which they gain nectar from the flowers (the nectar availability being manipulated experimentally by researchers, who also weighed the birds & measured their energy expenditure under various conditions!)

Similar patterns of switching from territorial to open systems of spatial organization have now been observed in dozens of species, ranging from insects to wolves

Do you think that birds get more territorial when nectar becomes scarce, or less?  Most people unfamiliar with this research (or with the underlying theory that guides some of it) expect that territoriality increases with scarcity.

But in fact, birds become less territorial when nectar is scarce, a counter-intuitive finding explained in the following section

Economic Defensibility

When does evolutionary ecology predict that territorial behavior will occur? Basically, when resources are relatively dense & predictable; this is often termed the "economic defensibility model" 

The predictions of this model can be outlined as follows:

(from Dyson-Hudson & Smith 1978 -- a paper that was your humble professor's first scholarly publication, while still a grad student)

Logic here is that territoriality has costs as well as benefits; when resources (food, mates, nest sites, etc) are either too sparse or too ephemeral, it does not pay to defend a piece of land against competitors; instead, best option is to "scramble" for what's there, or even to gather in large groups & exchange information about the location of ephemeral resource patches

Economic defensibility model accounts for the pattern of facultative territoriality documented for many animal species, such as the hummingbirds mentioned above

A great amount of variation in degree of territorial exclusivity is documented for various human societies as well:  some folks make definite claims of land ownership and defend these with various means ranging from magic and morality to threats and force, while others allow relatively free access to the land and its resources

(It is interesting that humans use a variety of symbolic means to delineate and stabilize property rights--culture and linguistic communication do make a difference!  But the functional effect is at least analogous to animal territoriality, which makes the parallel worth examining, as discussed further below)

The economic defensibility model predicts that territoriality will only arise under certain ecological conditions, namely when resources are dense & predictable enough to repay the costs of territorial defense

Does variation in human land tenure fit this prediction?  Considerable evidence from many diff. types of societies suggests it does

Some ethnographic examples (denoting correspondence to 4 possible states listed in table above as Case A, etc.):

1. Alaskan Eskimos (both Yup'ik and Inupiaq) were traditionally divided into discrete societies of several hundred people, with variety of resources within their boundaries; individuals could cross these boundaries if they had kinsmen or trading partners, but for most of the year anyone discovered trespassing would usually be killed on sight (greatest fear from drifting on ice floe was this, not starving or drowning!) [Case C]

In contrast, Canadian Inuit (close cultural & linguistic cousins to Alaskan Eskimos, who split off from them about 1000 yrs ago) had much sparser resource base (as reflected in population density some 50-90% lower, much higher mobility, etc.) and rarely defended territorial boundaries; in fact, one oral history tells of a man and sons who tried to claim a good caribou hunting spot as their own, and were finally executed for violating communal-access norms [Case B]

2. Among swidden horticulturalists, since most land lies fallow or in forest at any one time, arable land can be considered a low-density resource; swidden systems characterized by relatively open access to arable land [Case D], although active garden sites are predictable resources sites, and are claimed & defended by individuals or kin groups [Case C]

With increasing intensification, arable land becomes more and more valuable (fallow for only short periods), and property rights become quite rigid (territoriality by another name), as seen in elaborate controls governing access to and inheritance of land [Case C]

3. Shift from open access to territorial defense can happen even more rapidly in some cases; thus, Indians in Subarctic forests (Cree, Northern Athapaskans) traditionally had very fluid land use system, moving wherever there were caribou or other game to hunt

(When reproached by Jesuit missionaries in the 1600s for refusing to settle down, the Indians replied "You whites are like the moose, wishing to remain in one place, but we are like our favored prey the caribou, always on the move" -- a very astute observation, for it was the unpredictable location of their game resources that made fixed territorial ownership impractical or even suicidal, requiring instead mobility, open access, and info-sharing [Case A]

But these same subarctic Indians quite rapidly shifted to family trapping territories once they became heavily involved in fur trade, both because the traplines represented a much more predictable resource, and because decline of caribou led to reliance on less mobile resources like fish and snowshoe hare [Case C]

Territorial (private property) and non-territorial (communal or open access) land use can even occur simultaneously within a single population, depending on the specific resource or system of production involved:

4. For example, many E. African pastoralists grow some crops at homesteads, which are owned & defended by extended family units (though much defense is handled via low-cost social sanctions and magical protection) [Case C]

At the same time, pastoralists must move their herds of cattle around to graze on unpredictable grasslands (responding to patchy rainfall), which are available for communal use by all members of the tribe (accompanied by lots of info-sharing) [Case A or B]

In sum, the logic of economic defensibility seems to do quite well at capturing the reasons for variation in land tenure systems, at least at the gross level of defense (private property claims) vs. communal or open access

The Tragedy of the Commons

[Note: much of this is redundant to the assigned reading by Feeny et al. 1990, so you can skim this if you've already read and understood that source]

A widely influential essay by ecologist Garrett Hardin (1968) argued that systems of unrestricted access lead inexorably to a "tragedy of the commons"

Hardin was referring to the communal grazing "commons" found in England before the industrial revolution and the Enclosure Act that privatized this land, but it would seem that his notion would apply equally well to E. African cattle herders, as well as foraging, pastoral, and agricultural systems anywhere that hold land or the resources on it in common

He argued that the commons failed to provide any incentive to conserve resources: each herdsman competes to raise as many animals as possible, and in deciding whether to add another animal on the pasture considers that the benefit will accrue to him while the cost will be shared by all members of the community

Hence the rational choice for each herdsman is to put additional animals on the commons as long as his personal gain is greater than his personal cost, even if this reduces the number of animals others can raise

(Note that the logic here is exactly the same as in the joiner-vs-member group size model discussed earlier)

The tragedy arises because if each herdsman acts in this rational fashion, the result will be a downward spiral towards overstocking the commons, and in severe cases the destruction of the resource base

To quote Hardin: "Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit -- in a world that is limited....Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all."

Hardin (and the many economists and resource managers who share his view) propose that there are only two ways to prevent such overexploitation:  convert the commons into private property, whose owners will have the incentive to manage it wisely; or yield it to the state, which can enforce legal regulations promoting conservation

The English grazing commons have long yielded to private ownership, but of course Hardin et al. have other commons in mind:  forests, fisheries, clean air and water, and the communal lands and resources of many small-scale societies on the periphery of nation states

While Hardin's argument seems compelling to many, it has some strong critics

Many have chosen to attack it by questioning the assumption of self-interest that underlies it; but others (myself included) think that is unnecessary, since it is vulnerable on other (less controversial) grounds

First, even if all other conditions of Hardin's model are met, if demand for the resources of the commons is less than the supply, there will be no tragedy of overuse; in other words, if per-capita resources are sufficiently abundant (population pressure low enough), there will be no overexploitation no matter how self-interested users are

Indeed, Hardin himself realized that a commons system "may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land." -- but many others who embraced ToC concept have not been so careful to ascertain whether resource demand exceeds supply

Second, the argument assumes there are only 3 systems of property rights: Private, State, and Commons (lack of ownership)

But actual taxonomy of property rights or access rights ain't so simple -- at minimum, must recognize following forms:

Hardin's view that anything other than individual or state ownership is open-access is simply wrong:  the most frequent form of land tenure in small-scale (non-state) societies is communal ownership by members of a defined community (co-residents of a settlement or region--e.g., a village, a tribe), while corporate ownership (by a lineage, clan, or other subset of the social group with a clearly defined membership determined by kinship or other means) is also widespread

The important point here is that communal ownership is not the same as the absence of property rights, and does not allow truly open access (since you have to be member of the specified community in order to have access rights to communally-owned resources)

Communal Property Systems

In communal systems of land tenure and resource use, not only is access limited to members of the owning community, but the uses by those members is usually regulated by customary rules, informal social controls, and often even formal sanctions

Let me mention 2 examples:

1. In the grazing commons of Europe (including those metaphorically referred to in Hardin's scenario), various rules existed to curb temptation to overgraze the commons in the pursuit of self-interest

For example, in the alpine village of Törbel studied by Netting (1981: 61), alpine pastures were held in common by members of parish (outsiders being excluded), and furthermore no one could graze more stock than he could house and feed through the winter

Thus, an extractive strategy of overstocking summer pastures and selling excess animals in the fall was discouraged by fact that one had to pay private cost of growing and harvesting winter fodder and building adequate barns; and in case people were tempted to cheat, any violators were fined a fixed amount per animal sold in the fall that had been pastured on the commons

2. Closer to home, lobster fisheries in Maine have been studied by anthropologist James Acheson, who found that even though particular fishing grounds are legally open access (state doesn't assign licensed fishermen to particular grounds), there is a de facto system of territories based on one's membership in a given fishing community

Although there is no legal basis for this, and lobstering areas are not bought and sold (hence not recognized as private property), anyone who tries to violate communal access restrictions ends up having their gear sabotaged in the night

As a result, 1) new fishermen can only enter the system if someone retires or dies, and 2) sustainable yield has persisted for generations (much better than in other areas with government-managed fisheries, though recently this is breaking down with increased turnover in population of coastal communities)

In fact, abundant evidence supports view that communal systems of ownership are often (not always!) better at avoiding resource overexploitation than are systems of state or private ownership that have been replacing them for last 500 yrs or more

For example, villagers in Thailand and Nepal have been charged with overcutting forests for firewood and timber, but in both cases this only became problem when forests were nationalized and thus taken out of local, communal control

In Nepal at least, recent steps have been taken to restore local control of forests, which appears to have ameliorated deforestation in some cases (but again, rapid population growth and flux in village membership may undermine this)

Similarly, in pre-modern Europe (including Törbel), local communities usually regulated use of communally-held forest lands, preventing excess cutting for firewood by rules that only dead wood could be gathered (from ground, or dead branches still on trees if they could be pulled down "by hook or by crook," not by saw)

To sum up, in these systems of communal ownership, access is controlled thru means other than private property on one hand, or large-scale governmental bureaucracy on the other; this access control is linked to rules and sanctions governing use, thus allowing resource management and averting any "tragedy of commons"

(This does not mean, however, that all small-scale societies live in harmony with their environment, and that resource depletion and environmental degradation due to tragedies of the commons never occurred in these cases--it just means that they were not inevitable, and that effective communal systems of management and land tenure often are possible and have occurred; we'll consider the evidence on conservation and ecological sustainability in small-scale societies later in the course)

Furthermore, historical evidence indicates that systems of private land ownership are often imposed on communities by powerful centralized governments or socioeconomic classes who stand to benefit from this at expense of the "common" folk (pardon the pun)

This true not just of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa, and elsewhere who had their communal land confiscated & small portions of it returned in family allotments (which often were and still are quickly sold to rich landowners by impoverished natives), but also of European peasantry

Indeed, Hardin's critics have pointed out the cruel irony of his reference to the grazing commons of England, since these seemed to have been utilized in a sustainable way for centuries, until they were fenced into private fields (via the Enclosure Act) by powerful interests who wanted to monopolize profitable commercial wool manufacture with the advent of the industrial revolution (spinning mills, etc.)

Far from being gratefully accepted as the only rational form of land rights, then, private land ownership is often violently resisted because it threatens long-standing political, economic, and social relations

Conversely, peasants have often resisted collectivization (e.g., in Soviet Union) not because desire for private ownership is part of "human nature," but because collectivization threatens their standard of living and their established social system; so we should not romanticize communal ownership nor assume it is the universal pattern in small-scale societies (it is not!)

Finally, let's briefly consider the view that private property is a more efficient means of organizing resource harvests and land ownership -- a very popular view in these days of "free market capitalism" (which incidentally often seems to work hand-in-glove with corporate welfare)

Getting beyond the ideologies of either side, key point I would make is that the alleged efficiency of private ownership is relative to technological & ecological factors -- it is not some iron law of economics

For example, even in our society, with its heavy emphasis on individual ownership & economic rationality, no one is foolish enough to argue that offshore fisheries should be regulated by dividing the open ocean into tracts owned by individuals or corporations -- costs of enforcing this would be far too high, and benefits (given mobility of fish resources) far too low

As with territoriality (which can be communal, corporate, or individual), private property is probably only economical under specific ecological and social conditions

In sum, the form of property ownership found in any particular society for any particular kind of land or other resource is a function of both social & ecological factors, and often responds quite readily to changes in these factors

This variability, and its social and ecological causes and consequences, are obscured by ideologies of romanticized communalism as readily as by those valorizing private ownership

References

Acheson, James M. (1975) The lobster fiefs: economic and ecological effects of territoriality in the Maine lobster industry. Human Ecology 3:183‑207.

Acheson, James M. (1988) The Lobster Gangs of Maine. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Bishop, Charles A. (1970) The emergence of hunting territories among the northern Ojibwa.  Ethnology 9: 1‑15.

Davies, Nicholas B. and Alastair I. Houston (1984) Territory economics.  In Behavioural Ecology:  An Evolutionary Approach, ed. J.B. Krebs and N.B. Davies, pp. 148‑69.  Oxford: Blackwell.

Dyson‑Hudson, Rada and Eric Alden Smith (1978) Human territoriality: an ecological reassessment. American Anthropologist 80:21‑41.

Feeny, David, et al. (1990) The tragedy of the commons: twenty‑two years later. Human Ecology 18:1‑19.

Hardin, Garrett (1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science 162:1243‑48.

Leacock, Eleanor B.  (1956) The Montagnais "Hunting Territory" and the Fur Trade.  American Anthropological Association,  Memoir No. 78.

Netting, Robert McC. (1981) Balancing on an Alp:  Ecological Change and Continuity in a Swiss Mountain Community.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ostrom, Elinor (1990) Governing the Commons:  The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.  New York: Cambridge University Press.

Taylor, Michael (1976) Anarchy and Cooperation.  Chichester: Wiley.