---
slug: common_pool_resource
name: Common-Pool Resource
one_liner: "A third mode of governing a shared, subtractable, hard-to-exclude resource: neither state/public provision nor private/market ownership, but a bounded community that crafts, monitors, and self-enforces its own access-and-withdrawal rules — the commons as a functioning institution, not a doomed tragedy."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, economic, social]
origin_domain: institutional_economics
alternate_origin_domains: [political_economy, ecology, commons_studies, digital_governance]
aliases: [commons, community_self_governance, ostrom_commons, cpr_governance, third_coordination_mode]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-14 lattice/symmetry completion) — the THIRD cell of the governance-mode triad {state/public provision, market/private ownership, commons/community self-governance}. Discovered 2026-07-04. MODERATE hold (verified absent as a POSITIVE institution; established scientific name — Elinor Ostrom, `Governing the Commons` 1990, 2009 Nobel). CRITICAL DISTINCTION: the corpus already has `tragedy_of_the_commons` and `anti_commons_tragedy` (the FAILURE modes) but NOT the commons as a functioning governance institution — this stub is the positive-institution counterpart, and the whole keep/cut turns on that failure-mode ≠ institution split. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-04; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `tragedy_of_the_commons` (the present failure mode) and `anti_commons_tragedy`, `collective_action`, and any public/private governance primes; confirm it is a genuinely distinct positive institution (self-governance as a third coordination mode) and not merely the inverse of `tragedy_of_the_commons` or a restatement of `collective_action`; draw a contrast/sibling edge to `tragedy_of_the_commons` + `anti_commons_tragedy` and cluster the {public, private, commons} triad; write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1/v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 3
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 3
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — a shared, subtractable, hard-to-exclude resource governed by a bounded community through its own crafted, monitored, self-enforced access-and-withdrawal rules, as a third coordination mode distinct from both state provision and private ownership — is substantially substrate-neutral but carries an institutional-economics residue that keeps it off the top of the scale. Domain_breadth scores 4 because the same third-mode structure recurs across genuinely unlike substrates: natural-resource commons (fisheries, pastures, aquifers, forests), digital and knowledge commons (Wikipedia, open-source codebases, open data), urban commons, and club goods. Structural abstraction is 3 because the core — Ostrom''s design-principle anatomy (subtractability + exclusion difficulty, a bounded appropriator community, locally crafted rules, graduated sanctions plus community monitoring, nested governance) — is a real repeatable form but still leans on human-institutional vocabulary (rules, sanctions, monitoring, community) that does not fully dissolve into pure structure. Transfer evidence is strong: the construct is independently instantiated and named across natural-resource governance, digital/knowledge commons, and institutional economics.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: tragedy_of_the_commons
  similarity: 0.6
structural_framed:
  label: mixed
  aggregate: 0.5
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.55, evaluative_weight: 0.4, institutional_origin: 0.7, human_practice_bound: 0.55, import_vs_recognize: 0.45}
  rationale: 'Reads mixed. The third-coordination-mode structure — a bounded community self-governing a subtractable, hard-to-exclude resource through crafted, self-enforced rules — does travel cleanly from natural-resource commons into digital and knowledge commons (open source, Wikipedia, open data), which pushes it toward structural. But the prime is born of institutional economics and stays partly bound to human-institutional practice: its load-bearing anatomy (rules, monitoring, graduated sanctions, appropriator community, nested governance) imports governance vocabulary rather than being purely recognized, and the anti-tragedy claim carries a mild normative/evaluative cast. Institutional_origin is high (Ostrom, political economy) and human_practice_bound is moderate, so the candidate sits in the framed-leaning middle rather than at either pole.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Common-Pool Resource

## Core Idea

A common-pool resource governed as a *commons* is a shared resource — a fishery, a pasture, an aquifer, a forest, a knowledge base, an open-source codebase — that a *bounded community* governs through its own crafted, monitored, and self-enforced rules. It is a *third coordination mode*: neither state/public provision nor private/market ownership, but a distinct institutional path in which the appropriators themselves are the governors. The good has the defining common-pool anatomy — high *subtractability* (one user's withdrawal diminishes what remains for others) combined with *difficulty of exclusion* (keeping non-members out is costly or infeasible) — the exact combination that market pricing and private title handle poorly and that pure open access handles not at all.

The load-bearing structure is Ostrom's design-principle anatomy, and it is what distinguishes the commons-as-institution from both of its neighbors. (1) A *bounded community of appropriators* with a defined boundary of who may draw on the resource. (2) *Locally crafted access-and-withdrawal rules* matched to local conditions, made by the users rather than imposed from outside. (3) *Graduated sanctions* and *monitoring by the community itself* — the enforcement is endogenous, not delegated to an external state. (4) *Nested governance* — small units embedded in larger ones for resources that span scales. The central structural claim (Ostrom, against Hardin) is that the commons is *not* doomed to tragedy: self-governance is a viable third path, empirically distinct from and sometimes superior to both privatization and state control.

Read structurally, the same third-mode shape recurs across unlike substrates. In *natural-resource governance* it is the classic case — inshore fisheries, mountain pastures, irrigation aquifers, community forests — where user-crafted quotas and mutual monitoring sustain a shared stock across generations. In *digital and knowledge commons* it is Wikipedia, open-source codebases, and open-data pools, where a bounded contributor community self-enforces norms over a subtractable-in-attention, hard-to-exclude shared artifact. In *urban commons and club goods* it is community-managed shared space and membership-bounded shared facilities. Across these, the shared abstract form is a subtractable, hard-to-exclude resource held by a bounded community that makes, monitors, and enforces its own rules — the commons as a functioning institution, of which the natural-resource case is one species.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 14 (lattice / symmetry completion) as the *third cell* of the governance-mode triad {state/public provision, market/private ownership, commons/community self-governance}. The corpus already carries the two classic poles and — critically — *both failure modes of the commons* (`tragedy_of_the_commons`, `anti_commons_tragedy`), but not the commons as a *functioning positive institution*. Surfaced on 2026-07-04. Established scientific construct: Elinor Ostrom, *Governing the Commons* (1990), for which she shared the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; the design-principles framework is canonical in institutional economics and commons studies. Claimed siblings span natural-resource commons (fisheries, forests, water), digital and knowledge commons (Wikipedia, open source, open data), urban commons, and club goods. Verified absent from the corpus *as a positive institution*. Manifest: MODERATE hold.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: the prime *completes the {public, private, commons} governance triad* where the corpus currently holds only the two classic poles plus the commons *failure* mode; it is a *canonical, named construct* (Ostrom, Nobel), not a proposer coinage; and it is highly relevant cross-domain, spanning natural and digital commons. The RISKS Kurt should weigh: (1) **the strongest objection — that it is already covered by `tragedy_of_the_commons`.** The proposer argues *strongly* that it is NOT: `tragedy_of_the_commons` names what happens *without* governance (unmanaged open access collapses under individually rational overuse), whereas the commons-as-institution is the *Ostromian solution* — a self-governing institution with its own distinct anatomy of bounded community, crafted rules, monitoring, and graduated sanctions. A failure mode and a functioning institution are different structures; naming only the pathology while omitting the institution is exactly the gap this candidate fills. (2) **Overlap with `collective_action`** — the commons is one specific *solution shape* for a collective-action problem, not the general problem; it should attach to `collective_action` by specialization, not merge into it. (3) **MIXED framing** — the prime carries institutional-economics vocabulary and a mild anti-tragedy normative cast, so it is not fully structural; owner may prefer to keep it in the framed/mixed stratum. Sharp keep/cut question: *is "the commons as a self-governing institution" a distinct prime, or is it just the inverse of `tragedy_of_the_commons`?* — the proposer's answer is that the positive institution has load-bearing structure (Ostrom's design principles) that the failure mode does not name, so it is a genuine third-cell addition, not a mirror image.

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `tragedy_of_the_commons` (nearest neighbor, the present failure mode), `anti_commons_tragedy` (the opposite failure mode), `collective_action` (the general problem this specializes), and any public/private governance primes to confirm no collapse. If kept: draw explicit *contrast / sibling* edges to `tragedy_of_the_commons` and `anti_commons_tragedy` (functioning institution vs. its two failure modes) and a *specialization* edge from `collective_action`, and cluster the {public, private, commons} governance triad as a family so the third cell is visibly paired with the other two coordination modes. Add a missing-edge note flagging the institution-vs-failure-mode relationship to the two tragedy primes explicitly. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
