Self-Organisation, Self-Governance or Private Interest Government?

On March the fourth this year a report is published called “Materplan Toekomst IJsselmeervisserij” (Master Plan for the Future of fisheries in the IJsselmeer). This report tries to find a solution for the rapidly declining amount of fish who lives in the Ijsselmeer, the biggest lake of the Netherlands. Together with the some Dutch provinces,  an association which represent the professional fishermen who work in the IJsselmeer and nature organisations researches of the report came up with a drastic solution to increase the amount of fish to a sustainable level. The recommendation was to ban fisheries on scale fish in the IJsselmeer for the coming three years.

 

Many fishermen whose incomes are heavily dependent on what they catch in the IJsselmeer are opposed this recommendation. They do not believe that the decreasing amount of fish is caused by overfishing. They think it is unfair they are held responsible for that. In their opinion bad water quality, other predators are also responsible. Because the report do not mention these influences, the fishermen do not trust the outcomes of the report and its recommendation.  

 

This example of a depleting fish stock not only happens in the Netherlands, but everywhere around the world. When there are no institutions formal rules and regulations are made to control the amount of fish, the fish stock, following Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons, will in the end result in an empty sea where fishery is not possible anymore.

 

What we have seen in the classroom of the 23^rd of October, will also happens in real life. The game we have played consist of a few simple rules:

-          Each round is one year. Each team decides how many fish they want to catch. Write down this number and put it in your boat

-          Facilitator takes boats and gives fish randomly to teams until they are gone. Rest of teams receive nothing

-          You get back your boat + harvest. Write down your profit

-          The sea starts with the maximum number of fish: 50. Each year, the remaining fish are able to produce one new fish, with a maximum of 50.

 

Communication between teams was not possible. Because we were with six different teams, a sustainable yield per team was 4 fish. Sustainable in this sense is that every year to amount of fish in the sea remain 50 (50/2=25, 25/6=4,167 à 4). If all boats will catch more than 4 fishes, the fish stock will decrease. Eventually there will be no fish in the water anymore, and the fishermen lose their jobs.  After just four rounds of this game this actually happens in during the lecture. This conclude that self-organisation, in this case, would not be the right solution for a sustainable fish stock.

 

To prevent what have happened in the IJsselmeer, a solution is needed to maintain the fish stock to 50. Creating awareness among the fishermen is the most straight forward solution. When the fishermen are aware that catching more than 4 fishes, will let to the depletion of the fish stock, than the fishermen will only catch four. But if all fishermen will catch 4 fishes, there is still 1 fish remaining to catch and still be sustainable. But when all the fishermen thinks this way, than the amount of fish will still decrease. Therefore, fishermen have to trust each other that no one will catch the 5^th fish. Or they fishermen have to come to a mutual decision which of the fishermen is allowed to catch to 5^th fish. This could happen under a self-governing system. But the problem is that then all the fishermen have to trust each other. For this reason self-governance would not in the long run work. Perhaps an external controlling system could tackle this problem.

 

When an external controlling body takes care of sustaining the fish stock, this system will could private interest government. Now, fishermen do not have to trust each other because an external body which has no interest in benefiting one fisherman above the other. When a fisherman is not following the rules, this body has the authority to put sanctions on the him. These sanctions has to be high enough that cheating would not be worth it for the fishermen. Also the chance for getting caught for cheating has to be high enough. Now the problem is how to control the fishermen for not catching the 5^th fish without approval from the external body. One solution is to send an observer to each boat to control the fishermen. But what are to costs to do that? And what will happen when to observer and the fisherman will become friends because they spend 24/7 on the same boat. This could cause an entanglement of interest and the observer would not be neutral anymore.

 

For this reason private interest government could only work  if the external body itself is robust enough to control the fishermen. If that is not the case, it will be very difficult to sustain the fish stock. When it is almost to late drastic measures like the in the IJsselmeer, has to be taken to get the fish stock back on a sustainable level. But it always will be a struggle between short term gains against long term gains and individual interest again collective interests.