“A classic problem in environmental economics is the tragedy of the commons. The solution to it lies in property rights and supply management,” said Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, in a speech at Lloyd’s of London in London, UK, on Sept. 29, 2015.
“Climate change is the Tragedy of the Horizon,” he continued.
“We don’t need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors—imposing a cost on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix.”
The phrase “tragedy of the commons” has been used in economic theory since the early 19th century to describe how individual greed depletes common goods. The solution to that irresponsibility, as Carney noted, was a combination of individual property rights and public responsibilities. This balance reflected the importance of the private and public spheres acknowledged since time immemorial.
A political scientist would add that property rights had advanced the political rights and freedoms of the commoner as well as the common good. It is no accident that property rights are concurrent with enfranchisement and the abolition of slavery. Ditto wealth creation and innovation.
The fact that Canada’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains no recognition of property rights is thus no small omission. It has made Canada a beachhead for Carney’s unbalanced globalist supply management approach to avoiding tragedy.
There are two things worth noting about Carney’s speech that are alarming beyond a lack of balance. Firstly, Carney, a prominent member of the World Economic Forum, like many in Canada’s Liberal government, used the analogy of a “horizon” to magnify tragedy to infinity. Doom is a pretty strong take on “tragedy.” Secondly, it effectively dooms the private sphere of individual freedom and responsibility. States of emergency, as we have seen for the past two years, are public declarations that limit and regulate private action through technology.
According to all of their bad ideas, they believe they are legitimized to act as gods, determining good and evil for others.
And thereby they impose a tragedy upon the commons.
Canada’s Mark Carney’s “tragedy of the horizon” first played out in Canada’s House of Commons.
It is unsurprising that the Ontario government seized the protesters’ private property according to powers temporarily conferred upon him by the mere declaration of an “emergency.” It is likewise unsurprising that the banking sector was co-opted to seize and freeze the financial assets of those involved in the dissent of the truckers’ convoy.
It is also unsurprising that both a digital currency and a digital ID are prominent among the plans of the international banking system. These will allow private property to be controlled by a central authority that directs from the “supply management” side of the equation in line with the U.N.’s Social Development Goals.
The exorbitant enrichment of the technocratic elites is not a sign of their greed, but of their benevolence toward the earth and the future. The power they have gained and the current misery the commons have suffered is nothing compared to the future good in which all, however much fewer in number they will be, will enjoy. It will be “sustainable.”
After all, as Klaus Schwab has noted, “in future you will own nothing,” and “you’ll be happy.”
Rumours are that Bay Street alerted the prime minister of a bank run in Canada like none seen since the 1930s. The importance of the public trust of responsible individuals had escaped his present calculation, because the elites were looking forward to the time when it would no longer matter.
It won’t matter much longer. The window of opportunity to act against the mandarins in charge is closing fast.
The tragedy of the horizon is destroying the commons.
Scott Masson is a public intellectual and an associate professor of English literature. For more information on Masson, visit ScottMasson.ca and YouTube.com/c/DrScottMasson
