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The Anticommons

Posted on August 05, 2008

Can too much ownership cause gridlock and the underuse and waste of resourses?:The Permission Problem, by James Surowiecki: In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies including one owned by Orville Wright that held patents on the various components that made a plane go. No one could manufacture aircraft without fear of being hauled into court. The First World War got the industry started again, because Congress realized that something neede...

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Tags:
congress , economy , environmental economics , wind , wind power
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