'Tragedy of the Commons' as a System-Generating Civilization Problem and Methods of Overcoming it

Abstract

The article examines “the tragedy of the commons” as a system-generating problem of the contemporary civilization that among other things leads to the emergence of manifestations of “the iron law of oligarchy” by Michels in socio-political organizations as principal subjects that form the state government bodies in the countries of western democracy. This, as well as negative development tendencies in nation states, brings about the loss of efficiency of the traditional instrument for tackling “the tragedy of the commons”, i.e., representative democracy that in the information society turns into its opposite as a result of manipulative influence on rank-and-file members of socio-political organizations and voters. “The tragedy of the commons” leads to the aggravation of the major contradiction of the contemporary human civilization, that between the interests of corporations as the most effective economic structures and general social interests. Besides, the main task of state governmental institutions, which consists in the effective protection of social interests and balancing them against the interests of the multitude of corporations, remains unsettled or is settled not in favor of the society due to the fact that these institutions are defenseless to the systematic influence of structures with powerful financial and organizational resources.The article suggests a concept of replacing representative democracy as a traditional instrument for overcoming the complex of problems spawned by “the tragedy of the commons” in socio-political organizations with direct democracy, or to be more precise, turning general meetings of regional centers and the central body of the organization into subjects capable to act with absolute legitimacy, able to effectively manage, appropriate and distribute the common resource, systematically control leaders elected to representative and executive positions, successfully thwart all attempts at external manipulation. General meetings of the regional centers and the central body of socio-political organizations acquire subjectness on condition of their restructuring, i.e., substitution of variable structure – dynamic network for the hierarchical structure. The former regulates and maintains free of conflicts the interaction of all its members by their cyclic restructuring into little groups of different functional designation according to a certain algorithm that ensures production, coordination and taking of collective decisions by the members from the positions of “equal-to-equal” and their implementation in a complex of temporary hierarchical project, executive and process groups headed by executors in charge.