Let's Recommon IT

Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems

Ostrom, Elinor (2010). American Economic Review 100(3): 641–672

Threads: Institutions

Summary

Ostrom’s Nobel lecture (delivered 2009). Traces how the Bloomington workshop moved from studying police and water governance in metropolitan areas to developing the IAD framework. It argues that the market/state dichotomy misses the many polycentric arrangements, with multiple overlapping centers of decision-making, through which people actually govern themselves.

Why it’s useful here

  • The best short overview of how IAD developed, and a good first read before Understanding Institutional Diversity.
  • Polycentricity fits federated tech well: many independently governed instances (Fediverse, Matrix, mesh nodes) cooperating under shared protocols.
  • Challenges the assumption that the only alternatives to Big Tech are regulation (state) or competition (market).

Key ideas

  • Polycentric governance
  • Trust and reciprocity as the core of collective action
  • Experimental and field evidence against the “rational egoist” model
  • ostrom-2005-understanding-institutional-diversity.md
  • ostrom-walker-gardner-1992-covenants-with-and-without-a-sword.md
  • doctorow-2023-internet-con.md

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