Public Staplers
Is there any better example of the tragedy of the commons than staplers in public places?
People must be thinking: "Hmmm, this seems like an awful lot of pages to staple together. I wouldn't try it with my stapler. But if the stapler jams, somebody else has to deal with it--not me."
Normally, I'd blame the structure of incentives in a case like this one. But library staplers seem ill-suited for well-defined property rights (high transaction costs). So I blame the moral savagery of my fellow law students. Am I right?
People must be thinking: "Hmmm, this seems like an awful lot of pages to staple together. I wouldn't try it with my stapler. But if the stapler jams, somebody else has to deal with it--not me."
Normally, I'd blame the structure of incentives in a case like this one. But library staplers seem ill-suited for well-defined property rights (high transaction costs). So I blame the moral savagery of my fellow law students. Am I right?
posted by Garrett at 8:26 PM
2 Comments:
one might make an persuasive analogy to toilet seat covers!
I think another part of the problem is my decidedly less friendly temperment around exam time. I'm never happy to find a jammed stapler (or a wet toilet seat), but as my time becomes more scarce, the psychic costs of that jammed stapler spike so high that, well, I might just write a post about it.
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