Liberal Commons

= In “The Liberal Commons,” (with Hanoch Dagan), Michael Heller explores declining black landownership in America and offers a new theory of commons property. 110 Yale L.J. 549 (2001)

URL = http://yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/content-pages/the-liberal-commons/

Abstract

"Must we choose between the benefits of cooperative use of scarce resources and our liberal commitments to autonomy and exit? No. Well-tailored law can mediate between community and liberty, between commons and private property. Our theory of the liberal commons provides a framework to reconcile these seemingly contradictory moral imperatives and analytic categories. In our definition, an institution succeeds as a liberal commons when it enables a limited group of people to capture the economic and social benefits from cooperation, while also ensuring autonomy to individuals through a secure right to exit. This Article shows how current theories and categories obscure the most difficult tradeoffs in managing commons resources; then details our liberal commons model comprising the decisionmaking spheres of individual dominion, democratic self-governance, and cooperation-enhancing exit; and finally presents a case study to show how our approach can enrich legal and social inquiry."