|Peter Boettke|
For sometime I have argued that our site should ban all anonymous and pseudonym posts. Others in our group would ban all comments (as Greg Mankiw has done), while others like the give and take in the comments section and want to keep an open policy (with the only constraint being civility; as Marginal Revolution does).
Let me state my reasons simply --- they are "economic" reasons, not an attempt to limit criticisms. I am all in favor of critical dialogue, but among people who face the appropriate incentives. That science should hurt, was an important argument made by Jonathan Rauch in Kindly Inquisitors. Freedom of inquiry is always disciplined by accountability, and for accountability to work you have to be able to identify the parties.
If there is no identity, and thus no accountability, then the "resource" will be depleted in a sub-optimal manner. To get a more optimal use of the "resource" we need to assign accountability, and institute a policy of sanctions for violation of those rules of resource use and social interaction.
But this caricature of the blogosphere might not be accurate. Perhaps blogs serve a different purpose and thus what I see as depletion on the resource may not be a depletion at all. Our group here at The Coordination Problem is divided on the issue.
So rather than worry about a solution for our "problem", I propose turning this into a contest. I will give a free copy of my forthcoming The Handbook of Contemporary Austrian Economics (Edward Elgar, 2010) to the student (graduate or undergraduate) who writes an essay addressing the question "Is the Blogosphere a Common-Pool Resource?" I will ask my fellow bloggers at The Coordination Problem to help me judge the entries. The book is due out this fall, so lets pick an October 15th deadline for submission, and an announcement of the winner on November 1st. Please submit entries via email to [email protected] and use as the subject line: Blogosphere Contest Entry.
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