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The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
25 new runways would eliminate most air travel delays in America. Why can’t we build them? 50 patent owners are blocking a major drug maker from creating a cancer cure. Why won’t they get out of the way? 90% of our broadcast spectrum sits idle while American cell phone service lags far behind Japan’s and Korea’s. Why are we wasting our airwaves? 98% of African American–owned farms have been sold off over the last century. Why can’t we stop the loss? All these problems are really the same problem—one whose solution would jump-start innovation, release trillions in productivity, and help revive our slumping economy.Every so often an idea comes along that transforms our understanding of how the world works. Michael Heller has discovered a market dynamic that no one knew existed. Usually, private ownership creates wealth, but too much ownership has the opposite effect—it creates gridlock. When too many people own pieces of one thing, whether a physical or intellectual resource, cooperation breaks down, wealth disappears, and everybody loses. Heller’s paradox is at the center of The Gridlock Economy. Today’s leading edge of innovation—in high tech, biomedicine, music, film, real estate—requires the assembly of separately owned resources. But gridlock is blocking economic growth all along the wealth creation frontier.
A thousand scholars have applied and verified Heller’s paradox. Now he takes readers on a lively tour of gridlock battlegrounds. Heller zips from medieval robber barons to modern-day broadcast spectrum squatters; from Mississippi courts selling African-American family farms to troubling New York City land confiscations; and from Chesapeake Bay oyster pirates to today’s gene patent and music mash-up outlaws. Each tale offers insights into how to spot gridlock in operation and how we can overcome it.
The Gridlock Economy is a startling, accessible biography of an idea. Nothing is inevitable about gridlock. It results from choices we make about how to control the resources we value most. We can unlock the grid; this book shows us where to start.
A thousand scholars have applied and verified Heller’s paradox. Now he takes readers on a lively tour of gridlock battlegrounds. Heller zips from medieval robber barons to modern-day broadcast spectrum squatters; from Mississippi courts selling African-American family farms to troubling New York City land confiscations; and from Chesapeake Bay oyster pirates to today’s gene patent and music mash-up outlaws. Each tale offers insights into how to spot gridlock in operation and how we can overcome it.
The Gridlock Economy is a startling, accessible biography of an idea. Nothing is inevitable about gridlock. It results from choices we make about how to control the resources we value most. We can unlock the grid; this book shows us where to start.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
14 people are currently reading
336 people want to read
About the author
Michael A. Heller
5 books22 followersMichael Heller is the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law at Columbia Law School. He teaches property, land use, and real estate law and has served as the school’s vice dean for intellectual life.
Heller has been a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law (2006-07), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2004-05), visiting professor at NYU Law School (2001), Olin Senior Fellow at Columbia (2000), and visiting lecturer at Yale Law School (1991). From 1994 to 2002, Heller taught at the University of Michigan Law School where he received the L. Hart Wright Award for excellence in teaching. He co-directed corporate governance research at the University of Michigan Business School’s William Davidson Institute and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. During 1990-94, Heller worked at the World Bank on post-socialist property law transition. He clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Harvard College.
Heller has been a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law (2006-07), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2004-05), visiting professor at NYU Law School (2001), Olin Senior Fellow at Columbia (2000), and visiting lecturer at Yale Law School (1991). From 1994 to 2002, Heller taught at the University of Michigan Law School where he received the L. Hart Wright Award for excellence in teaching. He co-directed corporate governance research at the University of Michigan Business School’s William Davidson Institute and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. During 1990-94, Heller worked at the World Bank on post-socialist property law transition. He clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Harvard College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 13, 2011
When I saw the surprisingly low average rating and the critical reviews of this book on Goodreads, I thought that Heller might be being slimed by the Internet Zombie Army of Libertarian Trolls for the heresy of daring to suggest that more more more private property (the bone-chilling cry of IZALT) wasn't always the answer to all of the world's problems. But alas, the criticisms are justified. Heller's style gets in the way of his good ideas. Like others, I was distracted by Heller's fondness for “I” and “me”, and returning to the same anecdotes again and again. Also alarming was his apparent conviction that there is not enough jargon in the world, so he must feverishly make more.
Still, the next time you see a beautiful historic urban structure falling down, wait needlessly for hours at an airport, or wonder why US cell phone service is mediocre, you may wish to consider plowing through the repeated anecdotes and manufactured jargon in this book, because Heller has a good case to make about public and private ownership.
I would also like to praise whomever is responsible for this newish book costing $4.41 for a Kindle download (as of 13 March 2011).
Hour-long November 2009 interview with Heller about this book available for free streaming or downloading at
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009...
Still, the next time you see a beautiful historic urban structure falling down, wait needlessly for hours at an airport, or wonder why US cell phone service is mediocre, you may wish to consider plowing through the repeated anecdotes and manufactured jargon in this book, because Heller has a good case to make about public and private ownership.
I would also like to praise whomever is responsible for this newish book costing $4.41 for a Kindle download (as of 13 March 2011).
Hour-long November 2009 interview with Heller about this book available for free streaming or downloading at
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009...
December 31, 2008
How full of himself is Michael Heller? Well, for starters, he names the central irony that underlies his book the "Heller Paradox" . . . The major problem with this book is that Heller spends far too much time placing him at the center of what is a novel but not very complicated idea, rather than elaborating with examples. More specifically, he doesn't elaborate with enough DIFFERENT examples. We hear about storefronts in Russia five times before he eventually devotes an entire chapter to the example, and by the time you reach the chapter, you already know what the conclusion is because the concept isn't difficult to grasp.
Indeed, Heller, like a latter-day Adam naming the animals, spends almost all of his time creating an entirely unnecessary new vocabulary that is just a little too winking and self-indulgent. I entered this book very prepared to jump on-board with the concept, but I found that the actual discussion wasn't much more enlightening than the description of the book on the inside flap. It was like going to a movie only to find out that not only are the best parts of the movie in the trailer, but the rest of it is completely annoying.
For all of Heller's pomp, there is no reason this should be a book rather than a 70, nay 60, page law review article. But hey, at least the cover is clever.
Indeed, Heller, like a latter-day Adam naming the animals, spends almost all of his time creating an entirely unnecessary new vocabulary that is just a little too winking and self-indulgent. I entered this book very prepared to jump on-board with the concept, but I found that the actual discussion wasn't much more enlightening than the description of the book on the inside flap. It was like going to a movie only to find out that not only are the best parts of the movie in the trailer, but the rest of it is completely annoying.
For all of Heller's pomp, there is no reason this should be a book rather than a 70, nay 60, page law review article. But hey, at least the cover is clever.
July 6, 2011
This was a great book, showing how intellectual property, strictly defined, actually destroys culture and hinders growth. He argues that when too many people own too many parts of one piece of property (say, a genetic patent), it makes development of treatments for diseases vastly more costly and slow. There is a treatment for (I believe) Alzheimers sitting on the R&D shelf of a pharmaceutical company somewhere, unable to be produced because it relied on several other patented components, and the creators will not release the right to use what they invented. Thus, people languish when a treatment exists because of the selfishness of a few.
He deals with some other problems too, most notably in television stations, cell phone frequencies and airports. A mere twenty-five new airports across our country would eliminate all flight delays, but the building projects are stalled by too much ownership of the land needed to build. Most of the frequencies for television broadcast and cell phone use lay utterly unused - because some corporations have bought up those frequencies and won't let anyone use them, to stall out competition.
Heller coins the term "tragedy of the anti-commons." When a resource is being overused, it is called a "tragedy of the commons." But when too many people control one object, we have a "tragedy of the anti-commons, which is the tragedy of *underuse*.
He deals with some other problems too, most notably in television stations, cell phone frequencies and airports. A mere twenty-five new airports across our country would eliminate all flight delays, but the building projects are stalled by too much ownership of the land needed to build. Most of the frequencies for television broadcast and cell phone use lay utterly unused - because some corporations have bought up those frequencies and won't let anyone use them, to stall out competition.
Heller coins the term "tragedy of the anti-commons." When a resource is being overused, it is called a "tragedy of the commons." But when too many people control one object, we have a "tragedy of the anti-commons, which is the tragedy of *underuse*.
December 2, 2020
The tragedy of the commons is well understood and its effects are clearly seen as resources are overused. But Heller noticed there are also anticommons whose effects are not salient. Lack of ownership creates incentives for overuse, but too much fragmented ownership prevents resources from being used creating underuse. Too many people owning pieces of the resources reduces the ability to coordinate each individual piece which prevents the utilization of the resources. Each owner believes their piece is important for the whole and require a high price to use or buy the piece, but the total cost in trying to assemble each individual piece can be higher than the potential gain from the whole resources, thereby preventing the creation of wealth. Each piece is not worth much individually, but assembling them into wealth creation is can be onerous.
The anticommons is the term for overwhelming fragmented ownership, as apposed to the commons when there is no coherent ownership. Much like commons can be governed to prevent overuse of resources, anticommons needs a set of tools to enable underused resources to be used. Much of this book is about making the covert cost on society due to anticommons, overt. Naming it tragedy of the anticommons enables a language to be built to facilitate a discussion of the wasted wealth and lives lost due to the anticommons, and facilitates the creation of solutions to anticommons.
Anticommons impose a cost to society in usually unseen ways. Innovations that innovators cannot make due to an inability to obtain all relevant patents with the expectancy that even then, there will be a potential legal dispute. Pharmaceutical industry has created many life savings drugs but cannot market them as it requires patents held my many who want more for their small piece of the drug than it is worth. Usually, anticommons can be seen in relation to other countries such as the more technologically advanced countries have better internet connections because the US spectrum bandwidth anticommons creates a lot of dead air. What it takes is a single owner of an anticommon to prevent wealth creation for everyone.
The solution to the anticommon problem is not collectivization, but tools to reassemble ownership for efficient use. Ownership that is not too centralized but not too fragmented. Much like commons can be governed to prevent overuse, anticommons do not by necessity create tragedy (nor are they the only source of gridlock). Governments can use eminent domain to assemble rights, but that carries many risks. Private corporations who are part of the innovators submit their patents for public use to try to have other do the same which reduces the costs to innovate, but corporations cannot be readily relied upon to give up valuable assets.
This is an eloquent book in which the cases presented support a deeper understanding of the tragedy of the anticommons. No easy solution is given as property rights are complex social constructs. The complexity of the issues are given their space.
The anticommons is the term for overwhelming fragmented ownership, as apposed to the commons when there is no coherent ownership. Much like commons can be governed to prevent overuse of resources, anticommons needs a set of tools to enable underused resources to be used. Much of this book is about making the covert cost on society due to anticommons, overt. Naming it tragedy of the anticommons enables a language to be built to facilitate a discussion of the wasted wealth and lives lost due to the anticommons, and facilitates the creation of solutions to anticommons.
Anticommons impose a cost to society in usually unseen ways. Innovations that innovators cannot make due to an inability to obtain all relevant patents with the expectancy that even then, there will be a potential legal dispute. Pharmaceutical industry has created many life savings drugs but cannot market them as it requires patents held my many who want more for their small piece of the drug than it is worth. Usually, anticommons can be seen in relation to other countries such as the more technologically advanced countries have better internet connections because the US spectrum bandwidth anticommons creates a lot of dead air. What it takes is a single owner of an anticommon to prevent wealth creation for everyone.
The solution to the anticommon problem is not collectivization, but tools to reassemble ownership for efficient use. Ownership that is not too centralized but not too fragmented. Much like commons can be governed to prevent overuse, anticommons do not by necessity create tragedy (nor are they the only source of gridlock). Governments can use eminent domain to assemble rights, but that carries many risks. Private corporations who are part of the innovators submit their patents for public use to try to have other do the same which reduces the costs to innovate, but corporations cannot be readily relied upon to give up valuable assets.
This is an eloquent book in which the cases presented support a deeper understanding of the tragedy of the anticommons. No easy solution is given as property rights are complex social constructs. The complexity of the issues are given their space.
November 3, 2016
I was attracted to this book because of the serious doubts I have about whether patents work or not. However, the patent system and underlying philosophy is not really discussed. I could (or should) have been alarmed, since the author is a law professor. This means that the problem of this book is purely approached from a legal perspective and not so much a philosophical one.
The basic problem the author deals with is that fragmented private ownership of a single resource can lead to a gridlock, for example: dividing up a big field op grass into tiny pieces leads to a situation where sheep cannot freely graze because each individual owner might object. According to him this leads to an "underuse" of resources, as compared to overuse (of publicly owned resources, where there is an incentive to e.g. over-fish) and "optimal use" (where private ownership does work). Here, the author assumes that everything has a certain price and can be measured. We already know that this is of course not possible: many unforeseen costs and hidden benefits may arise.
One main criticism I have is that the author compares two completely different kind of property: on one hand creative patents and the other hand physical properties like land and real estate. From a legal perspective these might be similar, but on a meta level I find property rights on a certain gene or chromosome much more difficult to defend than the property of a piece of land.
The author invents underuse and gridlocks where I do not see them. One example is the supposed value that was added when the New York Times HQ moved into a new building in Manhattan, after expropriating of many separate landowners by the city of New York. Heller assumes that the small landowners were underusing their land, while the NYT would optimize its value, justifying this by putting a price on the value increase. I strongly disagree: many separate small businesses can actually turn out to be more valuable on the long term than a newspaper HQ, a la Jane Jacobs. Fragmentation might prevent intrusion of private rights and could make societies more resilient against big ideas with unforeseen and disastrous effects. Underuse and optimization are here completely subjective ideas.
Finally, no real solutions are provided to his self-proclaimed problem, except for some simplification of regulations and call for cooperation and philanthropy. No meta-idea on how to deal with "the problem" is discussed. In my opinion, it's not so much the fragmentation as such that creates underuse, but the legal foundations; however this is not discussed.
https://informediarioes.wordpress.com...
The basic problem the author deals with is that fragmented private ownership of a single resource can lead to a gridlock, for example: dividing up a big field op grass into tiny pieces leads to a situation where sheep cannot freely graze because each individual owner might object. According to him this leads to an "underuse" of resources, as compared to overuse (of publicly owned resources, where there is an incentive to e.g. over-fish) and "optimal use" (where private ownership does work). Here, the author assumes that everything has a certain price and can be measured. We already know that this is of course not possible: many unforeseen costs and hidden benefits may arise.
One main criticism I have is that the author compares two completely different kind of property: on one hand creative patents and the other hand physical properties like land and real estate. From a legal perspective these might be similar, but on a meta level I find property rights on a certain gene or chromosome much more difficult to defend than the property of a piece of land.
The author invents underuse and gridlocks where I do not see them. One example is the supposed value that was added when the New York Times HQ moved into a new building in Manhattan, after expropriating of many separate landowners by the city of New York. Heller assumes that the small landowners were underusing their land, while the NYT would optimize its value, justifying this by putting a price on the value increase. I strongly disagree: many separate small businesses can actually turn out to be more valuable on the long term than a newspaper HQ, a la Jane Jacobs. Fragmentation might prevent intrusion of private rights and could make societies more resilient against big ideas with unforeseen and disastrous effects. Underuse and optimization are here completely subjective ideas.
Finally, no real solutions are provided to his self-proclaimed problem, except for some simplification of regulations and call for cooperation and philanthropy. No meta-idea on how to deal with "the problem" is discussed. In my opinion, it's not so much the fragmentation as such that creates underuse, but the legal foundations; however this is not discussed.
https://informediarioes.wordpress.com...
July 14, 2018
Super compelling thesis: while the creation and protection of property rights is vital in creating wealth, there can be a problem of too much property rights, when any fragmented or minority property owner can block overall development, thus causing gridlock. It's the opposite of the tragedy of the commons, where the lack of property ownership leads to overuse. The tragedy of the anticommons occurs when there are too many property owners who lead to underuse.
This type of gridlock happens everywhere: it's why 90% of the airwaves are dead air while tiny slivers of bandwidth are highly used, why only one airport has been built in the U.S. since 1975 in a country where 25 new runways would solve most delay issues, why African-American farm ownership is 98% lower today compared to a hundred years ago, why drugs can't be developed, why TV shows can't be released on DVD. Heller points out the common cause and it's extremely compelling.
I get why this book gets negative reviews - his writing is a little self-centered and for such a short book it's oddly repetitive. But the basic idea I think is absolutely true and important.
This type of gridlock happens everywhere: it's why 90% of the airwaves are dead air while tiny slivers of bandwidth are highly used, why only one airport has been built in the U.S. since 1975 in a country where 25 new runways would solve most delay issues, why African-American farm ownership is 98% lower today compared to a hundred years ago, why drugs can't be developed, why TV shows can't be released on DVD. Heller points out the common cause and it's extremely compelling.
I get why this book gets negative reviews - his writing is a little self-centered and for such a short book it's oddly repetitive. But the basic idea I think is absolutely true and important.
October 15, 2008
Nicely done. Heller summarizes his research into "anti-commons"--the problem that arises when resources that are most efficient in some minimum quantity (like land) are divided into parcels that make them economically useless. The trouble with an anti-commons is that the process is asymmetrical: it is very easy to fragment land (or intellectual property) but very difficult to re-assemble it. The result is the "gridlock" in the title. When "too many people own too little of too much", houses don't get built, drugs don't get brought to market, cultural innovations fail to appear, and so on. In land markets, gridlock can occur in two ways. First, too many people might own small parcels of land. Second, too many agencies might have regulatory control over land, making development difficult even for owners who control an economically viable parcel. Thus an anti-commons can be both physical and legal. Heller writes in an accessible style, convincingly demonstrates the real-world costs of gridlock, and offers some potential solutions.
July 10, 2009
I'm divided about how I feel about this book. In some ways, I don't think that Heller did a thorough job of really explaining his proposed solutions to what is indeed a very thorny problem. On the other hand, his ideas keep popping up in my head, and I've started to see real world situations that I had never noticed before which are perfect examples of exactly what he's talking about. The problem is that, now that I see the problems and can identify them for what they are, I still have no idea how to fix them, and it's really kind of depressing. So I don't know. Maybe it's so brilliant that I just don't get it. Or maybe it's that he really didn't do a very good job of explaining things. Or maybe I just need to give it more time to sink in. I don't know. What I *do* know is that it's spawned at least four or five separate conversations with various people that I know, and all of them have been really interesting conversations with surprising insights, so at least it's got that going for it. Maybe I'll just have to read it again ...
October 10, 2015
This book feels like a legal Malcolm Gladwell wannabe. Now, Gladwell is a compelling writer, so in some ways, that's a high bar. That said, what it feels like is that the book didn't have enough new ideas, so instead of digging deeper, the one interesting idea is couched in a veritable dictionary of new jargon designed for the purpose of explaining an idea that probably wasn't all that complicated to begin with. Thus, instead of using normal terms, he starts using his own terms, making it more difficult to understand. He also layers multiple examples—all of which have the same point—to inch the book towards the 200-page mark. (He only makes it once you factor in the acknowledgements.) I'm grateful it wasn't longer—it didn't need to be a long as it was—but to make a full-blown book out of it, I think he could have probably done some more work to come up with original thoughts. While it's hard to offer a full-blown endorsement, the idea he offers and the examples are interesting enough to make the book worth reading for someone interested in property rights.
June 25, 2010
A very basic idea that just as there is a tragedy of the commons where lack of ownership over common property will cause all to abuse that common property there is also such a thing as too much ownership of common property such that the costs of compiling, grouping and sharing that property become very inefficient. For example: it now costs too much money to patent new bio-tech drugs due to the myriad of patents that one must be afraid of violating; so many new drugs are not developed at all. The basic thesis that gridlock occurs when there are too many different owners of a kind of property is quite good, but the book as a whole was repetitive and didn't really have anything more than this one (excellent) point to make.
December 10, 2016
Picked this up in a secondhand bookshop in London. Heller articulates some good concepts about barriers to optimising the use of resources through fragmented ownership. Many examples are presented, but he missed the biggest analogy - defragging a hard drive for improved computer performance!
September 9, 2018
This book is a nice read in combination of the following book on the importance of property right: “The Mystery of Capital” by The Soto.
Without having first read the book of The Soto, I can imagine the reader to be confused in many places in the book. The importance of property rights for creating a growth economy is namely very important for understanding many concepts in this book.
Especially the concept of the “tragedy of the anticommons” is a very interesting one. It explains e.g. the necessity of patent pools in order to book progress,
The writing style of the author is also not that great. Although I found the concepts as discussed in the book interesting, I get the feeling the author is sometimes creating lengthy sub-stories to reach 200 pages of content. Looking only at the core concepts, this book could easily have finished in half the number of pages. Therefore, I give this book a three star score.
My advice... only read this book after you have read the above-mentioned book of De Soto.
Without having first read the book of The Soto, I can imagine the reader to be confused in many places in the book. The importance of property rights for creating a growth economy is namely very important for understanding many concepts in this book.
Especially the concept of the “tragedy of the anticommons” is a very interesting one. It explains e.g. the necessity of patent pools in order to book progress,
The writing style of the author is also not that great. Although I found the concepts as discussed in the book interesting, I get the feeling the author is sometimes creating lengthy sub-stories to reach 200 pages of content. Looking only at the core concepts, this book could easily have finished in half the number of pages. Therefore, I give this book a three star score.
My advice... only read this book after you have read the above-mentioned book of De Soto.
April 21, 2022
ดังที่ทราบกันว่า กรรมสิทธิ์ส่วนบุคคลสร้างความมั่งคั่ง แต่กรรมสิทธิ์ยิ่งมากยิ่งดีรึเปล่า หนังสือเล่มนี้สำรวจอีกด้านหนึ่งของภาวะที่มีกรรมสิทธิ์มากเกินไป ซึ่งบ่อยครั้งที่ภาวะดังกล่าวก่อให้เกิด gridlock (เศรษฐกิจติดขัด) และภาวะติดขัดนี่เองที่เป็นโศกนาฎกรรมอสาธารณสมบัติ (tragedy of the anticommons) ตรงกันข้ามกับโศกนาฎกรรมสาธารณสมบัติ สาธารณะสมบัติคือสมบัติที่ไม่มีใครเป็นเจ้าของกรรมสิทธิ์โดยตรง ทุกคนสามารถเข้าไปตักตวงเอาผลประโยชน์เต็มที่ ฉะนั้นก่อให้เกิดการใช้ทรัพยากรมากเกินไป อันนี้เรามองเห็นได้ไม่ยาก แต่ภาวะที่ตรงข้ามคือภาวะที่เจ้าของกรรมสิทธิ์มากเกินไปกระทั่งเกิดการกีดกันกันและกันทำให้ใช้ทรัพยากรได้น้อยเกินไป
May 30, 2017
relatively easy to read about tragedy of commons vs tragedy of anti-commons..when too much or too few who occupy public spaces or resources create inefficiencies...authors offer few solutions but still require manual negotiations which can and cannot be solved that easily...after-all, we humans are quite selfish..
October 11, 2025
pretty ok. i like the theory of the anti commons bc it’s something that truly doesn’t go away. theory of IP is more interesting than the actual litigation of IP
October 20, 2008
Heller spends too much time belaboring his points, and not nearly enough time either giving examples of when his points occur (he reiterates the same two or three, without much detail, multiple times), and skipping the process of thinking about how his proposed takeovers of independently controlled property could have adverse consequences. He gives an interesting discussion and push of the terms anticommons and underuse - but seems more concerned with ensuring "his" words enter the lexicon, perhaps cementing his scholarly legacy.
I'd rather have seen a concise discussion of multiple situations where over ownership of property has negative economic effects, and how he proposes we solve these, either through the lens of the law (his specialty) or through other incentives.
I was also a bit disturbed by his seeming approval of the use of eminent domain for purposes that shift wealth from the many into the hands of the few - an inappropriate, but as he says, ultimately unavoidable feature of eminent domain. Living in a city where the government's use of eminent domain to install interstates has devastated neighborhoods, I see it for the problems it truly causes.
I'd recommend reading a few reviews, getting a gist of the story, and skipping the purchase of this book.
I'd rather have seen a concise discussion of multiple situations where over ownership of property has negative economic effects, and how he proposes we solve these, either through the lens of the law (his specialty) or through other incentives.
I was also a bit disturbed by his seeming approval of the use of eminent domain for purposes that shift wealth from the many into the hands of the few - an inappropriate, but as he says, ultimately unavoidable feature of eminent domain. Living in a city where the government's use of eminent domain to install interstates has devastated neighborhoods, I see it for the problems it truly causes.
I'd recommend reading a few reviews, getting a gist of the story, and skipping the purchase of this book.
September 20, 2008
The basic idea of the tragedy of the anti-commons is an interesting one, although I believe a misnomer. The author explains in excruciating detail the challenges that privatization can lead to - although, a certain type of privatization in which the ownership is broken into many small claims.
The author shows how piecemeal privatization can lead to a variety of problems and inefficiencies, many of which are serious and deeply troubling. That said, the author offers no solutions other than vague handwaving, and the text is so redundant, and at times poorly written that I can't really recommend reading it.
I'm pretty sure the wikipedia article on anticommons dilemmas will get you 98% of the info you'd get from this book, in a small fraction of the time. Important topic, poorly executed.
The author shows how piecemeal privatization can lead to a variety of problems and inefficiencies, many of which are serious and deeply troubling. That said, the author offers no solutions other than vague handwaving, and the text is so redundant, and at times poorly written that I can't really recommend reading it.
I'm pretty sure the wikipedia article on anticommons dilemmas will get you 98% of the info you'd get from this book, in a small fraction of the time. Important topic, poorly executed.
April 19, 2009
"Heller summarizes his research into "anti-commons"--the problem that arises when resources that are most efficient in some minimum quantity (like land) are divided into parcels that make them economically useless. The trouble with an anti-commons is that the process is asymmetrical: it is very easy to fragment land (or intellectual property) but very difficult to re-assemble it. The result is the "gridlock" in the title"
This was an interesting book. It deserves a second read, because I skimmed much of the ending since it needed to be returned to the library. The complicated issue of individual patents holding up so much research and development of products was an eye opener and a sad setback for growth in medicine, technology, etc.
This was an interesting book. It deserves a second read, because I skimmed much of the ending since it needed to be returned to the library. The complicated issue of individual patents holding up so much research and development of products was an eye opener and a sad setback for growth in medicine, technology, etc.
April 19, 2009
Interesting overview of real-life situations in which too much ownership can lead to unfortunate underuse. Really grabbed me with the example talking about Alzheimer's treatments being left on the lab bench because the company couldn't hack through the patent thickets around the technologies they used to develop the cure. More interesting historical and modern examples. But, the book is very padded, repeating stories, tied together with a thin set of references back to a few concepts introduced at the beginning. Haven't yet read the "toolkit for solutions" chapter - perhaps that'll make it worthwhile.
November 29, 2009
So far it is interesting. I didn't realize this was new information; that private property adds expense to collaboration, sometimes to the point that projects are abandoned. We have have popular cultural references where the private owner who holds out against big company buy-outs becomes a hero!
It is intesting, tho, to learn of some of the contemporary implications in patents and other intellectual property.
It is intesting, tho, to learn of some of the contemporary implications in patents and other intellectual property.
May 27, 2012
A paradox of free market.
Cost of doing business getting prohibitive, licensing fees, copyright bullies extort large payments.
Patent holders block drug development protecting their intellectual property.
Over last 20 years, gridlock was not an issue, but now it is prevalent.
Patents now act as a block to further development
New ideas now need to start by creating thousands of watertight patents.
(A high barrier to entry for the smaller players – another drastic byproduct)
Cost of doing business getting prohibitive, licensing fees, copyright bullies extort large payments.
Patent holders block drug development protecting their intellectual property.
Over last 20 years, gridlock was not an issue, but now it is prevalent.
Patents now act as a block to further development
New ideas now need to start by creating thousands of watertight patents.
(A high barrier to entry for the smaller players – another drastic byproduct)
Read
September 12, 2008It's frustrating me because he's working on this scale from overuse to underuse, and doesn't ever seem to hint that there might be some things for which the ideal level of use is none. Everything is a resource to be exploited, and the issue is making sure it's exploited most efficiently. It's hard to pick up again when i set it down.
September 11, 2009
Fantastic book, truly a new economic theory, makes sense of cartel theory and certain game theories and finally helps put the privatization vs. regulation wars into perspective. However,everything you need is in the first couple chapters, he starts trailing off...a lot when you get to the chapter on oyster beds. While the oyster bed chapter is an interesting read, it's more or less useless.
May 19, 2009
Interesting ideas, but somewhat repetitive without a good take home or strategy for overcoming the issues presented. This would have made a better book if it was edited down to about 1/2 its current length.
May 16, 2010
I got through about half of it and then I felt like the author had made the major point and was largely over doing it, so I moved on to other books in my to read list. I may get back to it and read the whole thing at some point.
April 7, 2013
An interesting book that raised some familiar concerns on copyright and intellectual property. In addition there was discussion around public policy concerning assembling land for public purposes and how fragmentation can thwart the public good.
September 14, 2008
I'll probably read about and cite this book, but it was both shabbily written and shabbily reasoned. Could have been so much better.
November 10, 2008
Big think, practical ideas, well written.
November 20, 2008
Pretty neat new way of looking at problems.
October 17, 2024
A good antidote to the Coase theorem's overoptimistic acolytes.
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