In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate.

Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.

It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience.

Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.

Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.

The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.

The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.

The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.