[ccmay]

A "tragedy of the commons" could well have been to blame, with the trees up for grabs by the fastest cutters. Who knows if private property rights could have protected the increasingly valuable forests?

Amen. The "watermelons" (green on the outside, red on the inside) spin this as a cautionary tale for modern capitalist society, when in fact it would be better to interpret it as the result of foolish socialist ideology. If everybody owns the trees, then nobody does, and this is what results. Just the same as we saw in the former Eastern Bloc, where pollution was worse than anywhere in the West.

-ccm

[Travis McGee]

YES! Exactamundo.