From:
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. By Elinor Ostrom (HT: Cafe Hyek, Don Boudreaux)
"Predictions that individuals will not devise, precommit to, and monitor their own rules to change the structure of interdependent situations so as to obtain joint benefits are not consistent with evidence that some individuals have overcome these problems, although others have not."
i.e. sometimes people devise cooperative ways to escape from a Nash Equilibrium without resorting to taxes or regulation.
In the movie A Beautiful Mind, there is a scene where John Nash states "Smith was wrong." I wonder if they made a movie about Elinor Ostrom if there would be a scene where she could say "Nash was wrong." Of course both statements are just terse jabs failing to capture the actual subtleties and nuances of economic theory.
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