The free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem; the free market is about allowing a solution to emerge over time through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design.

If choosing `A' proves too harmful in the long run, then choosing `B' (among other actions) will become all around a matter of self-interest. Let the bad actors poor all the money they want into a shiny PR campaign; a polished turd is still a turd; you can piss in people's mouths and tell them it's rain, but that doesn't mean you can sustain the lie, because the laws of reality won't allow it.

Voluntary interaction provides the only check that is necessary: Bankruptcy. The only way a bad organization can sustain itself is through forced funding by violent coercion, and that is a precarious foundation anyway. The government is just another bad company, and employing the government to coerce people for you (by, say, "legalizing" your behavior) is still just coercion; it is not capitalism to take resources by coercion.

So, saying that "capitalism quickly turns into corporate oligarchy" is really just saying: Under capitalism, you will at worst end up with... government.

Note that governments subsidize the fishing industry, providing the incentives to keep up the reckless behavior, rather than allowing a market correction towards sustainable business models such as farming and fishing rights via private property.

While some governments establish regulations in the forms of quotas and fishing licenses, etc., the subsidies and indirect management of these resources has led to distortions and thus misappropriation. Were a private organization to make the same mistakes, it would go bankrupt and thus the resources would pass into the control of more capable hands. However, because the government controls these resources, it need not go bankrupt; the government coerces funding from its citizens regardless of how well or poorly it performs—it is a bad business that won't go away.

So, essentially, nobody owns the waters or the fish; hence, there is the beginning of a tragedy of the commons, but it will eventually be in everyone's self-interest to avoid it (at least with other industries that will have the benefit of this hindsight); the fact that you're worried about it and that it's being reported on at all is proof of this.

The solution is capitalism: The control of resources (i.e., ownership) derived through voluntary interaction (i.e., not coercion).

Your comment and my response have both already been made here.

The idea is that individual self-interest will lead to a tragedy of the commons, yet it is in the self-interest of each individual to avoid the tragedy of the commons. "A tragedy of the commons generally arises from individual power and freedoms." Well, ownership is a restriction of such individual power and freedoms; the question, then, is how to define ownership. Capitalism is ownership defined through voluntary interaction, which is the best approach because it embraces—rather than ignores—individual self-interest and is therefore ultimately the most likely to be the most widely aligned with reality over some sufficient interval; indeed, voluntary interaction yields the most sustainable emergent constructs.

The owner gained control of the resource through voluntary interaction.

Nope. I am being very careful with language.

I was responding to: "Even if the depletion of that resource is bad for the group it is good for each individual doing it."

The idea is that individual self-interest will lead to a tragedy of the commons. However, a tragedy of the commons is in no way in the interests of any individual! Individual self-interest will, thus, correct for it.

As the OP said: "A tragedy of the commons generally arises from individual power and freedoms." Well, ownership is a restriction of such individual power and freedoms; the question, then, is how to define ownership. Capitalism is ownership defined through voluntary interaction.

So, regulation is necessary, and I'm saying that the best form of regulation is capitalism (by which I mean the Free Market, by which I mean a market free from involuntary interaction). It is not capitalism to take resources by coercion, and yet all of the disparaging examples that people are listing involve gaining control of resources in just that manner.

Your comment is self-contradictory.

But if dumping the waste in the river is such a problem, then obviously it isn't cheaper. Obviously it's an overhead for which a market will correct.

It is not capitalism to take resources by coercion. The waste-dumper did not gain control of the river through voluntary interaction; he gained control through involuntary interaction. Hence, this is not an example of capitalism (by which I mean the Free Market, by which I mean a market free of coercion).

See here.

I'm saying the tragedy of the commons is not good for each individual.

But, as you point out, it's not good for each individual to cause a tragedy of the commons. Hence regulation, the best form of which is capitalism (by which I mean the Free Market, by which I mean a market free of coercion).

To an individual, his own behavior is always rational. The concept of "rational behavior" is relativistic, making your absolutist claims absurd.

Firstly, that's not capitalism (as explained below), and secondly, that is not even what was being discussed. We were discussing what's good for each individual. As you point out, having resources forcibly taken is not good for one of the individuals, namely me; ergo, your example is pointless.

Clearly people will act out of self-interest to avoid that.

No, it's not. The question is indeed how to define ownership. Capitalism defines owernship as gaining control of a resource through voluntary interaction; all of your examples involve gaining resources through involuntary interaction, and therefore all of your examples are not of capitalism.

Private ownership is a restriction of such individual power and freedoms; the question, then, is how to define private ownership. Capitalism is private ownership defined through voluntary interaction.

No. That is not what was being discussed.

We were discussing what's good for each individual. As you point out, being murdered is clearly not good for one of the individuals, namely me; ergo, your example is pointless.

Also, as an aside: As someone else pointed out, there's no indication that killing an individual is necessarily bad for the group.

Just because you cannot interpret "some sort of absurd enclosure movement for air" as a metaphor rather than a literal solution doesn't mean that somebody else has the same trouble.

If, as you say, it's good for each individual, then it must—by definition—be good for the group.

Are you honestly disparaging both the tragedy of the commons and the invisible hand (i.e., a Free Market, i.e., capitalism, i.e., private owernship of resources) in the same sentence?

O, Slashdot comments... how you are a microcosm for what's wrong with this world...