What is missing from the policy analyst's tool kit -- and from the set of accepted, well-developed theories of human organization -- is an adequately specified theory of collective action whereby a group of principals can organize themselves voluntarily to retain the residuals of their own efforts.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for a theory that explains how groups can willingly collaborate to manage shared resources effectively.
Elinor Ostrom highlights a gap in policy analysis regarding collective action among individuals. She suggests that current theories do not adequately explain how groups can voluntarily organize themselves to manage and benefit from the results of their collective efforts, advocating for a robust framework that supports cooperation and resource management.
In practice
During a seminar on community resource management, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of collaborative approaches.
Some of the homes that have been built in the last 10 years just appall me. Why do humans need huge homes? I was born poor and I didn’t know you bought clothes at anything but the Goodwill until I went to college. Some of our mentality about what it means to have a good life is, I think, not going to help us in the next 50 years. We have to think through how to choose a meaningful life where we’re helping one another in ways that really help the Earth.
What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved - versus just having somebody in Washington make a rule.
The power of a theory is exactly proportional to the diversity of situations it can explain.
Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation
Such is the state of every age, every sex, and every condition: all have their cares, either from nature or from folly; and whoever, therefore, finds himself inclined to envy another, should remember that he knows not the real condition which he desires to obtain, but is certain that by indulging a vicious passion, he must lessen that happiness which he thinks already too sparingly bestowed.
Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.
If you can't meditate in a boiler room, you can't meditate.
When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what's around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.
Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men.
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