commons
The commons is the grand festival of shared resources that everyone is supposedly welcome to attend. Yet at this festival, the vagueness of usage rules becomes the tinder for endless disputes. Chanting "It's for everyone!" at the top of your lungs is believed to guarantee fairness, but in practice it's a lightning rod for individual self-interest. Beneath the idealistic sense of community lies a multilevel free-for-all of appropriation and blame-shifting. All that remains at the end is an empty storeroom and people lamenting the chasm between ideal and reality.