Personal and shared ownership at the same time.

We had a wonderful treat last night.  We went to a fishing village on the coast of Gozo, rode bumper cars and had fresh pizza and ravioli for supper.  We also had sweet, fizzy drinks.

At first the drinks were distributed one to each of us.  We were mostly abstemious with “our” drinks, one of us in fact drank none of his for 10 minutes.  Then I said, “By the way the drinks are for us all to share, aren’t they?”.  At which point the guzzling started – each one of us attempting to consume more before another of us got our hands on it.

It was the perfect illustration of human behaviour – the conflict between animal instinct and intelligent control.  It was a mirror of the challenge of managing public goods, of sharing the wealth of human creativity.  All too often we abuse the public service, whether it be the social security payment, the hospital service, the train/metro service, the road network, while we protect and conserve the stuff we “own”, our house, car etc.

Is there an answer to the conundrum?  Treat public assets and services as if they are our own.