The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
by: Michael Heller
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Amazon.com Review:
Lawrence Lessig on The Gridlock Economy
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society, as well as CEO of the Creative Commons project and the author of Code, Free Culture, and The Future of Ideas. In an exclusive guest review for Amazon.com, Lessig shares his praise for The Gridlock Economy and its sizable contribution to the economic policy debate.
For forty years, "the tragedy of the commons" has set the frame for an extraordinary range of social, economic, and legal thought. It oriented policy prescriptions. It set the baseline on reasonable policy alternatives. Its strong conclusion in favor of assigning property rights whenever possible has had a profound effect on everything from intellectual property policy to spectrum regulation. Its simple, intuitive analysis became second nature to a generation of policy makers.
Heller's book, The Gridlock Economy, completely inverts this framework for some of the most important policy questions we will face in the digital age. His clear and beautifully crafted analysis is absolutely compelling, and will fundamentally change the debate in core policy areas. There are very few books that reorient a field. Almost none that reorient many fields. This is in that "almost none" category: Paradigms will shift. Many of them. --Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig on The Gridlock Economy
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society, as well as CEO of the Creative Commons project and the author of Code, Free Culture, and The Future of Ideas. In an exclusive guest review for Amazon.com, Lessig shares his praise for The Gridlock Economy and its sizable contribution to the economic policy debate.
For forty years, "the tragedy of the commons" has set the frame for an extraordinary range of social, economic, and legal thought. It oriented policy prescriptions. It set the baseline on reasonable policy alternatives. Its strong conclusion in favor of assigning property rights whenever possible has had a profound effect on everything from intellectual property policy to spectrum regulation. Its simple, intuitive analysis became second nature to a generation of policy makers.
Heller's book, The Gridlock Economy, completely inverts this framework for some of the most important policy questions we will face in the digital age. His clear and beautifully crafted analysis is absolutely compelling, and will fundamentally change the debate in core policy areas. There are very few books that reorient a field. Almost none that reorient many fields. This is in that "almost none" category: Paradigms will shift. Many of them. --Lawrence Lessig
Product Description:
A startling and definitive account of the "tragedy of the anticommons," a hidden economic phenomenon that costs trillions in lost productivity and affects every field.
Garrett Hardin's famous "tragedy of the commons" states that when no one has a significant stake in some common resource--such as a grazing meadow, a stream, or clean air--the resource is inevitably overused and eventually degraded. But what about the reverse situation--when property rights in a resource are divided up too finely, and those rights are too closely held? How can you build on a plot of land where every square inch has a different owner?
This "tragedy of the anticommons"--first proposed by Michael Heller in 1998--is a problem of excessive property rights creating the underuse of resources. And the problem of the anticommons is everywhere: in excessive patent grants that prevent the development of lifesaving drugs; in real estate practices that ultimately lead to the loss of family estates; in regulations that divide up the broadcast spectrum in irrational ways; and in copyright laws that keep important works inaccessible to the public.The anticommons is a significant new idea that unifies many areas of economics, law, business, and the social sciences.
The Gridlock Economy introduces the problem of the anticommons to a wide general audience, explores the different types of situations that give rise to excessive property rights, tells readers how to recognize them, and offers practical solutions.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Too repetitive and not detailed enough
Heller spends too much time belaboring his points, and not nearly enough time either giving examples of when these events occur (he reiterates the same two or three, without much detail, multiple times), and skipping the process of thinking about how his proposed takeovers of independently controlled property could have adverse consequences. He gives an interesting discussion and push of the terms anticommons and underuse - but seems more concerned with ensuring "his" words enter the lexicon, perhaps ... Read More
Rating: 
- Tweaking ownership to optimize resource use
Michael Heller has provided an informative, thought-provoking contribution to the discussion of property rights. Using real-life examples, he demonstrates the disaster that happens when too many people own small portions of a resource. Like squabbling siblings who inherit the family home, one holdout can prevent anyone from using or selling it. No one benefits. That's gridlock. Similarly, overuse or neglect often spoil unregulated, unprotected public resources: Licensing requirements prevent companies ... Read More
Rating: 
- How to do property right
The idealized free market can be framed in a number of ways, but the Coase Theorem is one of its more intuitive pillars. The idea is that, *under certain well-specified conditions*, property lands in the hands of those who value it most, regardless of who gets that property at the beginning. Now you need to specify those conditions. One is that it's costless for sellers to find buyers, and costless for them to carry out the sale. Under these conditions, I sell my property to person A, who sells it to person ... Read More
Rating: - How overly granular ownership creates mirror problems to when there is no ownership
This is a fascinating book.Michael Heller says he got the key insight to the problem he describes in this book in the faulty way the old Soviet Union tried to create private property upon its dissolution.For example, let's say you have been operating a store and with the return of private property, you might expect that you would either get the store or be able to buy it from the state or some such process that would let you continue operating the store.However, you forget that all those Soviet bureaucrats ... Read More
Rating: - Illuminates what Econ 101 leaves invisible...
An excellent book.The chapter on Russia's efforts to adopt property rights in the retail and apartment markets alone is worth the price.
Heller's main thesis is that too much ownership can work to 'gridlock' economic progress, investment and innovation.This is explored in how granting too large a bundle of rights for patents has hobbled many high-technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical development efforts, threatening U.S. prosperity and consumer well-being.
Also, a fine chapter ... Read More
- Too repetitive and not detailed enoughHeller spends too much time belaboring his points, and not nearly enough time either giving examples of when these events occur (he reiterates the same two or three, without much detail, multiple times), and skipping the process of thinking about how his proposed takeovers of independently controlled property could have adverse consequences. He gives an interesting discussion and push of the terms anticommons and underuse - but seems more concerned with ensuring "his" words enter the lexicon, perhaps ... Read More
- Tweaking ownership to optimize resource useMichael Heller has provided an informative, thought-provoking contribution to the discussion of property rights. Using real-life examples, he demonstrates the disaster that happens when too many people own small portions of a resource. Like squabbling siblings who inherit the family home, one holdout can prevent anyone from using or selling it. No one benefits. That's gridlock. Similarly, overuse or neglect often spoil unregulated, unprotected public resources: Licensing requirements prevent companies ... Read More
- How to do property rightThe idealized free market can be framed in a number of ways, but the Coase Theorem is one of its more intuitive pillars. The idea is that, *under certain well-specified conditions*, property lands in the hands of those who value it most, regardless of who gets that property at the beginning. Now you need to specify those conditions. One is that it's costless for sellers to find buyers, and costless for them to carry out the sale. Under these conditions, I sell my property to person A, who sells it to person ... Read More
- How overly granular ownership creates mirror problems to when there is no ownershipThis is a fascinating book.Michael Heller says he got the key insight to the problem he describes in this book in the faulty way the old Soviet Union tried to create private property upon its dissolution.For example, let's say you have been operating a store and with the return of private property, you might expect that you would either get the store or be able to buy it from the state or some such process that would let you continue operating the store.However, you forget that all those Soviet bureaucrats ... Read More
- Illuminates what Econ 101 leaves invisible...An excellent book.The chapter on Russia's efforts to adopt property rights in the retail and apartment markets alone is worth the price.
Heller's main thesis is that too much ownership can work to 'gridlock' economic progress, investment and innovation.This is explored in how granting too large a bundle of rights for patents has hobbled many high-technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical development efforts, threatening U.S. prosperity and consumer well-being.
Also, a fine chapter ... Read More
