the scale of “we”

The “tragedy of the commons” points out that beer cans litter highways but not living room floors.

Well, they also don’t litter the grounds of the EcoVillage at Ithaca. That’s because the scale of the commons at EVI is appropriate and functional.

Surely we can foster responsibility at a scale larger than the family. Surely we can’t foster responsibility at the scale of modern mass society.

(that’s the kind of thought process that motivated E. F. Schumacher to talk about “the intermediate scale” in regard to things like technology and social structures)