Renewable natural resource management and use without markets

The first of mankind had in common all those things which God had given to the human race. This community was not a positive community of interest. . . . It was a . . . negative community, which resulted from the fact that those things which were common to all belonged no more to one than to the others, and hence no one could prevent another from taking of these common things that portion which he judged necessary in order to subserve his wants. . . . [M]en partitioned among themselves the earth and the greater part of those things which were on its surface. . . . this process is the origin of the right of property. Some things, however, did not enter into this division, and remain therefore to this day in the condition of the ancient and negative community.