ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the layers may be useful in accounts of the commons in ancient times. It shows how a multi-layered approach to public goods may be useful when we consider current issues in the social science literature. In ancient times the commons was instrumental in the transition from a “direct”, to a “delayed” return system when agriculture substituted hunting and foraging as the dominant way of living. In ancient times, the proportion of recycled goods originating from a commons were most probably higher than today as a larger share of the goods were organic and soluble. The multi-layered approach to public goods may be a useful reference for categorizing what we believe to be competitive goods. The “multi-layered approach to public goods” is presented as a vehicle that allows us to introduce more nuanced categories of public goods.
