Conventional wisdom has it that good fences make good neighbors. For most people, that is probably true. Of course most people don’t live in the Napa Valley. On the other hand, most people don’t mind telling us how to live up here.

I have no more authority than the next fella to tell folks how to live here, or anywhere else. But anyone can make some observations, which are evident to some of us, but for some reason obscure to others.

One of the unmentioned delights of living in the Upper Valley is that one can get on a horse and ride from St. Helena to Calistoga and never have to go through a fence. One can do the same thing heading south and with a little finagling, probably make it all the way to the Napa City Limits without ever leaving the saddle.

That’s some 30 odd miles of adjacent vineyards where farmers have managed to work together closely enough, that they don’t have to fence out their neighbors. That ought to tell you something about the culture which existed here, before you or I arrived.

The vineyards, of course, are not communal. They are each privately held. Yet, neighbors, by custom or (occasionally) by deeded easements, share vineyard avenues and turn around areas for tractors.

Though your property ends here, you can turn your tractor around on my land, as long as I can do it on yours, is the credo. Such arrangements allow maximum use of the farming land for vineyard production.

This tradition began soon after George Yount arrived in 1834. There was enough land and a small enough population that common areas could be shared. Historically, this has been typical world wide. Small populations on large land areas can share resources with little conflict simply because there is enough to go around. As the populations grow and the resources become more stressed privatization takes hold as individuals realize that when their investment in time, energy and capital exceeds those of others, it becomes irrational to share equally. (Something about the ant and the grasshopper).

Studies have shown that certain Indian fisherman at the mouth of a river might share lots of common areas. As one goes up stream, and fish are fewer and harder to catch, tribes begin to share less and less. Why? The labor increases to catch the diminishing quarry--until one nears the source of the river where crude stone traps are used to catch the fish. Here, sharing becomes non-existent. Why? Rationality takes over.

He who puts forth the effort to make the trap, gets to keep the fish. Why would one who put the effort in to build the trap, share his catch with his non-industrious neighbor?

Now as populations increase, the pressures on resources increase, and the value of all commodities, including land goes up. The common areas must be abandoned. The consequences of this inevitable series of events is explained eloquently in Garret Hardin’s landmark work, The Tragedy of the Commons .

To avoid the Tragedy of the Commons, where all must perish in ecological anarchy, privatization leaps to the fore and individuals or clans agree to abide by mutually beneficial rules. Hardin calls this Mutual coercion mutually agreed upon. We refer to it as Law.

The rule of law permits us to live in congested areas with diminishing resources. Private property insures that rational human beings will use the land to its highest and best use, or sell it to someone who will. This is what protects us all from the Tragedy of the Commons.

Yet, today, in the Napa Valley we now have unelected officials, wanting to de-privatize the land, and dictate to farmers what crops to grow. Rather than let the marketplace dictate whether grapes are a viable crop or not, we are fortunate enough to have outsiders writing in local papers that, even though grape farming is lucrative, that the farmers must be prepared to give up some vines for other crops.

Often, this totalitarian approach is offered up by groups masquarding as environmentalists. I guess we, the people, are lucky to have them here to watch out for us.

These folks are convinced that they are wiser than thee, me, and the market place. No doubt they are. Their point is that if too much of one variety is planted (and yes, we had a surplus of Merlot last year) we should follow their lead and be forced to plant Green Hungarian (or maybe wheat) instead.

But what about Quis custodies ipsos custodes? --Who shall watch the watchers? John Adams said that we must have a "government of laws and not men." As Hardin points out, bureaucratic administrators, trying to evaluate the morality of acts in the total system, are singularly liable to corruption. Thus producing a government by men, not laws.

The radical environmentalists’ approach of planned economies was tried in Eastern Europe. It is still being practiced in China and Cuba. No doubt if given a chance, it will work just as well here, won’t it?

Yes. This Valley was beautiful before the white man came. Yet, it is even more beautiful today. Yes. We have traffic. We have pollution. We are putting a strain on water. But the land is productive and ordinary people have been pulled from the ranks of poverty and back breaking labor to a standard of living rarely matched anywhere on this globe.

Free markets and old fashioned rugged individualism made it happen. How did we ever get this way without those other folks telling us how to do it?