In Georgia today and in Europe in the past, villages owned pastures where every shepherd and cattle-herder in the community could take his animals. Grazing on these pastures was free and unrestricted. This land, owned by all villagers jointly, is traditionally referred to as the “commons” (in the last years, the term has been extended to also refer to free-to-use internet content).

Measuring economic developments is often a laborious business. Consider, for example, the Consumer Price Index (CPI). One first has to define the so-called consumption basket that contains the goods and services whose prices you want to track. These goods and services have to be represented in the basket in the right proportions, reflecting the consumption patterns of an average consumer.

Few events in Georgian history had consequences that were as far-reaching as the infamous Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783. At the end of the 18th century, Erekle II. (1720-1798) handed over his kingdom of Kakheti and Kartli to the Russians, aligning the fates of Georgia and Russia for the next two centuries.

Recently, I was made aware of an article by the famous Harvard economist Gregory N. Mankiw ("Defending the One Percent’’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2013). In that article, he puts forward an interesting thought experiment. Assume we were in a state in which the market outcome would lead to absolute equality among economic agents.

Tbilisi public transportation resembles a classic Greek tragedy. In those pieces, usually, the gods interfere with human affairs and create a big mess. In Tbilisi, marshrutkas were operating in a competitive market and state intervention led to the creation of a monopoly.