Larry David Teaches Christian Slater the Unwritten Rules of Hors D’Oeuvres Consumption [video]

Larry David Teaches Christian Slater the Unwritten Rules of Hors D'Oeuvres Consumption [video]

October 12, 2009, 2:10 pm 3 Comments

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From last night's Curb Your Enthusiasm: At a party, Larry David spots Christian Slater, who, considering his career lately, is indulging a little too heavily in the caviar. As Slater goes over his "allotment," Larry David tells him: "We have unwritten laws in our society... You take a little bit, and then you step away for twenty minutes, see what kind of action there is. If nobody's taking any, maybe take a little bit more. Step away again. So forth and so on." Perhaps we could all learn something from the wise Larry David.

Update: Apparently, according to Peter Martin, the economics correspondent for Australia's two leading newspapers, this video illustrates the work of Elinor Ostrom for which she just won an Economics Nobel Prize, about the "rules for managing common-pool resources." Go Larry David!

michael webster

Ostrom has researched various solutions to the common resource problem. A common resource is a) one hard to exclude others from using, but b) when one uses it there is less for everyone else.

Fisheries, grazing grounds, water, and goods like this are common resources.

Ostrom was awarded the Nobel because she discovered that many human communities were able "solve" the common resource problem without either a heavy handed state dictate or by making the resource entirely private property.

Most economists would have said that those were the only two possible solutions.

Larry David, commenting on the common resource of the caviar free for all, but in diminishing supply, laments that there just some rules - without discussing how they are enforced.

Ostrom's work is all about when these rules work and when they are Slaterized.

October 14, 2009, 12:10 am Reply
TGGP

How are they enforced? Larry was enforcing them, then the woman tried to enforce them against Larry because she thought he was the violator.

October 15, 2009, 9:02 pm Reply
Madeleine

The clip reminds me of a scene in You've Got Mail, where Meg Ryan criticizes Tom Hanks for taking all the caviar off a dish when it's intended to be a garnish.

October 20, 2009, 6:20 pm Reply