This chapter seeks to reframe the reductionist historical narrative explaining problems of overfishing with a combination of human economic behavior, technological innovations, and lack of property rights. Instead, contemporary Danish commercial fisheries are seen as part of a more complex long-term development, with close attention paid to the actions of state, management, organizational politics, private companies, fishers, and their communities. The aim is to show the interplay of a broad range of factors, structures, and actors that influence fisheries management. Thus, the chapter seeks to avoid reducing the history of quota privatization to a simple and deterministic narrative of technological development and the tragedy of open access. The history of fishing is much more nuanced than this. This inquiry therefore looks more closely at, behind, and around the axioms of fisheries management narratives.