The Tragedy of the Commons - The Garrett Hardin Society

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Fall 2001T HE S OCIAL C ONTRACTsatisfactorily for centuries becausetribal wars, poaching, and diseasekeep the numbers of both man andbeast well below the carryingcapacity of the land. Finally,however, comes the day ofreckoning, that is, the day when thelong-desired goal of social stabilitybecomes a reality. At this point, theinherent logic of the commonsremorselessly generates tragedy.As a rational being, eachherdsman seeks to maximize hisgain. Explicitly, or implicitly, moreor less consciously, he asks: “Whatis the utility to me of adding onemore animal to my herd?” Thisutility has one negative and onepositive component.1) The positive component isthe function of the increment ofone animal. Since the herdsmanreceives all the proceeds from thesale of the additional animal, thepositive utility is nearly +1.2) The negative component is afunction of the additionalovergrazing created by one moreanimal. Since, however, the effectsof overgrazing are shared by all theherdsmen, the negative utility forany particular decision-makingherdsman is only a fraction of -1.Adding together the componentpartial utilities, the rationalherdsman concludes that the onlysensible course for him to pursue isto add another animal to his herd.And another, and another …Butthis is the conclusion reached byeach and every rational herdsmansharing a commons. Therein is thetragedy. Each man is locked into asystem that compels him toincrease his herd without limit — ina world that is limited. Ruin is thedestination toward which all men“Education cancounteract thenatural tendency todo the wrongthing, but theinexorablesuccession ofgenerationsrequires that thebasis for thisknowledge beconstantlyrefreshed.”rush, each pursuing his own bestinterest in a society that believes inthe freedom of the commons.Freedom in a commons brings ruinto all.Some would say that this is aplatitude. Would that it were! In asense, it was learned thousands ofyears ago, but natural selectionfavors the forces of psychologicaldenial. 8 The individual benefits asan individual from his ability to denythe truth even though society as awhole, of which he is a part,suffers. Education can counteractthe natural tendency to do thewrong thing, but the inexorablesuccession of generations requiresthat the basis for this knowledge beconstantly refreshed.A simple incident that occurreda few years ago in Leominster,Massachusetts, shows howperishable the knowledge is. Duringthe Christmas shopping season theparking meters downtown werecovered with plastic bags that boretags reading: “Do not open untilafter Christmas. Free parkingcourtesy of the mayor and citycouncil.” In other words, facing theprospect of an increased demandfor already scarce space, the cityfathers reinstituted the system ofthe commons. (Cynically, wesuspect that they gained more votesthan they lost in this retrogressiveact.)In an approximate way, the logicof the commons has beenunderstood for a long time, perhapssince the discovery of agriculture orthe invention of private property inreal estate. But it is understoodmostly only in special cases whichare not sufficiently generalized.Even at this late date, cattlemenleasing national land on the westernranges demonstrate no more thanan ambivalent understanding, inconstantly pressuring federalauthorities to increase the headc ount to the point where overgrazingproduces erosion and weeddominance. Likewise, the oceans ofthe world continue to suffer fromthe survival of the philosophy of thecommons. Maritime nations stillrespond automatically to theshibboleth of the “freedom of theseas.” Professing to believe in the“inexhaustible resources of theoceans,” they bring species afterspecies of fish and whales closer toextinction. 9The National Parks presentanother instance of the working outof the tragedy of the commons. Atpresent, they are open to all,without limit. The values thatvisitors seek in the park are steadilyeroded. Plainly, we must soon29
Fall 2001T HE S OCIAL C ONTRACTcease to treat the parks as acommons or they will be of novalue to anyone.What shall we do? We haveseveral options. We might sell themoff as private property. We mightkeep them as public property, butallocate the right to enter them.The allocation might be on the basisof wealth, by the use of an auctionsystem. It might be on the basis ofmerit, as defined by some agreeduponstandards. It might be bylottery. Or it might be on a firstcome,first-served basis,administered to long queues. These,I think, are all the reasonablepossibilities. They are allobjectionable. But we must choose— or acquiesce in the destructionof the commons that we call ourNational Parks.PollutionIn a reverse way, the tragedy ofthe commons reappears in problemsof pollution. Here it is not a questionof taking something out of thecommons, but of putting somethingin — sewage, or chemical,radioac tive, and heat wastes intowater; noxious and dangerousfumes into the air; and distractingand unpleasant advertising signsinto the line of sight. Thecalculations of utility are much thesame as before. The rational manfinds that his share of the cost ofthe wastes he discharges into thecommons is less than the cost ofpurifying his wastes beforereleasing them. Since this is true foreveryone, we are locked into asystem of “fouling our own nest,”so long as we behave only asindependent, rational, freeenterprisers.“The pollutionproblem is aconsequence ofpopulation. It didnot much matterhow a lonelyAmericanfrontiersmandisposed of hiswaste.”The tragedy of the commons asa food basket is averted by privateproperty, or something formally likeit. But the air and waterssurrounding us cannot readily befenced, and so the tragedy of thecommons as a cesspool must beprevented by different means, bycoercive laws or taxing devices thatmake it cheaper for the polluter totreat his pollutants than to dischargethem untreated. We have notprogressed as far with the solutionof this problem as we have with thefirst. Indeed, our particular conceptof private property, which deters usfrom exhausting the positiveresources of the earth, favorspollution. The owner of a factory onthe bank of a stream — whoseproperty extends to the middle ofthe stream — often has difficultyseeing why it is not his natural rightto muddy the waters flowing pasthis door. The law, always behindtimes, requires elaborate stitchingand fitting to adapt it to this newlyperceived aspect of the commons.The pollution problem is a30consequence of population. It didnot much matter how a lonelyAmerican frontiersman disposed ofhis waste. “Flowing water purifiesitself every ten miles,” mygrandfather used to say, and themyth was near enough to the truthwhen he was a boy, for there werenot too many people. But aspopulation became denser, thenatural chemical and biologic alrecycling processes becameoverloaded, calling for aredefinition of property rights.How to LegislateTemperance?Analysis of the pollutionproblem as a function of populationdensity uncovers a not generallyrecognized principle of morality,namely: The morality of an act isa function of the state of thesystem at the time it isperformed. 10 Using the commonsas a cesspool does not harm thegeneral public under frontierconditions, because there is nopublic; the same behavior in ametropolis is unbearable. A hundredand fifty years ago a plainsmancould kill an American bison, cutout only the tongue for his dinner,and discard the rest of the animal.He was not in any important sensebeing wasteful. Today, with only afew bison left, we would beappalled at such behavior.In passing, it is worth noting thatthe morality of an act cannot bedetermined from a photograph. Onedoes not know whether a mankilling an elephant or setting fire tothe grassland is harming others untilhe knows the total system in whichhis act appears. “One picture isw orth a thousand words,” said an
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The Tragedy of the Commons - The Garrett Hardin Society

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