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Tragedy of the commons

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The tragedy of the commons is a type of social trap that involves a conflict over resources between individual interests and the common good. It occurs when there is a tendency towards free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource. The term derives originally from a metaphore published by William Forster Lloyd in his 1833 book on population.[1] It was then popularized and extended by Garrett Hardin in his 1968 Science essay "The Tragedy of the Commons."[2] However, the theory itself is as old as Thucydides and Aristotle, the latter of whom said "that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."[3]

Introduction

The parable demonstrates how free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, each of whom is motivated to maximize use of the resource, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those to whom the resource is available (which may be a wider class of individuals than that which is exploiting it).

Thucydides expressed the concept thus:

[T]hey devote a very small fraction of time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.[4]

Later, Aristotle wrote on the problem:

That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few. ...[3]

Like William Lloyd and Thomas Malthus before him, Hardin was primarily interested in population and especially the problem of human population growth. In his essay he also focused more widely on the use of limited resources such as the atmosphere and oceans, as well as pointing out the "negative commons" of pollution (i.e. instead of dealing with the deliberate privatisation of a positive resource, a "negative commons" deals with the deliberate commonisation of a negative cost, pollution).

The tragedy of the commons has particular relevance in explaining behaviour in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, game theory and sociology. Some also see it as an example of emergent behaviour, with the "tragedy" the outcome of individual interactions in a complex system.

Garrett Hardin's essay

At the beginning of his essay, Hardin draws attention to problems that cannot be solved by technical means (i.e. as opposed to those problems with solutions that require "a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality"). Hardin contends that this class of problems includes those raised by human population growth and the use of the Earth's natural resources.

To make the case for "no technical solutions," Hardin notes the limits placed on the availability of energy (and material resources) on Earth, and also the consequences of these limits for "quality of life." To maximize population, one needs to minimize resources spent on anything other than simple survival, and vice versa. Consequently, he concludes that there is no foreseeable technical solution to increasing both human populations and their standard of living on a finite planet.

From this point, Hardin switches to non-technical or resource management solutions to population and resource problems. As a means of illustrating these, he introduces a hypothetical example of a pasture shared by local herders. The herders are assumed to wish to maximize their yield, and so will increase their herd size whenever possible. The utility of each additional animal has both a positive and negative component:

  • Positive: the herder receives all of the proceeds from each additional animal.
  • Negative: the pasture is slightly degraded by each additional animal.

Crucially, the division of these components is unequal: the individual herder gains all of the advantage, but the disadvantage is shared among all herders using the pasture. Consequently, for an individual herder weighing up these utilities, the rational course of action is to add an extra animal. And another, and another. However, since all herders reach the same conclusion, overgrazing and degradation of the pasture is its long-term fate. Nonetheless, the rational response for an individual remains the same at every stage, since the gain is always greater to each herder than the individual share of the distributed cost is. The overgrazing cost here is an example of an externality.

Because this sequence of events follows predictably from the behaviour of the individuals concerned, Hardin describes it as a tragedy: "the remorseless working of things" (in the sense described by the philosopher Alfred Whitehead). As such, it illustrates how "invisible hand" (laissez-faire) approaches to resource problems need not always provide the expected optimal solution. In Hardin's hypothetical commons, the actions of self-interested individuals do not promote the public good.

In the course of his essay, Hardin develops the theme, drawing in examples of latter day "commons," such as the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, National Parks, advertising, and even parking meters. The example of fish stocks had led some to call this the tragedy of the fishers [5]. A major theme running throughout the essay is the growth of human populations, with the Earth's resources being a general commons (given that it concerns the addition of extra "animals," it is the closest to his original analogy).

The essay also addresses potential management solutions to commons problems including: privatization; polluter pays; regulation. Keeping with his original pasture analogy, Hardin categorises these as effectively the "enclosure" of commons, and notes a historical progression from the use of all resources as commons (unregulated access to all) to systems in which commons are "enclosed" and subject to differing methods of regulated use (access prohibited or controlled). Hardin argues against the reliance on conscience as a means of policing commons, suggesting that this favours selfish individuals over those more far-sighted.

In the context of avoiding over-exploitation of commons, Hardin concludes by restating Hegel's maxim (which was actually written by Engels), "Freedom is the recognition of necessity." He suggests that "freedom," if interpreted narrowly as simply the freedom to do as one pleases, completes the tragedy of the commons. By recognising resources as commons in the first place, and by recognising that, as such, they require management, Hardin believes that "we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms."

Aside from its subject matter (resource use), the essay is notable (at least in modern scientific circles) for explicitly dealing with issues of morality, and doing so in one of the scientific community's premier journals, Science. Indeed, the subtitle for the essay is "The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality."

Controversy

Even today Hardin's essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" is a source of controversy. Some of this stems from disagreement about whether individuals will always behave in the selfish fashion posited by Hardin (see discussion below).

More significantly, controversy has been fuelled by the "application" of Hardin's ideas to real situations. In particular, some authorities have read Hardin's work as specifically advocating the privatisation of commonly owned resources. Consequently, resources that have traditionally been managed communally by local organisations have been enclosed or privatised. Ostensibly this serves to "protect" such resources, but it ignores the pre-existing management, often unfairly appropriating resources and alienating indigenous (and frequently poor) populations. As Hardin's essay focuses on resources that are fundamentally unmanaged, rather than communally managed, this application of his ideas is misplaced. Ironically, given his original hypothetical example, this misunderstanding of Hardin's ideas is often applied to grazing lands.

More generally, Hardin made it very clear that usage of public property could be controlled in a number of different ways to stop or limit over-usage. His advocacy of clearly defined property rights has frequently been misread as an argument for privatization, or private property, per se. The opposite situation to a tragedy of the commons is sometimes referred to as a tragedy of the anticommons: a situation where rational individuals (acting separately) collectively waste a given resource by under-utilizing it.

Historical commons

Hardin's essay introduces a hypothetical pasture as an analogy for "commons" in general. In this analogy, herders using the pasture do so on an individualistic basis, with no community management or oversight. However, actual historical commons were not public land and most were not open to the access of all — the public at large had very limited rights (e.g. passing drovers could lease grazing for "thistle rent"). Only those locals who were "commoners" had access to a bundle of rights; each commoner then had an interest in his own rights, but the common itself was not property.

These bundles of rights could not be traded or otherwise disposed of, but they applied in a medieval culture that recognized inalienable property (e.g. entailed inheritances), so under this system the bundles of rights were considered property. In a traditional English village these rights provided commoners with rights of grazing, gathering fuel wood non-destructively "by hook or by crook," etc. from anywhere on the common. (The form "commons" is plural, and refers to the whole group of individual pieces of common land subject to these effects).

Historically, most English commons were reserved for their own commoners (meaning members of that parish), whose use was restricted in various ways according to local custom. In response to overgrazing, for example, a common would be "stinted," that is, a limit would be put on the number of animals each commoner was allowed to graze. This stint might be related to the ownership of a commonable cottage, or to the amount of land owned in the open fields. These regulations were responsive to demographic and economic pressure; rather than let the commons be degraded, access was usually restricted even further. By the time of parliamentary enclosure, in many manors in southern England few labourers and poorer people held common grazing rights; enclosure, however, did have an impact on smaller landholders who supported their farming through use of common grazing and other resources. While historians continue to debate the significance and impact of enclosure on small landholders and labouring people in England, they agree that there is no evidence that commonland use was itself unsustainable.[citation needed]

Modern solutions

Articulating solutions to the tragedy of the commons is one of the main problems of political philosophy. The most common solution to the tragedy of the commons is regulation by an authority. Frequently, such regulation is in the form of governmental regulations limiting the amount of a common good available for use by any individual. Permit systems for extractive economic activities including mining, fishing, hunting, livestock raising and timber extraction are examples of this approach. Similarly, limits to pollution are examples of governmental intervention on behalf of the commons. Alternatively, resource users themselves can cooperate to conserve the resource in the name of mutual benefit.

Another solution for certain resources is to convert common good into private property, giving the new owner an incentive to enforce its sustainability. Effectively, this is what took place in the English "Enclosure of the Commons." Increasingly, many agrarian studies scholars advocate studying traditional commons management systems, to understand how common resources can be protected without alienating those whose livelihoods depend upon them.

Libertarians and classical liberals often cite the tragedy of the commons as a classic example of what happens when Lockean property rights to homestead resources are prohibited by a government.[6][7][8][9] Said libertarians and classical liberals argue that the solution to the commons problem is to allow individuals to have property rights in a resource by bringing an unowned resource into use (i.e., by homesteading it—mixing one's labor with the resource, to paraphrase John Locke).[10] In 1940 Ludwig von Mises wrote concerning the problem,

If land is not owned by anybody, although legal formalism may call it public property, it is utilized without any regard to the disadvantages resulting. Those who are in a position to appropriate to themselves the returns—lumber and game of the forests, fish of the water areas, and mineral deposits of the subsoil—do not bother about the later effects of their mode of exploitation. For them the erosion of the soil, the depletion of the exhaustible resources and other impairments of the future utilization are external costs not entering into their calculation of input and output. They cut down the trees without any regard for fresh shoots or reforestation. In hunting and fishing they do not shrink from methods preventing the repopulation of the hunting and fishing grounds.[11]

Critics of this solution have pointed out that many commons, such as the ozone layer or global fish populations, would be extremely difficult or impossible to privatize.

Psychologist Dennis Fox used a number, what is now termed "Dunbar's number," to take a new look at the tragedy of the commons. In a 1985 paper titled "Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, & the Commons," he stated "Edney (1980, 1981a) also argued that long-term solutions will require, among a number of other approaches, breaking down the commons into smaller segments. He reviewed experimental data showing that cooperative behavior is indeed more common in smaller groups. After estimating that "the upper limit for a simple, self-contained, sustaining, well-functioning commons may be as low as 150 people" (1981a, p. 27).

The Coast Salish managed their natural resources in a place-based system where families were responsible for looking after a place and its resources [1]. Access to food was the major source of wealth and the empowerment of generosity was highly valued so it made sense for them to take care of the resources.

A popular solution to the problem is also the "Coasian" one, where the persons using the commons support one another so not to destroy the resource.

In Hardin's essay, he proposed that the solution to the problem of overpopulation must be based on "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon" and result in "relinquishing the freedom to breed." Hardin discussed this topic further in a 1979 book, Managing the Commons, co-written with John A. Baden [2]. He framed this prescription in terms of needing to restrict the "reproductive right" in order to safeguard all other rights. Only one large country has adopted this policy, the People's Republic of China. In the essay, Hardin had rejected education as an effective means of stemming population growth. Since that time, it has been shown that increased educational and economic opportunities for women correlates well with reduced birthrates in most countries, as does economic growth in general.

Application to evolutionary biology

The tragedy of the commons features highly in the field of evolutionary biology [3]. The idea comes from the theory that individuals will always behave selfishly in order to maximise their fitness. Mostly, it has been applied to theories of social evolution, where it was widely held that altruism could not have evolved because the tragedy of the commons would always favour selfish individuals; whose genes for selfish behaviour would therefore come to predominate. This contradicted observed reality, and was therefore a significant conceptual problem. The problem was eventually solved by models of possible mechanisms that can give rise to 'Reciprocal altruism', leading to ideas like the 'Tit for tat' rule (which states that it is beneficial to do unto others as they have done unto you). These models freed evolutionary theory from the limitations imposed by the concept of 'Inclusive fitness', a previous explanation for altruism, which proposed that organisms help others only to the extent that by doing so they increase the probability of passing shared genes to the next generation.

It has also been applied to other areas of sociobiology and behavioral ecology, such as in the evolution of virulence or sexual conflict, where males may fatally harm females when competing for matings [4]. It is also widely used in studies of social insects, where scientists wish to understand why insect workers do not undermine the "common good" by laying eggs of their own and causing a breakdown of the society.

The idea of evolutionary suicide, where adaptation at the level of the individual causes the whole species or population to be driven extinct, can be seen as an extreme form of an evolutionary tragedy of the commons.

Modern commons

Modern commons (some alluded to by Hardin) and some examples of potential and actual tragedies they have suffered include:

Notes

  1. ^ William Forster Lloyd, Two Lectures on the Checks to Population (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1833).
  2. ^ Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science, Vol. 162, No. 3859 (December 13, 1968), pp. 1243-1248. Also available here and here.
  3. ^ a b Aristotle (384 B.C.-322 B.C.), Politics, Book II, Chapter III, 1261b; translated by Benjamin Jowett as The Politics of Aristotle: Translated into English with Introduction, Marginal Analysis, Essays, Notes and Indices (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), Vol. 1 of 2. See also here. Also available here, here and here.
  4. ^ Thucydides (ca. 460 B.C.-ca. 395 B.C.), History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, Sec. 141; translated by Richard Crawley (London: J. M. Dent & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1910).
  5. ^ Samuel Bowles: Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution, Princeton University Press, pp. 27–29 (2004) ISBN 0691091633
  6. ^ Robert J. Smith, "Resolving the Tragedy of the Commons by Creating Private Property Rights in Wildlife," Cato Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Fall 1981), pp. 439-468.
  7. ^ Murray N. Rothbard, "Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution," Cato Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 55-100. Also available here and here.
  8. ^ "Free-Market Environmentalism Reading List," The Commons Blog.
  9. ^ Google search of "tragedy of the commons" on Mises.org, the website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
  10. ^ John Locke, "Sect. 27" and following sections in Second Treatise of Government (1690). Also available here.
  11. ^ Ludwig von Mises, Part IV, Chapter 10, Sec. VI, Nationalökonomie: Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens (Geneva: Editions Union, 1940). The quote provided is that of Mises's expanded English translation, Chapter XXIII: "The Data of the Market," Sec. 6: "The Limits of Property Rights and the Problems of External Costs and External Economies," Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949). Also available here.
  12. ^ I.A. Shiklomanov, Appraisal and Assessment of World Water Resources, Water International 25(1): 11-32 (2000)
  13. ^ * Wilson, E.O., 2002, The Future of Life, Vintage ISBN 0-679-76811-4
  14. ^ Leakey, Richard and Roger Lewin, 1996, The Sixth Extinction : Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind, Anchor, ISBN 0-385-46809-1
  15. ^ ch 11-12. Mark Kurlansky (1997). Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. New York: Walker. ISBN 0-8027-1326-2.

See also

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