Hardin (1968) Tragedy of the Commons
{ "title": "The Classic Article by Professor of Biology at the University of California Garrett Hardin, which raised the problem of managing common resources.", "summary": "", "body": "A classic article by University of California biology professor Garrett Hardin that raised the problem of managing common resources. Hardin G. The Tragedy of the Commons // Science. New Series. Vol. 162. № 3859 (December 1968)." }
{
"title": "The Tragedy of the Commons",
"summary": "The article discusses the concept of the tragedy of the commons, where individual self-interest leads to the degradation of a shared resource, and applies it to the problem of population growth and environmental degradation.",
"body": "In conclusion to their profound article on the probability of nuclear war, Wiesner and York make the point: \"Both sides in the arms race are... confronted with an insoluble problem: the constant increase in military power is accompanied by a constant weakening of national security. Our considered professional opinion is that this problem has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for a solution in the sphere of science and technology, the situation will only worsen.\" I want to draw your attention not to the topic of the article (national security in the nuclear age), but to the very formulation of the question: there are problems that have no technical solution. And yet, almost all discussions that take place on the pages of scientific and popular science journals are characterized by one silent assumption - any of the problems being discussed can be solved by technical means. By a technical solution, I mean a solution that requires changes only in the methodology of natural sciences, but not in the sphere of human values or understanding of morality. In our time - although this was not always the case - technical solutions are invariably welcome. Due to past experience of unfulfilled predictions, it takes courage to assume that a particular problem has no technical solution. Wiesner and York had the courage: in an article intended for publication in a scientific journal, they insisted: the problem cannot be solved by natural science methods. True, they cautiously equipped their conclusion with a reservation that this is their \"considered professional opinion\". The question of whether this point of view was correct or incorrect is of no importance to our article. What concerns us is the significance of the very concept of the existence of a category of problems that can be called \"problems without a technical solution\", and in a more specific sense - the identification and analysis of one of them. It is not difficult to prove that this category of problems is not an abstract concept. Let's recall the game of tic-tac-toe. And now let's ask ourselves: how can I win at tic-tac-toe? Obviously, in no way, if I (in accordance with the principles of game theory) proceed from the fact that my opponent perfectly owns the technique of this game. In other words, there is no \"technical solution\" to this problem. I can win only by interpreting the word \"victory\" in the most radical sense. For example, I can win by stunning the opponent with a blow to the head, or by doping him, or by falsifying the score. Each of these methods, which allow me to achieve \"victory\", to one degree or another, means refusing to play in the sense that we intuitively perceive it. Thus, the category of \"problems without a technical solution\" is not an abstract concept. According to my hypothesis, it includes the \"problem of population growth\" in its traditional sense. However, the question of \"traditional understanding\" requires clarification. It would not be an exaggeration to assert that most people who are struggling with this problem are trying to find a way to avoid the disastrous consequences of overpopulation without giving up any of the \"privileges\" that we enjoy today. They believe that the transformation of the seas into \"agricultural land\" or the development of new wheat varieties will solve the problem - by technical means. In this article, I will try to show that the solution they are looking for is impossible. The population problem cannot be solved technically - just like you cannot win at tic-tac-toe in a technical way. What should we maximize? As Malthus noted, the population has a natural tendency to grow in geometric progression, or, as we would say now, exponentially. In a world where resources are not infinite, this means that the share of its benefits per capita must constantly decrease. But are the resources of our world really finite? There are many arguments in favor of the fact that they are infinite, or at least in favor of the fact that we cannot assert the opposite with certainty. However, in terms of practical problems that we will face in the life of several generations, and taking into account the predicted development of technology, it becomes obvious: if we do not recognize (with a calculation for the near future) that the resources of the world available to the population of our planet are finite, people are waiting for countless disasters. \"Space\" does not provide a practical way out of the situation. A world with finite resources can only support a finite number of people; therefore, sooner or later, population growth must become zero. (The option with constant large-scale fluctuations in one direction or another from zero seems trivial, and therefore there is no need to discuss it.) In what position will humanity find itself when this condition is met? And, more specifically, is the goal formulated by Bentham - providing \"the greatest good for the greatest number of people\" - achievable? The answer must be negative - for two reasons, each of which alone would dispel all doubts. The first is of a theoretical nature: maximizing two (or more) variables at the same time is impossible from a mathematical point of view. This thesis was clearly formulated by von Neumann and Morgenstern, but in an indirect form, the same principle follows from the theory of partial differential equations, which has existed since the time of D'Alembert (1717-1783). The second reason is directly related to biology. To exist, any organism needs a source of energy (for example, food). This energy is used for two purposes: for simple survival and work. To survive, a person needs 1600 calories per day (\"maintenance calories\"). Everything that he does beyond simple survival can be qualified as work, and this is provided by \"working calories\". Working calories are used not only in the process of what we call labor in everyday language; they are also necessary for any form of pleasure - from bathing and car racing to playing music and writing poetry. If our goal is to maximize the population, the method is obvious: we need to make the number of working calories consumed by a person as close to zero as possible. In other words, no exquisite food, no entertainment, sports, music, literature, art... I think anyone will agree - without objection and demand for proof - that maximizing the population does not lead to maximizing the consumption of benefits. Bentham's goal is therefore unattainable. I made this conclusion based on the usual assumption that the problem is related to energy sources. With the advent of atomic energy, some began to question this version. However, even with an inexhaustible source of energy, population growth inevitably creates problems. Simply, the problem of obtaining energy is replaced by the problem of its costs, as cleverly demonstrated by J. H. Fremlin. Within the framework of this analysis, the arithmetic signs change to the opposite, but Bentham's goal remains unattainable. Thus, the optimal population size must be lower than the maximum. It is extremely difficult to determine this optimal value; as far as I know, no one has yet seriously addressed this problem. To find an acceptable and sustainable solution, it will take several decades of diligent work by analysts - and a significant gift of persuasion. Moreover, we want to receive the maximum benefits per capita, but what are benefits? For one, it's pristine wilderness, for another - a ski resort for thousands of vacationers. For one, it's water bodies where ducks are fed for future hunting, for another - a land plot for factory buildings. Usually, we believe that benefits cannot be compared, since they are incommensurable. And what is incommensurable cannot be compared. Theoretically, this may be the case; in real life, however, incommensurable things are compared. Only criteria for evaluation and a system of \"measures and weights\" are needed. In nature, such a criterion is survival. What should a representative of a particular species be like - small, so that it is easy to hide, or large and strong? The comparison of incommensurable things occurs in the process of natural selection. A compromise is reached as a result of nature weighing the comparative value of each variable. Man has no choice but to imitate this process. And undoubtedly, he is already doing this, albeit unconsciously. Disputes begin when the decisions made in secret become apparent. The task for the future is to develop an acceptable theory of \"measures and weights\". Due to synergistic effects, non-linear variation, and difficulties in predicting the future, this is a complex scientific problem, but (in principle) it is solvable. Have representatives of any culture managed to solve this problem in practice - at least at an intuitive level? The negative answer to this question is forced to give one simple fact: today, there is not a single prosperous population group in the world whose growth rate has been zero for some time. Any people who intuitively establish the optimal size of their population will soon reach it, after which their growth rates will decrease to zero and remain at that level. Of course, positive population growth rates can be considered a sign that it has not yet reached its optimal size. However, by any reasonable standards, the population of the poorest countries is growing the fastest in the world today. This connection, although it cannot be considered inevitable, casts doubt on the optimistic hypothesis that positive population growth rates indicate that its optimal level has not yet been reached. We are unlikely to achieve much in searching for the optimal population size until we completely \"expel\" the ghost of Adam Smith from the sphere of practical demography. With the release of his book \"The Wealth of Nations\" (1776), the concept of the \"invisible hand\" was introduced into economic science - the idea that an individual \"seeking only personal gain\" is \"led to the public interest... by an invisible hand\". Adam Smith did not claim that this happens in all cases; the same can probably be said about his followers. However, he contributed to the emergence of a trend in scientific thought, which has since become dominant and which hinders active actions based on logical analysis - the idea that decisions made at the individual level are the best also from the point of view of society as a whole. If this assumption is true, it justifies our approach based on the principle of laissez-faire in the field of reproduction. In this case, we can assume that people will control their birth rate in such a way as to ensure the optimal population size. If this assumption is incorrect, we will have to reconsider the question of our individual freedoms to determine which ones can be considered justified. The tragedy of freedom, as illustrated by the example of common resources, can serve as a refutation of the concept of the \"invisible hand\" in the field of population control. This variant can be called the \"tragedy of common resources\", using the word \"tragedy\" in the sense that the philosopher Whitehead gave it: \"In the theater, the essence of tragedy is not unhappiness. It is connected with the harshness of the inexorable course of things.\" He further notes: \"The inevitability of fate in human life can only be illustrated by stories related to unhappiness. In drama, only such stories give evidence of the futility of seeking salvation from it.\" The tragedy of common resources unfolds according to the following plot. Imagine a pasture that can be used by everyone. It is expected that each owner of a herd will try to drive as many cattle as possible onto the common land. For centuries, such a system worked, in general, satisfactorily, since due to intertribal wars, poaching, and diseases, the number of people and animals was clearly insufficient to exhaust the productive capabilities of the land. However, sooner or later, the hour of reckoning comes, i.e., the moment when the desired goal - social stability - becomes a reality. At this stage, the objective logic of exploiting common resources ruthlessly generates tragedy. Being a practical person, each owner of a herd seeks to maximize their own benefit. Directly or indirectly, consciously or not, he asks himself: \"What benefit will I get from increasing my herd by one more cow?\" This benefit consists of one negative and one positive component. The positive component is the profit received from one additional animal. Since all income from its sale goes to the cattle breeder, the positive component of the benefit is almost +1. The negative component is associated with the additional load on the land from grazing one more animal. However, since the consequences of land degradation affect all cattle breeders equally, the negative component for each owner of a herd making a corresponding decision is only a small fraction of -1. By comparing the components of the benefit, a rationally thinking cattle breeder comes to the conclusion: the only reasonable way to act for him is to increase his herd by one more animal. And then by one more, and one more... But the same conclusion is reached by all rationally thinking cattle breeders using the common pasture. Hence the tragedy arises. They are all involved in a system that encourages them to unlimitedly increase the number of their cattle - in conditions of limited resources. In a society where the free use of common resources is considered an axiom, all its members, acting in their own interests, with each step, bring about ruin. Free use of common resources turns into general ruin. Someone may object that this is a banal truth. If only it were! In some sense, it has been known to us for over a thousand years, but natural selection generates a psychology that denies the obvious. In a personal sense, an individual only gains if they have the ability to deny the obvious, although society as a whole, of which they are a part, suffers from it. The counterbalance to the natural tendency to incorrect actions can be enlightenment, but the constant change of generations requires that the basis of this knowledge be constantly updated. One case that occurred several years ago in Leominster (Massachusetts) vividly demonstrates the fragility of knowledge. During the Christmas \"shopping season\", street parking meters in the city center were covered with plastic bags with tags: \"Remove only after Christmas. A gift from the mayor and city council - free parking\". In other words, faced with the prospect of increasing demand for already scarce parking spaces, the city fathers restored the system of free common use. (With some degree of cynicism, we can assume that with this return to the past, they rather gained than lost the sympathies of voters.) Approximately, we have long been aware of the logic of common use - possibly since the invention of agriculture and private property. However, it is recognized mainly only in specific cases, without receiving the necessary generalization. Even today, cattle breeders who rent state lands in the western United States demonstrate, to put it mildly, a vague understanding of this logic, constantly demanding that federal authorities increase the permitted number of their herds - even if this leads to depletion and erosion of pasture lands. Similarly, the preserved logic of common use suffers from the world's oceans. Maritime powers still automatically respond to the incantation of \"freedom of the seas\". Asserting that \"oceanic resources are inexhaustible\", they put new species of fish and whales on the brink of extinction. Another example of the tragedy of common resources is the situation with national parks. Currently, they are open to everyone, without any restrictions. The area of such parks is limited - for example, the entire Yosemite Valley is only one - and the population is growing without limits. This undermines the \"values\" that people visiting national parks strive for. Obviously, we will soon have to stop treating them as common areas - otherwise, they will be of no use to anyone. What should we do? There are several options. We can sell the parks to private hands. Or we can leave them in state ownership, but provide the right to use the parks through some special procedure. The criterion here can be wealth - and then these rights can be put up for auction. We can provide people with the right to use the parks based on their personal merits, determined by certain agreed standards. We can raffle them off. Finally, we can introduce a system based on the principle of \"first come, first served\", creating huge queues. In my opinion, these are all the reasonable options available. None of them can be considered flawless. But we will have to choose one of them - or helplessly watch as the common resources we call national parks perish. Environmental pollution is another example of the tragedy of common resources - albeit \"per contra\". In this case, we are not talking about taking away these resources, but about introducing something into the common areas - dumping sewage, chemical, and radioactive waste into the water, polluting the atmosphere with toxic and hazardous emissions, spoiling the species with distracting and unpleasant billboards. [IMG_1]"
}{
"title": "On the Tragedy of the Commons, Population Growth, and Governance",
"summary": "The essay analyses the economic and moral dimensions of common‑resource degradation, the impact of population density on environmental pollution, and the challenges of regulating reproduction and resource use within welfare‑state frameworks. It argues for administrative law, mutually agreed coercion, and genetically informed property rights as mechanisms to mitigate the tragedy of the commons.",
"body": "The utility calculation here differs only slightly from the one presented above. A rationally thinking individual concludes that the damage associated with the pollution of common resources is less than the costs of waste disposal. Since everyone reaches the same conclusion, as long as we act merely as independent, rational, free entrepreneurs, the system itself encourages us to \"dirty our own nest\".\n\nRegarding the \"food basket\", the tragedy of common‑use resources can be avoided by private ownership, or some formal analogue of it. However, water and air cannot be \"fenced off\", so the tragedy associated with turning common resources into a \"sewage ditch\" must be prevented by other means—compulsory legislative measures or tax instruments that would make waste disposal cheaper than environmental pollution. So far, we have achieved far less success in solving this problem than in solving the first. Moreover, our concept of private property, which is intended to prevent the depletion of productive land resources, in practice contributes to pollution. The owner of a factory on a riverbank—whose holdings extend over the water body up to its midpoint—often simply does not understand why pollution of the flow passing his enterprise cannot be considered his natural right. Law, always lagging behind the times, needs substantial revision in light of this newly manifested aspect of the commons problem.\n\nEnvironmental pollution is a direct consequence of population growth. In earlier times, the question of how residents of sparsely populated the Wild West disposed of waste was of little significance. \"Running water is cleaned every ten miles,\" my grandfather used to say, and in his childhood this myth was not far from reality, because there were fewer people. But with increasing population density, the load on natural chemical and biological waste‑processing processes has risen excessively, and therefore the definition of property rights needs to be revisited.\n\nHow can moderation be ensured through legislative means?\n\nAnalyzing environmental pollution as a result of rising population density draws attention to a moral principle that has not received wide recognition: the morality of a particular action is linked to the state of the system at the moment it occurs. Using common resources as a \"sewage ditch\" does not harm society in the context of the Wild West, because that \"society\" is scattered over a vast territory, but in a megacity the same behavior is unacceptable. One and a half centuries ago a prairie dweller could kill a bison, cut its tongue for lunch, and simply discard the rest of the carcass. At that time this was not considered wasteful resource use. Today, with only a few thousand bison remaining, such an act would horrify us to the core.\n\nIt should be noted that the morality of an action cannot be determined from a photograph. We cannot know whether a person who kills an elephant or sets fire to steppe grass harms others unless we know within which overall system he performs the act. \"A picture is worth a thousand words,\" said an ancient Chinese sage, but in this case perhaps 10,000 words are needed to explain what is seen. Ecologists—as any reformers—are tempted to persuade others with a \"snapshot\". Yet the argument cannot be \"photographed\"; it must be articulated logically—in words.\n\nAdministrators attempting to assess the morality of an action within an overall system are especially prone to corruption, resulting in a rule of people rather than of law.\n\nA total \"dry law\" can be introduced legally (though ensuring compliance is far harder), but how can legislation prescribe moderation? Experience shows that the most effective way is through administrative law. We would unnecessarily limit our options if we deemed the question \"Quis custodiet?\" as precluding the use of administrative law. Instead, we should constantly keep this aphorism in mind as a reminder of dangers we cannot avoid. The main task before us today is to devise a corrective feedback mechanism that keeps \"supervisors\" honest. Methods must be found that legitimize the authority of both the \"supervisors\" and the feedback mechanisms.\n\nFree reproduction is unacceptable\n\nThe tragedy of common‑use resources influences the problem of population size in another way. In a world that operates solely on the principle \"every man for himself\"—if such a world can even be imagined—the number of children born in a family does not concern society. Those who reproduce excessively end up with no more, and actually fewer, offspring because they cannot provide adequate care. As David Lack and other scientists have shown, such negative \"feedback\" serves as a population‑control mechanism in birds. Humans, however, are not birds and have followed different behavioral standards for millennia.\n\nIf each human family depended only on its own resources; if children whose parents could not feed them simply died of hunger; if, consequently, excessive fertility led to a natural \"punishment\"—then society would have no interest in controlling reproduction at the individual level. Yet our society is deeply committed to the idea of a \"welfare state\", and therefore confronts another facet of the tragedy of the commons.\n\nHow, in a welfare‑state context, should we deal with families, religious communities, ethnic groups, classes, and any other cohesive social groups that turn excessively high birth rates into a means of increasing their own numbers? Merging the concept of free reproduction with the idea that every newborn should have equal access to common resources would steer humanity toward tragedy. Unfortunately, this is precisely how the United Nations operates. In late 1967 about thirty states agreed on the following: \"In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the family is called the natural and fundamental cell of society. Consequently, any choice or decision concerning family size must be made by the family itself, and by no one else.\"\n\nCategorically denying this right is difficult; it evokes the same uncomfortable feeling as a 17th‑century Salem resident denying the existence of witches. Today, in liberal circles, there is a near‑taboo against criticizing the UN. The organization is regarded as \"our last and best hope\", and we are discouraged from pointing out its flaws, thereby playing into the hands of arch‑conservatives. Yet we should recall Robert Louis Stevenson: \"The truth that friends suppress immediately becomes a weapon in the hands of enemies.\" If we value truth, we must openly declare the unreality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even though it was adopted by the United Nations. We must also join forces with Kingsley Davis so that the organization \"Planned Parenthood—World Population\" recognizes the error of supporting the same ideal that leads to tragedy.\n\nAppeals to conscience will not help\n\nIt would be a mistake to assume that we can control fertility in the long term by appealing to people's consciences. This was noted by Charles Galton Darwin on the centennial anniversary of his grandfather's great book. His arguments are simple and follow Darwinian theory.\n\nAll people differ from one another. Some will undoubtedly respond to a call for limiting fertility more readily than others. Consequently, the children of those who refuse to limit their reproduction will constitute a larger share of the next generation than the offspring of more conscientious parents. With each generation this ratio will only increase.\n\nQuoting C. G. Darwin: \"It may happen that such a development of the reproductive instinct will take [a lifetime] hundreds of generations, but if it does, nature's retribution cannot be avoided: Homo contracipiens will disappear from the face of the Earth, and its place will be taken by Homo progenitivus.\"\n\nThis argument rests on the premise that consciousness—or the desire to have children (whatever term is used)—has a hereditary component—but it is inherited only in the most general, formal sense.\n\nThe outcome will be the same whether it is transmitted through embryonic cells or exosomatically, using the term A. J. Lotka. (If you reject both possibilities, then what is the point of discussing it at all?) We have presented these arguments in the context of population growth, but they can be applied with equal success to any case where society appeals to the conscience of a person exploiting common resources, urging restraint for the common good. Such an appeal triggers a selection mechanism that erodes conscientiousness in the human race.\n\nPathogenic effects of conscience\n\nThe long‑term negative consequences of appealing to conscience are sufficient to abandon this approach; however, it also has serious short‑term drawbacks. If we ask a person exploiting common resources to refrain \"in the name of conscientiousness\", what exactly are we telling them? And what do they hear—not only at the moment of address but in the night’s twilight when, half‑asleep, they recall not only our words but also the unspoken communicative signals we unintentionally transmitted? Sooner or later, consciously or subconsciously, they will perceive two mutually contradictory signals: (1) the intended signal—\"If you do not do what we ask, we will openly condemn you for not acting as a responsible citizen\"; and (2) the unintended signal—\"If you do what we ask, we will secretly consider you a simpleton, whom we can shame into standing aside while everyone else uses the common resources\".\n\nAs a result, each person is forced, as Bateson put it, \"to be torn between contradictory demands\". Bateson and co‑authors convincingly demonstrated that such a state is one of the important causal factors in the development of schizophrenia. Contradictory demands may not always lead to such severe outcomes, but they inevitably jeopardize the mental health of anyone to whom they are applied. \"An impure conscience,\" Nietzsche said, \"is a kind of disease.\"\n\nThe temptation to awaken conscientiousness in others arises in anyone who wishes to extend his control beyond legal limits. This temptation also affects leaders at the highest level. Answer: has any president in the past twenty‑five years refrained from urging trade unions to voluntarily temper their wage‑increase demands, or metallurgical companies to voluntarily observe price caps? I recall none. The rhetoric used in such cases must evoke guilt in the dissenters.\n\nFor centuries it was taken as an unquestioned fact that guilt is a valuable, perhaps indispensable, element of life in a civilized society. Today, in the post‑Freudian era, this thesis is doubtful.\n\nThis modern viewpoint is expressed by Paul Goodwin: \"Nothing good ever comes from a person feeling guilty—it adds neither wisdom nor compassion, it does not help politics. The one who feels guilty focuses attention not on the proper object but on himself, not even on his own interests that might be meaningful, but on his own anxiety.\"\n\nTo understand the consequences of anxiety, one need not be a professional psychiatrist. We, inhabitants of the Western world, are only now overcoming the terrible two‑century‑long \"Dark Ages of Eros\", which were partly built on prohibitive legislation and partly—perhaps more effectively—on educational mechanisms that evoked anxiety in people. Alex Comfort narrates this story convincingly in his book \"Creators of Anxiety\", and it appears rather unpleasant.\n\nSince proving anything here is difficult, let us even suppose that from some perspectives this anxiety can lead to desirable results. That does not remove the overarching question: should we, in principle, for political purposes, encourage the use of any methods that lead (even unintentionally) to pathogenic psychological consequences? Today we often hear about \"responsible child‑bearing\"; this phrase has even entered the names of some organizations advocating fertility control. Some propose large‑scale propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility in parents nationwide (or worldwide). But what does \"responsibility\" mean in this context? Might it simply be a synonym for \"conscientiousness\"? Moreover, when we use the word \"responsibility\" without serious sanctions, are we not stifling a free individual who uses common resources so that he acts against his own interests? \"Responsibility\" is a verbal substitution for the meaningful principle quid pro quo. It is an attempt to obtain something while giving nothing.\n\nIf the use of the word \"responsibility\" is at all legitimate, in my view it is only in the sense intended by Charles Frankel. \"Responsibility,\" notes this philosopher, \"is the product of concrete social agreements.\" Note: he speaks of agreements, not of propaganda.\n\nMutual coercion by mutual consent\n\nSocial agreements that generate responsibility are, in a sense, linked to coercion. Take, for example, bank robberies. A person who robs a bank acts as if the institution were a common‑use resource. How do we prevent such actions? Certainly not by mere verbal appeals to his sense of responsibility. We do not rely on propaganda methods, but follow Frankel’s example: we assert that a bank is not a common‑use resource and strive to achieve a concrete social agreement that prevents its{
"title": "The Necessity of Recognizing the Tragedy of the Commons",
"summary": "The text discusses the struggle between reforms and the status quo, highlighting the importance of recognizing the tragedy of the commons in various aspects of life, including resource management, population growth, and individual freedoms.",
"body": "Better an injustice than complete devastation. Such is one of the peculiarities of the struggle between reforms and the status quo, which is often unconsciously determined by double standards. Proposed reformist steps often fail if opponents manage to find some flaw in them. As Kingsley Davis points out, supporters of the status quo sometimes imply that any reforms are only possible with unanimous consent from all - which contradicts historical facts.