Assignment #3: The Tragedy of the Commons

Review Article

1) Article Reference
HARDIN, G. (1968) “The Tragedy of the Commons” Science, 162, pp. 1243 – 1248.

2) Summary
The tragedy of the commons is a classical paper that presents an important recognition by society that a finite resources world would not be able to supply the demands of an exponential increasing human population. Although it was written 40 years ago, by that time, nature was already charging its price and pollution problems become more and more apparent in highly populated places. This recognition can easily be seen as the author says: “A finite world can only support a finite population; therefore the population growth must eventually be equal to zero”. The author analyses the possibility of trying to maximize population and maximize goods and find this goal impossible, as he concludes: “the optimum population is then, less than the maximum”.
The classical story behind the tragedy of commons is based on the example of the “commons” as the place where all the herdsman of a small society would, in common, raised their herbs. The principle of the commons is that everyone could raise it´s herbs inside the collective space. The point is that any rational individual would soon realized that if he increased his number of animals, he would increase not only increase his profit but also share the costs of the resources needed to develop the animal with all society. When each individual increases his herbs to a point where the total herb demand is greater than the resources that the commons could offer, the system collapsed and nobody could than rise their herbs anymore.
The author than point some specific examples of the tragedy of the commons that were taking place by his time. He mentions the national parks that were been overused and over developed. The oceans, which are treated by the nations as a huge “commons”, where each tried to get as much as possible out of it to guarantee it´s profit. The pollution problem illustrates very well the relation of the commons and its tragedy collapse. Pollution in small scale can easily be treated by nature within the natural cycle. But when it overpasses the limit of auto depuration, pollution very quickly demonstrates all the magnitude of the tragedy of the commons.
The author points out the controversial of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states that every family has the right to choose its size. The author recognizes that is very hard for the individuals to give up a share of the commons, as he says “It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience”.
Several alternatives are pointed by the author considering that “Not prohibition, but carefully biased options are what we offer him”. A very good example that society have learned to avoid the tragedy of the commons are the taxes system. Nobody enjoys taxes, but everyone agree to use a compulsory system knowing that in a voluntary system would favor the conscienceless. The author is very prismatic and urges the necessity to control the human breeding is becoming vital to guarantee other and more precious freedoms.

3) Discussion
This paper was published almost 40 years ago at the end of the sixties in a rather different social context than we face today. By that time cold war was taking place in a nuclear world. In the fastest growing cities it was becoming more evident that society was reaching a point where nature could not adequately supply all that mankind was ready to charge.
I think this paper represents the beginning of the human awareness of the earth limited resources and that the increasing population would soon face shortage of basic resources. After this paper many more recent concepts related to this theme have evolved such as pollution control, the sustainable development and clean energies alternatives. Although today we have evolved in many aspects of trying to increase the availability of resources I feel humanity still believes it is possible to maximize population and resources, although it was wisely recognized by the author decades ago that this is not possible.
I recognize that future research within this theme would be how to apply modern optimization techniques to find limits and the best alternatives to use wisely the resources available to an increasing population.