The Tragedy of the Commons
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What is the Tragedy of the Commons?
Another econ edition. Typically not my favorite, but, you know, this one I could wrap my head around for the most part.
I think that's one of the reasons why it's had such an enormous impact on the world, because it is so easy to wrap your head around. We should probably say we're talking about the tragedy of the commons. And for those of you who aren't familiar, it's this idea, this concept that if you have a shared resource, a commons, say,
How does the Tragedy of the Commons affect shared resources?
And people are able to use it at their own leisure, for their own purposes. Eventually, as they seek to maximize their profits, they're going to overuse this commons. And inevitably, it'll be ruined because people can't have anything nice, essentially.
You know what's funny? You're going to laugh at me here. They're all going to laugh at you. The central area of my high school was called the Commons. Yeah. And it just occurred to me 35 years or so after I graduated that that's what that meant.
Oh, I see. I thought you were going to say like my teenage years were the tragedy of the commons.
No, I just, I don't know. I never thought about the word because it was when you're in high school, it's just said in the commons, we'll meet in the commons. But it never occurred to me that that's what that meant, just like a common area shared by everyone.
It didn't either. To me, I know exactly what you're talking about. There was, if not high school, then maybe middle school. There was some school where that was called that too. And I wonder if it was like a surreptitious shot at kids, like they're all sheep. Because I don't think that's true. But one of the major uses for commons traditionally has been for grazing. That's a really good example. If you let a bunch of people graze on a shared resource, but they're taking what they can from that resource to make money for themselves, to support themselves, then just because humans are rational, selfish, horrible beings, that meadow or that high school cafeteria will be ruined.
Yeah, that's right. And the idea of the Tragedy of the Commons started out in 1968 in an article from Science, the journal Science. It was called the Tragedy of the Commons, and it was by a biologist named Garrett Hardin. And he was sort of piggybacking on a 19th century English mathematician and economist named William Forster.
Not Foster. I would say piggybacking or hijacking.
Hijacking. William Forster Lloyd. And you mentioned grazing, and this is sort of the thought experiment Harden went with, which is like you have a grazing field, and let's say three farmers have use of it, and they're letting their cows and sheep graze out there. But at some point, one of them is going to get an extra fat cow that they sell for pretty good money, and they're like, hey, well, if that worked out, maybe I can add an additional cow, and maybe it'll make... you know, the value of all of these cows go down a little bit, including my own, because they're not getting as fat because I've added another cow here. Right.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the Tragedy of the Commons?
1:16–1:47
2
How does the Tragedy of the Commons affect shared resources?
1:47–11:52
3
What are the solutions proposed by Garrett Hardin?
11:52–12:55
4
How does privatization impact resource management?
12:55–14:38
5
What role does government intervention play in resource management?
14:38–19:10
6
How has the Tragedy of the Commons been misinterpreted?
19:10–28:08
7
What are real-world examples that disprove the Tragedy of the Commons?
28:08–34:51
8
How did enclosure change the management of commons?
34:51–55:56