Introduction
In 1968, American ecologist Garrett Hardin penned a short lecture that would come to have a profound impact on environmental debates for decades to come. Titled ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Hardin's lecture outlined a simple (some say simplistic) parable of environmental degradation under conditions of human freedom:
Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons … As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly … he asks, ‘What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?’
The herdsman in Hardin's parable knows that if he adds one more animal to his herd, he will receive all the profits from the sale of this animal. He also reasons that the additional grazing by just one additional animal would have an insignificant impact on the pasture. As a result, Hardin continues:
the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another … But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
(Hardin 1968)The tragedy of this situation lay in its unhappy inevitability: so long as human freedom was respected, and land and natural resources were freely available for anyone to use, they would slowly but inevitably be destroyed. The earth's ‘carrying capacity’ would be eroded (Hardin 1968). In the short term, the benefits of adding additional cattle would accrue to the individual herdsmen, but in the long term the depleted common resource would benefit no one. The situation is exacerbated by population growth because the more people there are, the more users there are.
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