The Tragedy of the Commons

[nadinbrzezinski]

As valid in 1968 as it is today

The Tragedy of the Commons
Garrett Hardin (1968)

(table of contents)

"The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin, Science, 162(1968):1243-1248.

At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, J.B. Wiesner and H.F. York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are…confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.'' <1>

I would like to focus your attention not on the subject of the article (national security in a nuclear world) but on the kind of conclusion they reached, namely that there is no technical solution to the problem. An implicit and almost universal assumption of discussions published in professional and semipopular scientific journals is that the problem under discussion has a technical solution. A technical solution may be defined as one that requires 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.

In our day (though not in earlier times) technical solutions are always welcome. Because of previous failures in prophecy, it takes courage to assert that a desired technical solution is not possible. Wiesner and York exhibited this courage; publishing in a science journal, they insisted that the solution to the problem was not to be found in the natural sciences. They cautiously qualified their statement with the phrase, "It is our considered professional judgment...." Whether they were right or not is not the concern of the present article. Rather, the concern here is with the important concept of a class of human problems which can be called "no technical solution problems," and more specifically, with the identification and discussion of one of these.

It is easy to show that the class is not a null class. Recall the game of tick-tack-toe. Consider the problem, "How can I win the game of tick-tack-toe?" It is well known that I cannot, if I assume (in keeping with the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can hit my opponent over the head; or I can falsify the records. Every way in which I "win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game, as we intuitively understand it. (I can also, of course, openly abandon the game -- refuse to play it. This is what most adults do.)

The class of "no technical solution problems" has members. My thesis is that the "population problem," as conventionally conceived, is a member of this class. How it is conventionally conceived needs some comment. It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy. They think that farming the seas or developing new strains of wheat will solve the problem -- technologically. I try to show here that the solution they seek cannot be found. The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning the game of tick-tack-toe.

http://dieoff.org/page95.htm

Discuss

[mike_c]

1. this is required reading in my ecology class...

...and ALWAYS guarantees a lively discussion. I still think it's one of the most important papers written in the last 50 years.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I keep mentioning so I figured better just post it

I think the copyright has gone so I could technically do the full article... but yes, it is usually a lively article

[mattvermont]

3. Agreed

I too used this piece when I taught in graduate school.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Welcome to DU

and I was forced to read this in an undergraduate class... back then it was forced now I fully understand its importance.

The right essentially is living this article, the tragedy... for they are about to reach diminishing returns and Peak Oil IS an extremely good example of the premises of this article.

[mattvermont]

7. thanks

thanks...I have lurked here daily for well over a year...more my style to see what others are thinking. I hadn't thought of that article for years.

[newyawker99]

19. Hi mattvermont!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[longship]

4. Thanks, Nadin

This kind of post needs to have wide exposure.

Recommended.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. You welcome, it is a critical essay

and I hope people do discuss it

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. It can be misused

For example, Lawrence Lessig's work (particularly in The Future of Ideas) demonstrates quite nicely that the Tragedy of the Commons would refer primarily to what are called "rivalrous" resources. Hardin's example of the cow pasture to which herdsmen continue to add cows until all the grass is exhausted would be the classic case of a rivalrous resource. Lessig argues, however, that when this principle is applied to non-rivalrous resources - say - a digitally copied photograph, we end up with a kind of madness that stifles creativity. The current copyright regime is, of course, his target. The non-rivalrous resource is not exhausted by n+1 users. In fact, as free and open source software demonstrates, additional users can actually increase the value of such resources. So, with regard to pollution, it is hard to argue against Hardin's thesis. It is economically preferable for each individual polluter to spew more chemicals into the common air, but this individual efficiency is precisely what leads to the destruction of the common resource. Yes. But when this same logic is applied with respect to other kinds of resources, the result can be draconian regulation - and a regulation that grounds itself in Hardin's principle when it in fact has nothing to do with it at all.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. I look at the time this was written

computers were rare comodities and the open source movement was intellectually in another era.

I tend to look at Harding through teh eyes of Natural resources... but that was my take on it

;-)

Otherwise we agree, it can be misused if misunderstood for it does not apply to all, but it does apply to peak oil for exameple.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Well, if you say "as valid today, etc." then

you have to deal with the way it's been taken up in its current context. As for its historical context, the open source movement was not of course a movement (open source practices were themselves common in 1968 software engineering - we're talking pre-IBM unbundling here, and super pre-software copyright), but there were certainly such things as non-rivalrous resources!

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. In the current context it DOES NOT apply to computers but

to cows, peak oil and pollution... hence it is still very valid

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. There's no need to shout

I have not at any point disputed that the thesis is valid for rivalrous resources, at least in a strictly economic context. Chill pill required.

It didn't deal with non-rivalrous resources (one wonders why - many non-rivalrous resources existed at the time of the writing that had nothing to do with computers). Today, people apply it to such resources. That's wrong. That's all I'm saying.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Emphasis not shouting

yes but you are also talking in some respects of apples and oranges, as in some ways what Harding is talking about is also knowns as classic zero sum, but in the end all loose,

In the current open source environment, I can see how the big boys feel threatened, (MS), and they should for this open source movement is leading to a major crisis for the copy right holders. Now let me be honest, I work my you know what off as a writer, and quite honestly, I really do not want people to just post my stuff freely all over. I want to make some money out of this, and unless our society changes where labor is rewarded in some other way, we will have a problem with copyright reform.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. That's neither here nor there

The fact is that your writing is a non-rivalrous resource, strictly speaking, since my reading of your writing does not reduce the amount of it available for other readers. It is not the same as the air (a rivalrous resource), or Hardin's pasture. Your remuneration for your writing is based on other principles (developed in copyright law and its modifications since the statute of Queen Anne, US Copyright Act, etc.) and cannot be based on the tragedy of the commons argument. The problem is precisely when Hardin's thesis is applied to non-rivalrous resources, since these are, as you say, apples and oranges (which I've established since my first post). How hard you work or under what pinciples you should be compensated, or through what incentives writing is produced, or how we balance such incentives with the general well-being and increase in knowledge...al that is beside the point. Except to say that an argument about rivalrous resources would be sorely misplaced in copyright debates.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. But harding is not talking about non rivalrous resources

that is a whole different matter and truly it is not a zero sum game

that said my writing enters into a rivalrous environment every time I submit a story for consideration at any of the trades. I am competing with everybody else who has submited... a rivalrous relationship has been crated because there is only so much that will be published. Now we can argue whether this is artificial or not (and it is in some ways)

That said, when it comes to copyright, the Open Source movement has made quite a bit of advance in changing the nature of the beast (copy right) which is becoming next to impossible to enforce, so we will have to change how we deal with creative art... but this has nothing to do with Hardin's thesis,

For harding his essay concentrated on the commons, we all hold. The magazine pages of Asimov or KoDT are not part of the commons.

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. Jeez

I am perfectly aware that Hardin is referring only to rivalrous resources, as I have said in each post in our discussion. Why you feel the need to reiterate this in each post when I have conceded the point from the outset is a recurring mystery to me. I take issue with those who apply his thesis to non-rivalrous resources.

Now, whether your writing enters into a competitive environment (rivalrous has a specific meaning here and is a predicate strictly for resources in an economic sense, not "environments" in a general sense) has nothing to do with the character of writing (your writing or anyone else's) as a resource, specifically. The fact is that my reading of your writing does not reduce it in any way as a resource - does not lessen it for anyone else, nor would 10,000 readings, nor 2,000,000. Compare the difference between this use of a resource and putting 1 cow in the pasture, or 10,000, or 2,000,000. That is the only definition of non-rivalrous that has any bearing on this conversation.

[mike_c]

10. hardin's thesis applies only to resources for which the primary...

...cost/benefit disparity exists-- the benefits of adding another cow accrue only to the owner, while the costs are borne by all-- he certainly didn't suggest otherwise, so I think attempts to generalize his thesis beyond that are misplaced.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. We agree that they're misplaced

Unfortunately, in the current copyright regime, they're all too common, and that's a tragedy. ;-)

[Jose Diablo]

20. I think Kissinger proposed a solution

He termed it 'depopulation'. As I remember it.

If we examine the causes of famine, it's not just a crop failure that causes starvation, but rather it is the loss of the ability to earn money to buy food that causes starvation. A crop failure is a local phenomena. A drought in one place means abundant rain someplace else. But what happens is the food produced with the abundant rain does not find it's way to the drought area because nobody in the drought area has money to buy the food. Thus famine is about economics, not food production.

Now Kissinger, his non-technical solution to the worlds population problem was simple. Kill them economically.

That Kissinger, if we could define evil, I think he could be the poster boy.

I think what we are seeing today, in this country, is preparations being made to implement Kissinger's depopulation strategies.