Garrett Hardin
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| + | "In the days before [[Louis Pasteur|Pasteur]] [[World population|man's population]] was maintained approximately constant from generation to generation by a cybernetic system in which the principal [[feedback]] element at the upper limit was [[disease]]. The crowd-diseases — [[smallpox]], [[cholera]], [[Typhoid fever|typhoid]], [[plague]], etc. — are, by the ecologist, labeled "density-dependent factors," whose effectiveness in reducing [[population]] is a power function of the density of the population. No growth of population could get out of hand as long as the crowd-diseases were unconquered, which means that man did not have to sit in judgment on man, to decide who should have a cover at Nature’s feast and who should not." --''[[Nature and Man's Fate]]'' (1965) by [[Garrett Hardin]] | ||
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| - | The '''tragedy of the commons''' is a term used in [[social science]] to describe a situation in a shared-[[resource]] system where [[individual]] users acting independently according to their own [[self-interest]] behave contrary to the [[common good]] of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action. The concept and phrase originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist [[William Forster Lloyd]], who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on [[common land]] (also known as a "common") in the British Isles. The concept became widely known over a century later due to an article written by the American ecologist and philosopher [[Garrett Hardin]] in 1968. In this modern economic context, [[commons]] is taken to mean any shared and unregulated resource such as [[Carbon dioxide#In the Earth's atmosphere|atmosphere]], [[Great Pacific garbage patch|oceans]], rivers, [[fish stocks]], or even an office refrigerator. | + | '''Garrett James Hardin''' (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American [[ecologist]] and [[philosopher]] who warned of the dangers of [[human overpopulation]]. His exposition of the [[tragedy of the commons]], entitled "[[The Tragedy of the Commons]]", published in 1968 in ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'', called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable." |
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| - | It has been argued that the very term 'tragedy of the Commons' is a misnomer, since 'the commons' referred to land resources with rights jointly owned by members of a community, and no individual outside the community had any access to the resource. However, the term is now used in social science and economics when describing a problem where ''all'' individuals have equal and open access to a resource. Hence, 'tragedy of open access regimes' or simply 'the open access problem' are more apt terms. | + | |
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| - | The 'tragedy of the commons' is often cited in connection with [[sustainable development]], meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the [[Global warming controversy|debate over global warming]]. It has also been used in analyzing behavior in the fields of [[economics]], [[evolutionary psychology]], [[anthropology]], [[game theory]], [[politics]], [[taxation]] and [[sociology]]. | + | |
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| - | Although common resource systems have been known to collapse due to overuse (such as in [[over-fishing]]), many examples have existed and still do exist where members of a community with access to a common resource co-operate or regulate to exploit those resources prudently without collapse. [[Elinor Ostrom]] was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for demonstrating exactly this concept in her book Governing the Commons, which included examples of how local communities were able to do this without top-down regulations. | + | |
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| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| - | * [[Dutch disease]] | + | * [[Bioethics]] |
| - | * [[Externality]] | + | * [[Commonize costs–privatize profits game]] |
| - | * [[Credentialism and educational inflation]] | + | * [[Earth system science]] |
| - | * [[International Association for the Study of the Commons]] | + | * [[Human overpopulation]] |
| - | * [[Nash equilibrium]] | + | * [[Lifeboat ethics]] |
| - | * [[Prisoner's Dilemma]], wherein two parties may each act in an individually beneficial fashion to the detriment of both. | + | * [[Multiculturalism]] |
| - | * [[Volunteer's dilemma]] | + | * [[Ratchet effect]] |
| - | * [[:Category:Social reputation in fiction|Social reputation in fiction]] | + | * [[Taboo]] |
| - | * [[Social trap]] | + | |
| - | * [[Somebody else's problem]] | + | |
| - | * [[Stone Soup]], the inverse of the tragedy. | + | |
| - | * [[Tragedy of the anticommons]] | + | |
| - | * [[Tyranny of small decisions]] | + | |
| - | * [[Unscrupulous diner's dilemma]] | + | |
| - | * [[The Evolution of Cooperation]] | + | |
| - | * [[Unintended Consequences]] | + | |
| - | * [[Overfishing]] | + | |
| - | ** [[Shark finning]] | + | |
| - | ** [[Pacific bluefin tuna]] | + | |
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"In the days before Pasteur man's population was maintained approximately constant from generation to generation by a cybernetic system in which the principal feedback element at the upper limit was disease. The crowd-diseases — smallpox, cholera, typhoid, plague, etc. — are, by the ecologist, labeled "density-dependent factors," whose effectiveness in reducing population is a power function of the density of the population. No growth of population could get out of hand as long as the crowd-diseases were unconquered, which means that man did not have to sit in judgment on man, to decide who should have a cover at Nature’s feast and who should not." --Nature and Man's Fate (1965) by Garrett Hardin |
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Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American ecologist and philosopher who warned of the dangers of human overpopulation. His exposition of the tragedy of the commons, entitled "The Tragedy of the Commons", published in 1968 in Science, called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable."
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See also
- Bioethics
- Commonize costs–privatize profits game
- Earth system science
- Human overpopulation
- Lifeboat ethics
- Multiculturalism
- Ratchet effect
- Taboo
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