#1499 What is the tragedy of the commons?

What is the tragedy of the commons? The tragedy of the commons is the idea that if anybody can use a finite resource as much as they want, they will usually overuse it and destroy it. That is human nature.

The common that the tragedy of the commons refers to is common land that most villages or settlements would have had. Common land was land that could be used by the common people, also known as the commoners. The word common comes from the Latin “communis”, which meant “public, shared by all, general, not specific”. Societies have always been divided into classes and they were often the royals, the

, and the leaders of whatever religion the society follows. All those that are left are the commoners.

Up util the end of the feudal system in England, all of the land in the country was owned by the crown. The crown would then parcel it up and lend it to nobles who were in favor. They would then parcel that land up and keep passing it to people who were in favor with them until there was a smallish area called a manor. The lord of the manor would divide the land into tiny pieces, and the commoners would work those pieces of land. They had to give most of what they produced to the lord of the manor in return for the land. Because their pieces of land were so small, there was barely any room to graze animals. The lord of the manor would make available a piece of wasteland that everybody could graze their cattle on. This is the origin of the common. Once feudalism ended, and people started to own their own land, the idea of a common ground for everybody continued. These days, most villages in the UK at least have a commons in their center. They don’t graze animals anymore, but the land is used for communal events and is technically owned by everyone.

The tragedy of the commons is an idea put forward in 1968 by an evolutionary biologist called Garrett Hardin. He was concerned about the rapidly increasing world population and our overuse of resources. When he was writing, the world population was 3.54 billion people. (With our current 8.2 billion, that sounds rather nice.) In his lifetime, the world population had almost doubled. In fact, 1964, probably when he started thinking of the topic, is the year the world population increased the most in one year, ever. The world population jumped by 2.25%. These days, as birthrates are declining in many countries, growth has fallen to 0.85%. World population growth is predicted to peak in 2084 at 10.2 billion people and then start to fall. Hardin based his ideas on a famous lecturer by an economist called William Forster, who lectured on overpopulation in the early 19^th century. The population in his lifetime went from 900 million to 1.2 billion. Although, he was probably influenced by the overcrowding in cities due to the Industrial Revolution. Both of these people thought that the world’s resources would soon be used up. And this is where the tragedy of the commons comes from.

In the tragedy of the commons, if everybody is allowed to use the common land as much as they want, then the available land will soon become unusable. All of the grazing animals will eat all of the grass, and their hooves will tear up the land so more grass can’t grow. The more people there are to use the common land, the more quickly that common land will be destroyed. All of the farmers are in competition with each other because they want their animals to find more grazing land than the others. There is also no incentive for each farmer to stop grazing on the land, so the grass will grow back because that would give them a disadvantage. There is also no incentive for each farmer to pay any money for the upkeep of the land because that would put them at a disadvantage as well. Hardin took this example and likened it to the world’s resources, something that we can see today. Climate change, water pollution, and plastic in the oceans.

Both Hardin and Forster were not aware of the ability of technology to keep pace with us. Malthus made this error as well when he predicted exponential human growth and our demise. We have become adept at finding ways of producing more grass on the commons to graze more and more animals. That cannot go on forever, though, and sometimes, increasing the grass on the commons comes at the expense of a resource somewhere else in the world.

However, in an ideal commons system, there is a way of fixing this. With the original commons, the lord of the manor could stint the commons. That meant a limit on the number of animals that could be grazed would be implemented, or the use of the land would be banned until it was restored. Ideally, this system allowed for the continued use of the resource. In today’s world, the government is theoretically the lord of the manor, and they have the ability to stint a commons. We see this sometimes. Things like fishing limits are implemented, or mining is banned. However, there are too many exceptions where governments are influenced by the farmers who have the most animals to graze. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to worry about the tragedy of the commons. Maybe we will get to that ideal world one day. And this is what I learned today.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commoner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_land

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Forster_Lloyd