Talk:Tragedy of the commons

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Contents 1 The "'invisible hand' (laissez-faire)" Statement is Improperly Used in the Article 2 cf 'Enclosure of the commons' 3 Possible example to include 4 Historical Commons 4.1 False history? 5 Digital commons 5.1 Property and tradeability 6 Papers that cite this one 7 Nations 8 Structure 9 Hypothesis outline 10 Communism and Polder Model 11 Stupidly biased articles 12 Light pollution 13 Isn't?- 14 Modern commons 15 Introduction 16 This article is about two things! 17 'change of heart' 18 Parable? 19 Pilgrims 20 Game theory 21 Evolutionary psychology 22 Definition 23 Merge suggested: Tyranny of the Commons 24 Common Property vs. Open Access (res nullius) 25 Changes

[edit] The "'invisible hand' (laissez-faire)" Statement is Improperly Used in the Article

The concept of the "invisible hand" and "laissez-faire" are both grounded in Lockean property rights, i.e., that so long as people's just property rights are for the most part respected that society takes care of itself, and that societal problems only occur when people's just property rights are violated (i.e., mostly by the government). Yet the article makes the false statement "As such, [the tragedy of the commons] illustrates how simplistic 'invisible hand' (laissez-faire) approaches to resource problems need not provide the expected optimal solution." The tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons is that it lacks Lockean property rights.

I'm surprised that the liberal solution to this problem isn't even mentioned in the article. The Tragedy of the Commons is very often cited by libertarians as a classic example of what happens when people are not allowed to homestead resources (i.e., prohibited from doing so by the government).

To give one libertarian website's example, as of right now Google returns 181 pages with the phrase "tragedy of the commons" from Mises.org:

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=%22tragedy+of+the+commons%22&num=100&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=mises.org

209.208.77.192 00:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

If the solution you're talking about isn't mentioned in the article, please add it in the appropriate place - there's a section on "Possible solutions". As regards property rights, many of the examples given by Hardin in his original paper are difficult to resolve this way. For example, atmospheric pollution. Even now, many years after the Kyoto agreement, there's still very little resolved on this particular issue (though the Montreal Protocol on CFCs provides something of a counter-example). Cheers, --Plumbago 10:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

For the libertarian solution to air pollution (grounded in the Lockean conception of property rights), see "Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution," Murray N. Rothbard, Cato Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 55-100 http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj2n1/cj2n1-2.pdf . See also "Free-Market Environmentalism Reading List," The Commons Blog http://commonsblog.org/free_reading.php . 209.208.77.233 18:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

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From Tragedy of the commons

"By cooperating, every individual agrees not to seek more than its share. Defection happens when an individual realizes that it's in its interest to use more than its share of public property."

I do not like that quote; it has an obvious flaw, being that it is not in his interest to take more than his share. Such an act would break the trust people have in him, thus making any cooperation, which is invariably benefical to every group, impossible with that individual. --Guizzy 00:32, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

These "its" sound really weird. Does Wikipedia have any usage/grammar guidelines we can refer to?

You are right; its is only to be used if there is specifically no gender to the owner of the object, and not the gender is variable. In this case, the neutral masculine possessive form should be assumed to be the most appropriate.

I wrote that. I'm portuguese, be free to correct me. Joao

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I've fixed them. John Lynch

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It looks that the expression "the tragedy of the commons" comes from Garrett Hardin's article "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin, Science, 162(1968):1243-1248. Quote from the article:

"The rebuttal to the invisible hand in population control is to be found in a scenario first sketched in a little-known Pamphlet in 1833 by a mathematical amateur named William Forster Lloyd (1794-1852). [6] We may well call it "the tragedy of the commons," using the word "tragedy" as the philosopher Whitehead used it [7]: "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things." He then goes on to say, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama.""

http://www.dieoff.org/page95.htm

My interpretation of this, is that mathematical amateur named William Forster Lloyd used the overexploitation of the commons as an example, but the expression was used by the first time by Hardin. Joao

Hardin's essay is often mentioned by people who have perhaps never read it, and who might not agree with its thesis. I think it is appropriate to add parenthetically that the essay calls for coerced birth control to prevent human overpopulation. Will McW 00:01, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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The following text seemed very obscure to me, so I decided to put it here until someone can explain what it might mean...

Free software and colloborative projects like Wikipedia prove that for many digital commons the tragedy becomes a comedy.

- R Lowry 18:06, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It means that collaborative projects are not affected by the so called Tragedy. --Guizzy 00:32, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] cf 'Enclosure of the commons'

I've added the following text and link fairly up-front in the article by way of introduction and to broaden the terms of reference of the piece - which contextualises it and removes the charge of 'false history' somewhat. I personally find the real-world social conditions of the enclosure more interesting than game theory, and it is more connected to the observations of the UK property lawyer and others here... But apparently the 'enclosure' article needs cleaning up (I think it has a poor introduction that does not outline the case succinctly or quickly enough)--Sean01 08:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

See also the related real-world event of the 'Enclosure of the commons', and its attendant social problems, which may have inspired the content of the parable.

[edit] Possible example to include

An example was just removed from the PD page which is claimed to actually be a 'tragedy' example. See Talk:Prisoner's_dilemma#Water_shortage:_Bad_example. I've copied the deleted text below in case it is appropriate for this article.

Another example would be hoarding supplies of an essential item during a shortage. Let's say that all our tap water gets poisoned, somehow, and everyone has to rely on bottled water from supermarkets. Rationally, each person knows that they should limit their purchases of bottled water for the period of the shortage (ie, they should 'co-operate'), because if everybody rushes to the supermarket and stocks up on water (ie, if they 'defect') supplies will quickly run out — so that, in the long-run, there will be nothing left for anyone. However, each person also fears that hoarding is precisely what everybody else will be doing; therefore, rationally, they know that if they are to be sure of securing any supply of water at all they had better go and stock up too.

A note on the preceeding paragraph: The author suggests that if everyone rushed to stock up on water, then supplies will run out. I would have to argue that if prices are fully flexible, then prices will rise to a point where people will demand less of the good. We should not think that water is exaustible. Rather, at the current market price and the quantity demanded, producers will supply where demand and supply meet. When water prices rise, producers have the necessary funds to extract the water that has become more expensive. As long as prices rise enough to a point where it becomes viable to extract water, we should not worry about supplies running out.

This scenario fits the PD payoff matrix outlined above: defection when others co-operate (T) means you can keep on getting a generous supply of drinking water repeatedly, because others are restricting their consumption; mutual co-operation (R) would bring the reward of a moderate amount of drinking water for everyone, over an extended period; mutual defection (P) would mean that everyone gets a lot to start off with but they probably all die of thirst soon enough thereafter; co-operation when others defect (S) means you end up with hardly any water, because it has all been snapped up by other people.

Wolfman 18:31, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this text over. As the original author of the above water shortage example, I was a little disappointed to see it removed from the Prisoner's dilemma article, tho' I didn't protest because I think the reason was a fair one. The second paragraph presumably wouldn't belong in this article, as it refers specifically to the PD payoff matrix, but I see nothing wrong with using the first paragraph here as a 'tragedy' example. However, since I obviously have an interest in saying that I'll wait for a few days before making the change, in case anyone comes up with any objections. R Lowry 19:18, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, it's done. R Lowry 20:41, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I disagree that this is a good example. The term "Tragedy of the Commons" was introduced for a situation where the overall amount of a usually replenishing resource is diminished by over-use (as also stated in the lead paragraph). No such thing occurs in the quoted water example; water is not lost but "only" distributed unfairly. That may be a tragedy, but does not fit here.

[edit] Historical Commons

Perhaps the article should contain some example of commons that didn't result in tragedy.

In the alpine region, most of the land (mainly forest and high pastures) was communally owned by a village or group of villages. Regulations kept under control the exploitation of the shared resource, although population has been for long time near the subsistence level.

See R. McC Netting "Balancing on a Alp"

On the other hand, there's the Easter Island case.

The defintion of "commoner" here, that it is a subset of the general public is at odds with commoner? -- PL 15/12 23:08

[edit] False history?

My problem with the historical part of this article is it doesn't match what little I know about the way that the law of commons worked (and of course works, because they still exist) in England and Wales.

Essentially there are two kinds of right. From memory about 10% of common rights are "at large" and amount to a right to put a fixed number of a particular kind of animal on the common. They were property and could be traded (contrary to what is said in the article).

Most rights were rights of "levancy and couchancy" -- the right to put animals of a particular type was attached to a plot of land. The number of animals you could overwinter on that land (hence "levancy and couchancy") was the number you could put on the common the rest of the year. The theory being that external factors would be taken into account so that you could put more animals on in a good year than a bad one. This right was, historically although not any more, attached to land and not "at large", though one could still say it was "property".

However in both cases the right to put animals on the common was limited. There was no "tragedy of the commons". The phrase being an example of the totally idiotic view that modern intellectuals have of the mediaevals, who were not stupid and would have been well aware of the problem of allowing too many animals on the common against the common good. Its like believeing that mediaeval people thought the world was flat -- it says more about the ignorance of modern people than of their predecessors.

PS: I am a English property lawyer, so I am quite sure about the law part of this.

Francis Davey 19:33, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please, be bold and correct the text as you think best. The fact is that there are two stories here- the historical commons, and the metaphorical commons. The man who created the metaphor (at least in modern day), was not a property lawyer, he was an American scientist, and probably had a faulty view of how the commons worked. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:40, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, what I've been told is that the commons worked too well for individuals who joined the collective, which is why parliment had to enact enclosure laws, in order to dis-enfranchise people working their way up the ladder, and to be able to sell of the land to rich landowners to expand sheep production. In Scotland, they were *pissed*. Of course I don't have a ready source for that, but maybe that should be looked into.
Also, the 'tragedy of the commons' was a propoganda piece published to throw-off people who were against wholesale appropriation.

Kinda like 'survival of the fittest', which was from a political tract to justify takings from the whole of society, was grafted onto Darwin's evolutionary theory.
~ender 2003-04-14 02:52 MST

If you are referring to Hardin's essay, "The Tragedy of The Commons", then you should know it has nothing to do with property or appropriations. The "commons" in that essay is the gene pool. Hardin is arguing against the ability of anyone to add to the population, and in favor of state-controlled reproduction. Cheers, -Willmcw 19:31, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

"Gene pool" isn't in that essay.

Using more recent terminology, one can argue that Hardin was concerned about the "meme pool"

as persons who have the most children have more offspring to pass on their ideas of

large families being attractive -- he's very clear on this point, he just didn't have the word "meme." ~Droper 19:12:12 MST 2006

Hardin was a right-wing life-boat-ethic conservative lamenting

the difficulty of enclosing -- placing property rights on -- the GLOBAL commons. He figured that pretty

much all other commons had been and could be enclosed; hence, no tragedy for non-global commons

according to Hardin.

He's arguing for state control of reproduction precisely because the global commons

can not be enclosed. W/o either enclosure of the global commons or state control of breeding

the oceans and atmosphere get trashed. I have a ready source -- the article!

plus pretty much everything else he wrote. Why can't we believe he meant what he wrote?

Droper 18:24:02 MST 2006

Reread the concluding paragraphs. They include lines which say that the freedom to breed must be curtailed. In any case, we're trying to keep the discussions of the historical commons and Hardin's metaphoric commons separate in the article. -Will Beback 01:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't that beg the question of whether the primary thrust of his paper was a metaphor?

As he says "the air and waters surrounding us cannot readily be fenced..." "Fenced" is a metaphor

but I submit that the major application of his idea is a real world prediction.

It is true that the title that others have taken as a metaphor refers to the simple argument of the

working of the logic, viz., if you don't propertize (whether it's owned by the state or privately owned

does not, as he makes clear, make a difference for his argument) the commons they will be ruined.

Historically speaking he may have been in error to believe that all successful efforts to prevent 'over grazing' have been found in applying well-defined property rights. But he was only trying to explicate the logic of "the commons" before getting to the

big application. His implication for the future was about the global commons

-- it obviously turned out to be green house gases in both the oceans and atmosphere causing (in the opinion of many) a tragedy.

However, if Hardin weren't just full of it, it would have been the most heavily populated countries that contributed the most to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses. This has turned out to be false. It is not the countries with the highest reproductive rates that have turned out to be the greatest burden. Likewise, his claim that education would be useless has also turned out to be false. Only one country has implemented the policies he suggested that would "protect" freedom and human rights, and it's a country with one of the worst records running on those two matters.

It may be true that so many subsequent authors have used the title of his '68 paper as a metaphor that it's

important to recognize this influence, but if we think Hardin is worthy of so much attention

then don't we owe him the respect of taking his work more seriously, like perhaps he really meant what he

said -- that since we can't "fence" the atmosphere and oceans and since we probably

won't be able to coerce sufficiently low birth rates that the global commons will be trashed?

It's not like I'm squeezing blood out of a turnip to get this "interpretation."

Does this '68 article not contain one of the greatest falsifible predictions of social science

now being (in the eyes of many) confirmed by global warming?

Perhaps global warming is not happening or perhaps, even if it is, some other

theory is about to supercede Hardin's. But don't we owe the guy credit for something more

than articulating a metaphor?? Perhaps my remarks are more germane to the page on Hardin

but that page links this page via the title "Tragedy of the Commons" and I came over

here to find that his most famous paper is treated as (a long winded) metaphor.

When Boulding (among others) gave us the metaphor "space ship earth" his original paper

took about 3 pages, double spaced. I don't think anyone is intentionally underrating

Hardin, but this page and the other "Hardin" page, taken together, seriously underrate

his intellectual contribution, imo.

-Droper 19:28:16 MST 2006

OTOH, it has been cited in many, many other contexts. This fact should be examined in the article. Mr. Jones 19:00, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

That has not been a problem in the past. In fact, for a long time there was no reference to the actual content of the essay, and even now it is virtually a footnote. Hardin's metaphor is useful far beyond his intended purpose, a purpose that may embarrass some of those who quote it. -Willmcw 19:15, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Got a link to that paper? I don't believe that was the information I was reading (but I'm willing to check). I was reading about sheep and enclosure laws specifically (ie: England ramping up production to dominate the trade).

~ender 2005-05-02 18:03:MST

Yes, see the first link in the list of "External links". This goes straight to it: [1]. -Willmcw 03:54, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Digital commons

Many people argue that the 'tragedy of the commons' principle does not apply to certain aspects of the digital world, because sharing information and software with other people does not decrease the amount that is available for others. Indeed, as the writer Eric S. Raymond, in an essay called The Magic Cauldron [2] has pointed out, in the case of open source software more widespread use actually tends to increase the usefulness of a product — the more people that are finding and correcting bugs, the better it is for everybody. Raymond has described this process as the inverse commons (see also: network effect). A similar process may be observed in collaborative, open content projects like the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the digital world. Furthermore, it seems to be a strawman. Does anyone argue that the tragedy of the commons does occur in these situations? anthony (see warning) 01:00, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)) I restored the para, but only because I objected to the gross language from POlyglut. But I don't understand your arguments against it: the connection to the digital world seems obvious.

It seems to me that some misidentify copyright law as solving a tragedy of the commons. That's just not true in the first place. Copyright law is designed to resolve a free rider problem, not a tragedy of the commons. The difference, as is somewhat explained here, is that sharing information does not decrease the amount that is available for others. But like I said, that's really a strawman argument. Moreover, what I really don't understand is why this is somehow specific to the digital world. Whether digital or analog, sharing information doesn't decrease the amount that is available for others.

--Kalclark 16:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)Copyright law does solve a free rider problem but another one of its intents is to deal with a tragedy of the commons. If free access to a book was given then it would result in great benefit to the consumer and little benefit to the author, if access was determined by a mutual agreement on price (by the author and consumer), both achieve maximimal benefit. Copyright deals with the tragedy of the commons by allowing an invisible hand to control production and price and prevent a tragedy of the commons. The term free rider applies to agents who disrupt this balance, they are not isolated.

The author would benefit from other free accessed books. The community at large would benefit greatly. People who can't afford buying books benefits etc etc. I don't see how this would be a tragedy. (there is a lot of means for income)

Of course, maybe this isn't about copyright law in the first place. I'm kind of guessing, but copyright law isn't even mentioned here.

And, of course, the tragedy of the commons does occur in the digital world, in areas other than that of information. For instance, spam has caused a tragedy of the commons with regard to email.

--Kalclark 16:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)Spam does cause a tragedy of commons because email is a means of communication. Right now we have an endless ability to transfer information because of a large amount of bandwidth. As societies continue to increase the access to the public bandwidth through hi-speed, public hi-speed, corporate hi-speed, and next-gen hi-speed the public good (bandwidth) will be degraded. Even now, many people have bandwidth caps on their personal machines. However, as access to resource becomes scarce, prices increase, drawing more suppliers to the market, resulting in less scarcity. We're all okay.

Finally, I figured your restoration of the comment was more due to the way in which Polyglut removed the text. But that paragraph was already one which was bothering me, and after looking at it again I'm just not convinced it should stay, at least not without being clarified. anthony (see warning) 21:51, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)) I don't understand why you have introduced copyright. But I'm not desperately happy with the para either.

Open source, open content, these are terms which are related to copyright. anthony (see warning) 22:42, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

-- i added the following comment:

<<the digital commons, are properganda of the wikipedian fuckfaces, as usual. basically, you'll see such in any article these OpenSourcers can remotely insert their shit. Xah Xah Lee 15:01, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)>>

and it got deleted by Anthony DiPierro. Since when do OpenSource fuckfaces not only insert properganda into articles and delete opposing edits, and now censor arguments in the discussion section? Is it because it contain swearing, fuckfaces? Xah Lee 23:04, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:11, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)) You'll generally find swearing counterproductive, as it is in this case. Being able to spell propaganda would help, too.

I didn't find anything useful in your comment, but if you choose to readd it I won't fight with you about it. By the way, you might want to note that I'm the one arguing for the deletion of this content, not the one adding it. In fact, as there doesn't appear to be anyone arguing for inclusion, and I can't think of a way to distill this down into something appropriate for Wikipedia (NPOV, verifiable, not original research, related to the topic), I'm going to delete it now and see what happens. As for the profanity, we do have a rule against unnecessary profanity, (Wikipedia:Profanity), as well as one against personal attacks (Wikipedia:No personal attacks). anthony (see warning) 11:56, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

-- An argument in favor of "Open Source or Open information" paragraph:

The idea of open sharing of resources is always looked upon with some distrust by humans. And not without good reasons: the "Tragedy of the Commons" is a vivid illustration of some of these reasons. Given that context, it seems nice to point to a domain where these reasons do not apply very strongly. Forms a nice counterpoint. As remarked by another poster, it can be put in terms of "information sharing" with Open Source software only as an example.

I totally agree that it should be mentioned since it _is_ common.

Hardin himself drew attention to the distinction of sharing information rather than materials or energy. There's a chapter in his book Filters Against Folly (chapter 12, pp. 170-183), that deals specifically with this issue. You might find it interesting if you can track down a copy of this book. Cheers, --Plumbago 09:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Property and tradeability

Since I last edited any of this, someone has altered it based on a US-centric misundersting of property. For the record, the property article contains this: "Property is defined as the right to use, enjoy or possess a determinant thing, and the right to exclude others from doing the same." This does not require tradeability; in fact, the second part is merely an implication of the first.

Property implies tradeability if, and only if, the thing in question can only be enjoyed by being traded, the way you don't get any benefit from money if you can't spend it.

quibble: You can get value from money, for example you can use paper fiat money as notepaper, wallpaper (post WWI Germany comes to mind), insulation, tinder for fires, in stacks as blocks for children to play with, and as toliet paper. Coinage can be melted down, etc.

Non-fiat money can be redeemed for its equivalent - historically gold or silver - both of which have non-monetary value.

Of course if you meant you can't get near the benefits from money's reputed value if you can't spend it, I'll agree. But be careful with your statements.

~ender 2005-05-20 02:13:MST

On the other hand, there are many forms of property that need not be tradeable to be capable of being enjoyed; land is one such. The idea that you can only fully own land as property if you can trade it is US-centric, from the very things the USA put in on purpose like banning entails of land. Yet under other systems, entailed land - despite not being tradeable - was most definitely property. And of course, under the mandate Zionists placed restrictions on the sale of land they bought so that it would remain forever within the settler community and could not return to Palestinians once they were no longer so poor, a sort of ratchet. The thing is, certain restrictions can actually enhance the ability to enjoy and actually increase the ownership.

The long and the short of all this is, whoever edited this to assert that commoners' rights weren't property because they weren't tradeable was plain wrong. It's only property that is essentially liquid, inherently needing value in trade like money, that needs to be tradeable to be property. But commoners' rights had value in use. PML.

(William M. Connolley 08:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I disagree with you. And I'm not from the US. So I've restored it. Your examples are poor: land is tradeable. As for your quote from wiki: read a bit further down.

We should probably specify that the status of commoners' rights as property is ambiguous, rather than arguing for one side or the other. For arguments' sake, fee tail land is not necessarily tradeable. - Nat Krause 10:00, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 15:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I partly agree. I accept there is ambiguity though. Perhaps rather than stating whether or not the rights were property we simply state that they could not be sold? As to fee tail land: I accept it could not be traded. But its not really clear that it was property in that case.

(Not that it matters in terms of this article, but I would say that fee tail land is the property of its owner, but that another party owns a restrictive easement on its use). - Nat Krause 16:30, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As I explain above (under the historical section) rights of common certainly could be sold, but most such rights were attached to land, so they could not be traded independantly of the land to which they were fixed, but since that could be sold (at least since Quia Emptores) they were something that could be exchanged for money value. Obviously one could also hire out their use. Francis Davey 00:59, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I originally put in the bundle of rights/property part, then someone US centric "corrected" it. I've now tried to separate out the issues, without resolving the part about being attached to the land (which I knew, but didn't emphasise). I believe that I covered how these rights could be leased (it was actually called "thistle rents"). That still leaves unresolved just how the rights could be sold, but I don't think we need to get into that detail in this article provided we only make it clear that where these things applied they really were property rights. At least, I hope nobody is so US-centric to dispute that other approaches exist, and US ones shouldn't be used when they weren't the relevant ones. It's like "Oh, you were married by the law of the country? but they don't have churches so you weren't really married, were you?"

I'd also like to see all these "a commons" things cleared up, not just for pedantry but because it confuses the fact that there were lots of distinct commons, each somewhat different, and not conferring any general access to the public. The whole Prisoner's dilemma thing comes from a difference between "each" and "all", and that makes this mechanism sensitive to what is singular and what is plural - it isn't a quibble, the way objecting to the Americanism "a woods" would be. PML.

Would it worthwhile to move most of the discussion of the historical commons, and their inclosure, to the Commons article? That might help separate historical fact from metaphorical extrapolation. Just a usggestion. -Willmcw 05:58, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Digital Commons isn't a tragedy of the commons because the digital commons are, for all intents and purposes, unlimited. The tragedy of the commons only applies where there is unlimited demand, which can be satisfied without cost, for a limited resource. the digital common is not a limited resource. ElectricRay 22:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Papers that cite this one

There must be very many! However, I wonder if there are any we could refer to that describe the effect of selfish groups (rather than individuals) on the common good. Famous papers that refer to it would be good to mention too. Anyone have access to a citation index? Mr. Jones 18:20, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Google now has a scholarly journal search function, which includes citations. [[3]] Hardin wrote a follow-on essay, which is the first listed. That essay alone has been cited over 2200 times! -Willmcw 18:31, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nations

• For example, although most commons are regulated locally in the form of emissions standards, land use zoning and the like, the international community has not instituted regulations for global commons such as the ozone layer, oceans or polar icecaps, thus allowing primarily industrialized nations to overtax these resources without penalty.

This text overwrote some existing text on experimental findings about behavior. It's not bad, but it was in the wrong place. Can anyone see a good way to work it in? -Willmcw 05:31, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

The article has a rather large opening section before the index. It might make more sense to have a single introductory paragraph (basically the first one already there), then shove the rest of the text (which actually describes the tragedy) into its own section in the body of the article. I'd do this without asking (as it's only a structural consideration), but I notice that the article's been cited by the press. Does this mean I should be extra careful or something? Cheers, --Plumbago 13:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

That's fine. The fact that it's been cited is an honor, but it shouldn't stop us from improving the article further. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:19, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hypothesis outline

Just a couple of points :

• Hardin doesn't mention the English Commons in his original essay. He uses the example of a common grazing pasture as his Commons, but it's certainly not specified in relation to some particular historical example (so the section on history is a bit redundant; although it's possible that Hardin mistakenly brought in this historical example in a later article I've not read).
• Although it's not mentioned directly in the article right now, he goes on in his original essay to discuss examples including pollution, human populations, National Parks, overfishing and even car parking. People often get stuck on the idea of pastures and cows in relation to the tragedy.
• Another thing missing from this article is that right from the start of Hardin's essay he makes the point that there are no technical solutions to the tragedy. This is where the "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon" concept comes in. It also marks the essay out as rare in scientific literature since it deals explicitly with morality, and not simply objective science.

Anyway, will try to address these points if no-one objects. --Plumbago 07:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm certainly in favor of keeping this this article grounded in adiscussion of Hardin's essay. It's better to add information than to remove it. Cheers, -Willmcw 10:11, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Communism and Polder Model

I'm surprised that there is no mention of communism in the article. Communism assumes the 'goodness of man' (or how should I put it?) and without that you get this. Another phenomenon that is interresting in this respect is the polder model, which might also be worthy of a mention. See also the talk page there. DirkvdM 08:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

In the first instance, it might be interesting to know what the polder model actually is. The article on it doesn't actually say at the moment, it just alludes to it being a type of management without clarifying what that management is. It would be good to know how this example of a commons is managed (but by all means add the example of polders to the list of commons on this article's page).

As regards communism (and other "solutions" to the tragedy), I think that the article requires some editing so that there's a specific section on escape from the tragedy. I've been meaning to do this for a while (see entry above), but will try to get my skates on. --Plumbago 09:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll add the Polder Model to the 'see also' section. I'm not sufficiently 'into this subject' do do much else. I just wanted to make a suggestion. DirkvdM 09:08, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the Polder Model is not so much a way of solving the problem as a procedural recommendation for dealing with it. My understanding comes from 4 years of living in the Netherlands, but I suspect that this also resembles the Medieval methods used to determine individual rights on open meadows in England. The basic idea is that everyone with a stake, or perceived stake, in building, maintaining or changing a dike should be granted equal rights in the decision-making process. The decisions should be made in a sort of quasi-consensus precess: the final result will be the outcome of a committee, the committee should represent all the points of view present, and all members of the committee must be given equal time and their arguments considered equally. (A polder is a field created by reclaiming land from the sea through building dikes and draining.) The process is slow, but if you include enough different viewpoints from the beginning, there are very few major complaints at the end. It also avoids the type of mistakes brought on by 'group think'. suz 15:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stupidly biased articles

Could you people please refrain from inserting highly partisan language into your writing? It's annoying to read one IP/property article after another that is clearly written from an anti-property-rights, anti-capitalist perspective.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory. To say it's based on a misunderstanding of evidence is nonsensical. Perhaps it was motivated by a misunderstanding of evidence. If that is the case, you should write, "Some sociological evidences calls into question..."

I also want to point out that the Tragedy of Commons is a widely-accepted theory among property-law scholars. This article makes it sound like the theory is widely accepted to be false.

--Rmalloy 13:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

agree with Rmalloy. this is a widely accepted theory. Anlace 23:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how often I get the "widely-accepted" as an argument in a discussion. It is a down right stupid argument and if we were to accept it then the earth would be flat. As for the article it is important to keep the "widely accepted" bias on as it is the purpuse of an encyclopedia, and I agree to the point of the comment. But ...

It is difficult to discuss the whole notion of "tragedy of commons" without a bias as it is a biased theory at it's best. There is a mechanism that does brings fourth short sightedness in all of us but it has nothing to do with commons. It has to do with arbitrage and ability to utilize the arbitrage. In this case you need to understand (or imagine, depending on what you choose to beleave) that there is a similar exchange between the market of today and market of tomorrow as there is between two markets that are separated by location or concept.

For any individual there is an opportunity to sell the commodity today or tomorrow. If he perceives the price (ie. not ammount of money but amount of good perceived) of the commodity equal or better today he will sell it in any other case he will wait until tomorrow (if not forced by necessities). Any such earning by transfering goods from one market to another without an actual risk is called arbitrage, and market mechanisms will remove any such earning by setting a new equilibrium removing the arbitrage.

Now the "Tragedy of Commons" argues that: "a single owner of a resource in not having to compete for it, is perfectly motivated to preserve it in a way that unregulated communal owners are not" (atleast from what I read from the article - and if it doesn't, then it is poorly written).

Lets take one relatively old example. A family knows a secret recepie for headache medicine. They do not have to compete and are therefore perfectly motivated to preserve the commodity for future generations. Now they are presented with an option. They can continue with the preservation of the resource, or to disclose the secret, but by disclosing it they will be granted exclusive rights to sell the commodity for a limited ammount of time. Given that they have no motivation to compete they simply should not do it, even so historically we know that it has happened.

As far as my scientific reasoning goes this should atleast serve as a plausible evidence that the categorical statement possibly could be untrue. And thus we could move to a less categorical statement. that a communal resource is less likely to be preserved than a private one. In accepting that the diffference between communal and private is only size of probability, I'd argue that the relationshipt is highly casual.

In discussion when given examples of how private ownership leads to the same result as communal ownership I always encounter the same reaction. We start to make up "regulations" of why "this" example of private ownership actually is an exception, and why it doesn't count. Nobody makes up these excuses for the communal, as the theory so well fits our perception of ownhership and our intuitive models of human nature.

I'd argue that in every case where anyone is given an opportunity for arbitrage by depleeting a resource it will be done, independent of his relation to the resource, private ownership, comunal ownership or even stolen.

One of our most common resrouces today are brand names. Even if most of the brand names are privately owned, given the choice of perserving the brand name for the future or maximizing the the short term revenue (ie. depleeting the resource), they will always choose depleetion over preservation.

In the founding examples of "tragedy of commons" there is one major fact that is left out, and it is the ability to see the arbitrage. It is so simple just to grab a part of that commons and turn it into money. What is most important is that the arbitrage does not dissapear as future generations can't put a bid on the commodity changing the equilibrium price of the commons so that the arbitrage dissapears.

It might be that there is a difference in how fast things will be utilized with communal ownerhip and private, but then it is just a question of entry barriers.

Now to the final argument. It is possible that there exists a mechanism such as "tragedy of commons", but as long as nobody thoroughly looks at the underlaying mechanisms and accepts that the "tragedy of the privates" also exists, I find it more likely that it simply is a casual relation and therefore a myth. I admit a persuasvie such, buth still just a myth, and as such it removes focus from what is a necesary solution "regulations" to what isn't a solution "privatisation".

I'd look for following underlying causes. 1. Possibility for arbitrage. 2. Visibiltiy of arbitrage. 3. Relative wealth of owner. 4. Entry barriers to the opportunity to utilize a resrouce

and if I was certain of this ... well then I would post in the article instead of discussions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.61.234.225 (talk • contribs).

unsigned posts dont really add very much. but i take strong exception to all the OR above. the person should write a book on the topic, but this is the place to talk objectively about the best way (with specifics) to write the wikipedia article. Anlace 23:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

137.61.234.225 - If you have notable sources who discuss the thesis that yo describe above then we can include it in this article. We're just reporting on what others have said, we're not engaged in finding the truth of the concept. -Will Beback · † · 22:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I did an edit yesterday trying to replace what I wrote with a more targeted explanation claiming that the bias of the article is because the historical part isn't separated from the scientific, but it seems like I still have to learn about wikipedia as I can't see this change anywhere.

Anyhow after this I decided to check to see how some other article with a historical and scientific perspective was written and brought forth the article of "pythagoras theorem". It actually does start with a historical recollection and then goes forth to a scientific such.

After reading the discussion pages over and over again, I find it highly likely that the article fails add resent development in the field which further adds to the bias. Game Theory actually does explain that there is an underlaying theory that explains the mechanism, and that the "tragedy" just is one special case of outcome of the game. It is evident (at least to me, and I am a moron) that the common missperception that "tragedy of commons" is an argument for private ownership will be less persuasive by letting game theory be part of the scientific reasoning.

As far as I can read from game theory, it actually shows that those "widely-accepted" theories about tragedy of commons aren't so "widely-accepted". Game theory explains the same process, but it's far more neutral on effects of "ownership". Game theory also allows to reason around other cases where the individual acts with a short term interest, wich tragedy of commons does not.

I might not have been clear (I'm not a good writer), but it is how the article is written that bugs me, not the content. I am fairly sure that the "tragdedy of comons" is a legit observation as described in the article. I am more concerned of how many who read the article perceive it argruing for private ownership, which probably results in "highly partisan language" comments. The article could be written far more neutral (see the pythagoras-theoreme article) without loosing any of the "widely-accepted" parts.

83.250.193.139 11:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC)Yoki - who was lazy enough not to check how to sign.

I don't know the topic but, for what it is worth, I agree. I think there is a biased tone in the article. The edits made 03:59, 8 June 2005 and 03:33, 8 June 2005 adds to the Introduction "misunderstood", "poor understanding" and "misunderstanding", on Hardin's part. The same edits also, in my opinion, disrupts the flow of the text between "any given situation" and "Experiments have indicated". I do not dare to fix anything myself.

In External Links And References, there is a vague reference to a documentary "on cable TV". What day? What program title? What channel? What country? I think it can be removed. (David Andersson, 29 Sep 2005)

I deleted the documentary non-link. However the matter of the difference between Hardin's view of how a commons worked and the the way that real commons worked is important to keep repeating. This article is on his theory, not the real commons, but it's important to show that his analogy is flawed, even though his conclusion is worthwhile. -Willmcw 19:54, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree entirely I'm afraid Willmcw. I know I've said it already (and not done anything about it), but Hardin was not interested in real pastures. So examples of how real pastures (with cows) may be managed, while interesting (and worth retaining in the article), do not invalidate his point. His real interest mostly lay with things that are often not even recognised as commons, and so aren't managed at all (i.e. they conform to his open access pasture). Things like the atmosphere and ocean, or resources like freshwater and fishstocks. As he states in his original essay, his primary preoccupation is with unrestricted human population growth, and one of his lifelong hobby horses was how the management of this, or even the discussion of it, was a taboo (and taboos effectively abolish management). Anyway, I'm wittering on and not improving the article. I will try to do so soon. Honest. (A failure to manage the commons of my own free time ...) --Plumbago 21:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Er, that's part of the point. Hardin seemed to believe incorrectly that the commons were unmanaged, and built his metaphor on that basis. And no, he wasn't talking about things like the oceans, fishstocks, or the atmosphere. He was talking about reproductive rights to the human gene pool and the earth's carrying capacity of humans. I strongly suggest that you read his article (its short) before improving this one. Thanks, -Willmcw 21:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Again, respectful disagreement. For one thing, some of the examples that he mentions in his paper (fishstocks, atmosphere, oceans, rivers; see pages 1245 and 1248) either remain as commons (e.g. the atmosphere; though even here there are weak agreements like Kyoto), are ineffectively managed commons (e.g. oceanic fishstocks) or only managed where it is easy to do so (e.g. rivers). There are a couple of paragraphs on the final page (1248) where he discusses abandonment of commons (in the unmanaged sense) for managed systems. The pastures-as-commons is introduced as an analogy (on page 1244 only), which I don't think is fleshed out with an explicit example in the original paper (although I'm aware that he returned to it in later work with a specific example of grazing lands in Africa). As regards population, I did say in my previous post above that this was his primary preoccupation in the essay (it's even the subtitle of the paper). It dominates the original paper in terms of word count, and though Hardin's interests are much broader than just this, it is a common (if you pardon the expression) theme of much of his work. With respect to the article at hand, I think much of it is fine, although I can see why there's some protest about its POV status. Don't worry though, I won't be setting fire to it or anything.  :) Cheers, --Plumbago 08:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, I trust you. Go for it. Cheers, -Willmcw 14:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello again. Right, I've made changes to the bulk of the article. It still needs work on the "solutions" section, although I think this was less of a cause for the above consternation. I've tried to give a full description of the original essay, including reference to its scope and content. I've changed the tone of the "controversy" section to better reflect things as I understand them. Please feel free to disagree. I've tidied up the bit on the history of real "commons" so that it doesn't mistake Hardin's hypothetical example for the real deal. And I've marginally tidied the modern commons section, but I think the list can be rationalised further.

As regards the article's neutrality status, I've tried to contact Rmalloy both via his/her talk page and by e-mail. However, I've not heard anything back (nor has Rmalloy made any edits since September). Rather than wait indefinitely, I'll remove the neutrality warning at the head of the article tomorrow, unless anyone objects that is. From the above comments, I think the cause of the original debate has been resolved. Your mileage may vary.

I hope my changes have improved the article. Cheers, --Plumbago 12:56, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Good work. Thanks for giving the article your careful attention. Cheers, -Willmcw 19:39, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for reading it. I'll remove the neutrality notice from the article. Hopefully there'll be more comments from Rmalloy at some point. Cheers, --Plumbago 13:42, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Light pollution

I'm pulling this from the list of modern commons because it's not as clear a case as other examples. While light "pollutes" the sky and obscures the stars for everyone, the light sources that do so usually provide a public benefit as well (e.g. illuminating objects you'd rather not bump in to). The are exceptions, but on the whole lighting things up conveys benefit. A good contrast is with noise pollution. While there are examples of where this conveys benefit (e.g. police/fire/ambulance sirens), on the whole noise added to the environment is clearly pollution. --Plumbago 13:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

No, this is a good example, but the point is that its not light but stray light that should be considered. This is perhaps an example of 'inverted tragedy of the commons'? It takes only a little effort on one persons part to prevent stray light spoiling the night sky for everyone, but no one has any incentive to bother, because their lone effort will not be seen to make any difference, so they will not gain in praise or status. --Lindosland 21:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

agree with Lindosland. Anlace 22:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Isn't?-

Isn't "Tragedy of The Commons" about At least one person in a collective screwing things up for the rest by not making use of the available resource properly, ie, within the rules and regulations as set by the group to protect the group from, for instance, vandalism, over consumption, disorderly conduct, et al? Michael 14:31, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the commons of Hardin's essay are unmanaged (i.e. free-for-all), while a collective provides a form of resource management (which may or may not be successful). Hardin does discuss the failings of management by conscience, which is, I guess, how some collectives are managed, but his point isn't directed specifically at collectives (at least in his original essay). --Plumbago 17:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Evolutionary psychology has studied the concept in detail, independantly of Hardin's observations. To them the phrase 'the tragedy of the commons' has been adopted to refer to what tends to happen in the absence of laws, conscience, penalties etc. For a long time evolutionists argued that altruism could not have evolved through 'group selection' because selfish individuals in the group would always do best and hence come to have more offspring - resulting in a more selfish group. Some argued for 'inclusive fitness' as an answer to this problem, claiming that we help relatives only to help our own shared genes to spread. Many now reject that explanation, but see the tragedy of the commons (as an emergent self-evident property of nature) as the very reason why laws evolved as part of every society - to make sure that the selfish individual doesn't get to win! --Lindosland 21:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Modern commons

This list of potential "modern commons" appears to be mostly original research. I'm inlined to think we should cut down the list to items which have been notably called "modern commons", rather than those items which we, the Wikipedia editors, think belong. -Willmcw 01:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree since I came to know the phrase through the rapidly growing field of Evolutionary Psychology. The 'tragedy of the commons' is looking like a fundamental 'law' of nature: an 'emergent property' of 'complex systems' with many many consequences that have long been around but are only just being seen as a result of this phenomenon. Forget old and new, this is much bigger than was ever imagined when the phrase came into being.

I see for example that my 'competition for loudness' relating to CD's and Radio has been moved down as being a 'minor tragedy'. As an expert in quality measurement I have to say that many engineers recognise such competition as having made the concept of high-fidelity a pointless endeavour, a very real tragedy to those of us who have dedicated a large part of our lives to seeking ever better reproduction. While the early CD's of the 1980's took advantage of the wide dynamic range of digital sound, modern CD's all use compression to make them sound loud compared to others, with appalling loss of fidelity. If all producers agreed to make all CD' quieter, there would be room for the brief loud peaks that are necessary to give sparkle to recordings. As it is, non will be the first to turn down the volume. This may not be a tragedy in the grand scheme of life and death, but when you look at the role of digital audio in the modern world of the i-pod etc, its pretty big. More relevant by far now, I suggest, than 'poaching'! -- Lindosland 21:01, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but compared to the collapse of fisheries, the destruction of forests, and overpopulation, the loss of fiedlity in music recordings is indeed a "minor" tragedy. Poaching of endangered species is an extremely serious matter. -Willmcw 21:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Willmcw, as a man who grows organic food and loves his cod and chips I have to agree with you! Though I'm happy to go bottom of the list I think we should not try to list things in order of 'Tragedy' and I've just worked hard at a new introduction warning against a too literal an interpretation of the phrase. Re-reading the original article I found support for this which I was able to quote. The more examples the better, I suggest. They are either examples of this imorptant phenomenon or they are not. I've also taken out 'analogy' and put in 'metaphor' after careful consideration.

I disagree with your view that "the more examples the better", unless they are examples for which we have sources. Otherwise we are engaging in original research. I agree that "metaphor" is a better description. -Willmcw 19:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that identifying examples is 'original research' but I accept the need for caution, especially as there are subtle distinctions between cases that deplete a resource, cases that spoil a resource, and cases that unfairly distribute a resource. Maybe later we could expand each example with a short paragraph explaining how it qualifies as an example, or even distinguish apparent examples that ae questionable.

Metaphor is not just about better description: I was troubled by the grammar. I think an analogy has to be a complete description of something - a sentence at minimum. 'The tragedy of the commons' is a noun phrase, no verb, no description. Things like that trouble me! Like metaphor vs simile!

I can see why you moved the 'official article to the top', but I was finding it confusing to access quickly (tiny pdf box etc to click on), compared to the version I came across on the Hardin page which is nicely presented at one-click. Maybe both? --Lindosland 01:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Could someone clarify to me how 'Uncontrolled human population growth' is a 'Tragedy of the commons' or a 'modern commons'? I completely understand how it can lead to environmental destruction, even collapse (see Easter Island), but what is the 'common' involved? For comparison consider the shared grazing grounds no one is responsible for, and thus gets overgrazed until it is just a muddy field...here the grazing grounds are the commons, and their destruction is the tragedy. I'm not sure how to package uncontrolled population growth into something similar. Any ideas?--Kaze0010 09:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Earth is the commons? Individually we benefit (however one wants to define this) from having children, but the Earth is degraded as a consequence. No-one's responsible for the Earth, hence the tragedy. The example of the pasture is actually pretty pertinent to human population growth since, as the article already points out, it deals with adding extra animals to a finite resource. Does that help? --Plumbago 10:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. (The original wording just didn't work for me.) --Kaze0010 06:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

I go away a few days, and look what happens ...  ;) I think the introduction is far, far too long. The new text is interesting, but detracts I think because of its positioning. It would make more sense (to my mind) if it were moved below the section on the essay, as it's commentary on that.

As an aside, I think the portion about emergent phenomena is a bit too strong. If we're to call the TotC an "emergent phenomenon" and put stuff on the page about it, we'd be putting it onto thousands of pages. I don't believe it's a good enough example to merit a mention in this context.

One last thing, there's perhaps too much on evolutionary psychology I think. As a field it certainly doesn't have a monopoly on TotC, but it merits a note. Probably change the focus more towards game theory instead though.

Anyway, I'm really pleased the article's attracting more attention. Hope to contribute properly when I get back from my hols.

--Plumbago 10:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Plumbago: I did worry that I was making the introduction a bit long, and I was a bit wary of to going in at the top of a fairly mature article, but I'm pleased you find the material interesting. I tried very hard to make it as concise as possible.

In defence of what I've done, I was surprised on first coming to this article by the way people were analysing the words, almost as you might a literary effort, rather than catching on to the profound significance of the phenomenon. Evolutionary psychology is only one of my passions, but I do consider it a 'hot topic' at the moment, along with genetics, neuroscience, psychology and evolution. These are the areas that are rapidly answering our questions about life, while games theory seems to me to be in the background, in a supporting role like all maths.

The summary of the orginal article is good, but takes a bit of commitment to read through. I felt that the intro should tell new readers what the key idea is, and why it is important, and take them to other pages that might throw light on it. Its important because is shows us a 'self evident' reason for much that we see in life and in human behaviour. This fascinates me, because it goes to the core of what 'science' is supposed to be about but isn't. The TotC, like evolutionary selection, is not 'empirically determined', a 'law' to be tested by experiment, its just obvious once you see it (as Huxley commented to Darwin) (hence the games theory link). I think all science might be ultimately founded on such things (as Einstein did), and the current definition of science a bit of fudge. That makes the link to evolutionary psychology important. One thing Wiki does is take us from page to page. As it stood it just took them to Hardin and his idea. I think it better to take them to other pages where they can explore why the idea is so interesting.

Emergent phenomenon? Again its not one of those things you test by how many people think so. The idea that it MIGHT be seems worth a few words, thought provoking but hardly subversive, and a good link to another interesting page. --Lindosland 13:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This article is about two things!

I think there is a major problem with this article as it stands, in that it is tackling two things: the phenomenon 'The Tragedy of the Commons' and what Hardin said in his article 'The Tragedy of the Commons'. This has led contributors to judge entries according to 'what Hardin said', and in particular with reference to what he suggested. It seems to me that his suggestions have a place in an article about Hardin and his work, but must not be used to judge what goes on this page.

'The Origin of Species' is not about what Darwin said, it's an ongoing topic. 'Darwinian Evolution' is not what Darwin said (he was largely Lamarkian), and no one with our current knowledge of evolution would look for truths by reference to Darwins writings.

Similarly, 'Tragedy of the Commons' is a phenomenon, and I'm not sure Hardin was even the first to refer to it. He certainly warrants credit here, but his article is surely of secondary importance to the phenomenon. I think we should attempt clearly distinguish between the two topics, or maybe split off Hardin's article to its own page. I certainly think there is room here for more analysis of current thinking on the phenomenon, and less emphasis on what Hardin said. --Lindosland 13:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Having established that Hardin did not coin the phrase, or claim to, I have made changes in line with the above comments. The 'controversy' section is now simply misguided, but I've left it, pending a better one. --Lindosland 14:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Controversy now makes sense, with the addition of 'Hardin's essay'. --Lindosland 14:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 'change of heart'

.......the real 'tragedy of the commons' is that in many cases it isn't talked about, overused or exploited any more at all, the real tragedy is that so often the commons are ignored! ....a few years back I helped a friend in the north of Aotearoa (New Zealand), a little place called Paihia. Every morning I would get Cup early and take Zar, my Boarder Collie, for a walk down to the beach and to watch the sun rise over the waters. That walk took us past the original commons, a small area of green next to the old church. Now, if you're lucky, you can spot a few people sunbathing on these greens but most people haven't got a clue about it's historical significance, don't use or enjoy it, ignore it. .........on my daily wanderings on the beach I couldn't help but notice all sorts of rubbish people left everywhere but in the designated bins. I picked away at it now and then and one day thought:'if this was my beach, I'd have it pristeenly clean.' That's when I realised that this was my beach. At ten to six in the morning I very rarely met anyone else there, I loved it and cared for it. It couldn't have been any more mine in all its spinetingling beauty than it already was. Cleaning up on my walks from there on, more than before that realisation, I soon noticed a marked improvement and barely any rubbish bar in the bins. I also noticed on some of my longer walks that I wasn't the only person anymore that took pride and action and within some weeks it was heaven every morning to say hi to the sun lazily rising above the waters of my clean beach...........

I agree, and often do my bit on the beach at Aldeburgh in the same way. Some people here have suggested limiting the examples, leaving out more obscure ones, but I think if more people were aware of the phrase and its relevance to so many everyday things, they might wake up in the way that you did. --Lindosland 11:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

We shold add all the sourced examples we can find. We should not make up or decide on examples ourselves, as that is original research. -Will Beback 19:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parable?

Is Tragedy of the Commons really a parable? Or is it a though experiment. Or an analogy? Or a problem? A parable is based on something readers know to be true. A reed does bend in wind and seeds sown upon rocks will. in fact not sprout. Moving one more animal into a pasture is not as obvious. Second I am unsure about the examples. The gambling, is that an example of T of the C? Or is it more of a case of the market becoming saturated at some point? And the social problems caused are just a negative eternality. And littering? Isn't that just pollution? Then logging of forests. Both logging and fishing can be at or below sustainable levels or above them. Fishing above sustainable levels is called overfishing. Overlogging is not a common term. What about sprawl? Each person moves out to the country for peace and tranquility, minimum traffic etc. Each one that move out lessens what the moved for until all open space is gone. Is that not tragedy of the commons? KAM 22:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The OED says that a parable is "An allegorical or metaphorical saying or narrative; an allegory, a fable, an apologue; a comparison, a similitude. Also: a proverb, a maxim; an enigmatic or mystical saying (now arch.)"; "A (usually realistic) story or narrative told to convey a moral or spiritual lesson or insight; esp. one told by Jesus in the Gospels. (Now the usual sense)". Rather broad I think you'll agree. And not strictly "based on something readers know to be true". I think "metaphor" or even "idealised model" covers it quite well. Basically, it's a straightforward outline of a resource allocation problem couched in a setting that most readers will easily picture and so easily understand the lessons drawn from it.

As for the examples in the article, yes, some of them are a bit ropey. Then again, Hardin himself used the odd example of parking meters in his original paper on the subject. When you say "just a negative externality", that's exactly what the TotC is all about. As Hardin himself has remarked, the word "externality" is a rather technical one that to some degree hides the somewhat unacceptable nature of what's going on. He suggested using the word "excretion" to more vividly illustrate the nature of "negative externalities".

Regarding your example of urban sprawl, I think it could be classified as such. Your resource is "peace and tranquility" and it's eroded by people seeking the very thing. It's slightly different from the example of the pasture in that each concerned individual only makes a single decision (i.e. to move) rather than making a series of decisions (i.e. stock more this year?). Once you've moved there's nothing else you can do, it's up to other people to decide what happens next. Still, seems a reasonable example to me. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that parable fits within the definition above and is not incorrect but I think using the term parable distracts. Because the subject is economics my vote goes to thought experiment or similar. Consider the parable of Schrödinger's cat. Also I do see that that dismissing an example as just a externality misses the point. However it is a poor example. A bar or fast food joint could also serve as examples, drunks, litter, but are not as clear as overfishing which overuses a resource directly to benfit unlike gambling. The sprawl is a better example from the point of veiw of a developer who buys farm and open land, subdivides then builds and sells lots. And...excretion is more vivid. Regards KAM 20:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pilgrims

According to whom were the Pilgrims an example of the Tragedy of the Commons? It's bad enough that we add one line examples without sources, but this is an essay. Unless we can find a source connecting the two, I think we should remove it. -Will Beback 20:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

C. Fred Kleinknecht's letter [4] is not a reliable or noteworthy source, nor is this blog [5]. -Will Beback 22:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was correcting an unsourced statement of the standard story, which I've certainly seen on quite a few occasions before. The blog cited gives a cite to a standard historical reference, so you might want to link that, but if you want to delete the whole thing, that's fine by me JQ 23:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

That link would be useful in our article on the Pilgrims. But the extrapolation to this topic is more problematic. -Will Beback 23:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Game theory

The paragraph on the Prisoner's Dilemma reads like original research. First, a commons game is not a PD but a crowding game (an inverse Coordination game). Second, even if someone compared the TotC to a PD, it should be sourced, not stated like the editor made it up. ~ trialsanderrors 09:32, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In the tragedy of the commons, the optimal allocation of the scarce resource comes from all participants cooperating (limiting their use); the worst outcome occurs when everyone cheats. Each individual, however, does better in the short-run by cheating, so short-sighted or uncoordinated individual actors will cheat to the detriment of the group. This exactly describes the payoff matrix of a prisoner's dilemma:

	Player 2 adopts strategy A	Player 2 adopts strategy B
Player 1 adopts strategy A	2,2	0,3
Player 1 adopts strategy B	3,0	1,1

where strategy A is cooperating and strategy B is cheating. It differs from that of an (unweighted) crowding game:

	Player 2 adopts strategy A	Player 2 adopts strategy B
Player 1 adopts strategy A	0,0	1,1
Player 1 adopts strategy B	1,1	0,0

where the important point is only that the two players pursue different strategies.

I also strongly disagree with your contention that this constitutes original research on a couple of grounds. First, the two concepts seem very closely related; I think that there is an obvious (no research required) connection to be made here, and that drawing attention to the prisoner's dilemma from this article provides usefull information for people interested in economic analysis of the tragedy of the commons. Second, a Google search for "prisoner's dilemma" "tragedy of the commons" turns up over 24,000 results! Those results include loads of articles both about prisoners dilemmas and about the tragedy of the commons.[6]

I am removing the original research warning from this section (I think there have been far too many claims of original research in the discussion of this article), but I am happy to listen to arguments to the contrary.Btwied 18:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it reads a hell of a lot like original research to me, too - especially as the conclusion it reaches in re the interated prisoner's dilemma is pure and simple hogwash. If the defector were really punished in an interated game, there wouldn't be a tragedy of the commons. ElectricRay 23:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evolutionary psychology

The section on "evolutionary psychology" referred to this field as using the tragedy of the commons. While this is no doubt true, the author(s) of this text were referring to general evolutionary biology theory, not the more specific "evolutionary psychology". I have changed the title, and broadened this section to mention other areas of evolution where the tragedy of the commons is applied, as it is widely used in all aspects of evolution.

[edit] Definition

THE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH DOES NOT DEFINE THE TERM! Sorry for caps locks, but that is quite an error.

Fair point. Perhaps the "Introduction" section could furnish the relevant text. I'll see what I can do. Cheers, --Plumbago 14:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

From the one who wrote the above in caps: Here's a first sketch of a definition: The tragedy of the commons refers to phenomena in which individuals may, in the course of maximizing their own wealth (utility is a bit too opaque and esoteric, but I don't see much in the way of alternatives) overuse and thereby harm a common or public (perhaps one or the other will do) property, as in the case of over-grazing a public pasture. (This definition may be too specific, as it was written with a few examples in mind - I am not cognizant of all such tragedies of the commons). I've just realized, that a more popular usage of the term has been ignored entirely - tragedy of the commons often refers to how people mistreat public property simply because it's not theirs, eg, the graffiti in public bathrooms. Citations needed, I suppose.

[edit] Merge suggested: Tyranny of the Commons

Another article, Tyranny of the Commons, discusses exactly the same subject. It should be merged into this article. WVhybrid 03:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Possibly just redirect Tyranny here and add a short note about it into this article - it sounds pretty much the same as the Tragedy of the Commons. It does get into positive externalities (which doesn't sound like much of a "tyranny" to me), so I'm perhaps missing something important there. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:03, 13 October 2006 (UTC) (Counting as Merge --Bill Huston ^(talk) 00:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC))

There Is a big difference between tragedy and tyrrany. Tragedy of the commons is something that law students worry about a lot in a philosophical way. When one talks about tyranny, it is with an economists eye. They should link each other, but they are different. --Evan nov 18 2006 (Counting as Keep --Bill Huston ^(talk) 00:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC))

How are the above articles unique enough to be separated from Social trap? --DixiePixie 20:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC) (Counting as Merge BOTH into Social Trap --Bill Huston ^(talk) 00:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC))

I'm for merging. I think the term is being widely applied, but that's because it's a very basic phenomenon, not because it's somehow different in economics/law/games theory/biology. The basics remain the same, so pointing to one centralized article that defines it and then describes the various applications is quite reasonable. suz 15:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Tragedy of the commons refers to the problem which is created when individuals using a resource do not themselves contribute to its maintainance. It is utility-maximization while at the same time ignoring Mill's utilitarian prerequisite that an action must be valued from the aggregate benefit it contributes to other actors. Tragedy of the commons is egoism. Tyranny of the commons is Rousseau's "volonté génerale", which implies that in a democracy the majority will always be the dictator of the minority. The two concepts are not philosophically related. The tyranny of the commons ought to be re-defined according to Rousseau's idea on the majority's right to ignore a minority in a democracy. As the article is now it is way off common knowledge in philosophy. Is this the Tragedy of Wikipedia, perhaps? Karl, Sweden —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.226.219.41 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 14 December 2006. (Counting as Merge and redirect "Tyrrany of the Commons" to "Tyrrany of the Majority" --Bill Huston ^(talk) 00:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC))

I'm for a merge and redirect "Tyranny of the Commons" to "Tyrrany of the Majority". Reasons:

• WVhybrid is correct. These two articles are talking about the same thing
• Notability: "tragedy of the commons" = 1,040,000 ghits, whereas "tyranny of the commons" = only 120 ghits (many are replications of the Wiki article)
• If you look at the ghits which are not the Wiki article, it appears that when people are talking about tyranny of the commons they are in fact refering to Tyranny of the majority. This is essentally what Karl,Sweden is saying also. -- Bill Huston ^(talk) 23:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merge of this article into Social trap. This is the more significant article, and is a well used phrase, per the google hit list above.WVhybrid 03:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose (Would be for 'Merge and redirect "Tyranny of the Commons" to "Tyranny of the Majority"' per Karl's last comment.) Tyranny and Tragedy are entirely different things. jthillik 22:48, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose all mergers herein discussed agree with Jfhillik. These are different things. Anlace 22:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Common Property vs. Open Access (res nullius)

While there is a section in the article (Tragedy of the commons#Controversy) that deals with various concerns about Hardin's work, there is no real discussion (that I could find) regarding the problem that some scholars have pointed identified with Hardin (and his interpreters) notion of Common Property: Namely that what the tragedy is refereing not to common property (as the title unfortunately suggests), but rather to open access (no property rights defined). This is a critical mis-understanding because common property rights institutions may well be more efficient than private property institutions when transaction costs are sufficiently high (Where transaction costs are viewed as the cost of defining, monitoring, and enforcing property rights).

Should this just be added to the section on Contreversy or would it be best to place the discussion elsewhere on the article? Joel Kincaid 19:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

Some of the articles on list of modern commons seem to be repetitive, so I am going to remove them, and also organize the list into similar concepts (Earth-related, life-related, human-related).

I agree with the discussion above calling for the list to consist only of things that are notable (WP:N) and referenced (WP:NOR)—come on, graffiti is hardly a tragedy, and may even be considered high art. However, I will leave it on for now, so I don't anger those who find it tragic. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)