The Real Tragedy of the Commons

“a “tragedy of the commons” — the inevitable result of individuals pursuing their self-interest in a world of finite resources”

“The term was popularized by biologist Garrett Hardin in a 1968 article in Science, one of the most cited — and vociferously refuted — scientific essays of the twentieth century”

“Hardin maintained that environmental tragedy inevitably accompanies the public use and management of land, water, and air”

“the real history of the depletion of the commons tells almost the opposite story: one of privatization, enclosure, and relentless profit seeking”

“It’s been almost fifteen years since political scientist Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize for a life’s work demonstrating that people are indeed capable of sharing finite resources without depleting them.”

“Hardin’s influence has only grown. A eugenicist and white nationalist whose academic work on population control came paired with a very specific political agenda about which populations demanded targeting, Hardin has enjoyed a cult revival on the hard right.”

“In a recent explainer on the New York Times’ investigation into the terrifying depletion of US groundwater, for example, reporter David Leonhardt chooses to invoke Hardin’s fatalistic ecofascist fable over Ostrom’s fieldwork — much of it on the use of groundwater — that served as the basis for her celebrated eight principles for managing a commons.”

“In England, where the term “commons” originates, the shared pastures where peasants grazed their herds weren’t overused but stolen, parceled off, and privatized in a much-studied historical process known as enclosure”

“The moral and legal concept of owning a resource like an English pasture or a North American forest was still under construction as the colonization of America began”

“The shift to privatization required an enormous literature of justification, encompassing Enlightenment classics by the likes of John Locke and the obscure 1833 lecture by English economist William Forster Lloyd from which Hardin borrowed the allegory of the commons”

“Lloyd didn’t actually care about environmental degradation; he cared about controlling the undesirable profusion of poor people”

“Inevitability excuses us from struggle”

“tragedy, “remorseless inevitableness,” as Hardin defines it, is an inherently ahistorical mode”

“There have always been contingencies, other ways history could have gone”

“The tragedies of the past are tragic expressly because they were never inevitable”