FREC 444 – Economics of Environmental Management

FREC 444 – Economics of Environmental Management
Garrett Hardin’s "Tragedy of the Commons"

Hardin, G. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162:1243-48. Hardin taught biology at UC Santa Barbara. Like many classics, this article is more often cited than read. The exposition of the commons problem isn’t new, but Hardin’s approaches to solving the problem are insightful, if somewhat disturbing. So you should download and read it for yourself rather than simply trusting in this brief synopsis.

Synopsis

Hardin discusses a class of "problems with no technical solutions," focusing on over-population and other common-property resource depletion problems. He provides a clear reiteration of the Malthusian argument that a finite resource base necessarily implies a limit on human population, and then discusses some implications of this.

Hardin dismisses Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" as both illogical (explain how!) and physically impossible. Principles of laissez-faire, articulated in Adam Smith’s description of free markets in which self-serving individuals "are led by an invisible hand to promote…the public interest," won’t save us from the tragedy of the commons. "We need to examine our individual freedoms to see which ones are defensible."

By "tragedy" Hardin means an inevitable outcome. As an example, he describes a common pasture on which anyone can graze a herd. Social stability leads to overgrazing and even destruction of the pasture, since each herder’s incentive is to add more of his or her own animals to the common rather than leave it for others to exploit. After citing some fairly literal commons problems such as grazing on public ranges in the western US and parks congestion, Hardin also explains pollution as a commons problem.

"Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." The commons problem arises as the system that uses it changes. Hardin argues that the ethics of resource use are state-dependent: "the morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed." Polluting is not harmful or immoral when emissions are small, quickly dispersed and rapidly assimilated; it only becomes harmful and immoral when emissions increase and compromise the environment’s assimilative capacity.

Hardin argues that human reproductive freedom would be fine in a "dog eat dog" world where families bear all the costs of their children, but is inconsistent with a welfare state. "To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action."

One impediment to resolving the commons problem is that "…natural selection favors the forces of psychological denial. The individual benefits…from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole…suffers."

"It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience." People who don’t care "will produce a larger fraction of the next generation" than people who do. It’s simple Darwinian logic: "Conscience is self-eliminating."

Saving the commons by appealing to conscience is counterproductive. The explicit message "we will openly condemn you for not acting like a responsible citizen" is undercut by the implicit message "we will secretly condemn you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of use exploit the commons."

"To conjure up a conscience in others is tempting to anyone who wishes to extend his control beyond the legal limits…The rhetoric…is designed to produce feelings of guilt in non-cooperators." Guilt and anxiety do not motivate rational action.

"Some people have proposed massive propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility…When we use the word responsibility in the absence of substantial sanctions, are we not trying to browbeat a free man in a commons into acting against his own interest? Responsibility is a verbal counterfeit for a substantial quid pro quo. It is an attempt to get something for nothing."

Hardin argues for "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon" instead. We need to create or refine social institutions to avoid destruction of the commons. Converting the commons to private property is a typical solution. Solutions need not be perfectly "just" to be preferable to destruction of the commons. "As the human population has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another…Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody’s personal liberty. Infringements made in the distant past are accepted because no contemporary complains of a loss. It is the newly proposed infrimgements that we vigorously oppose; cries of "rights" and "freedom" fill the air. But what does "freedom" mean? When men mutually agreed to pass laws against robbing, mankind became more free, not less so. Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin; once they see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals. I believe it was Hegel who said, ‘Freedom is the recognition of necessity.’"

Discussion

Hardin’s main concern here is overpopulation. Analysis of population growth rates across nations suggests that economic development triggers an initial period rapid population growth as infant mortality declines and longevity rises, and then causes population to stabilize again as birthrates decline. We have already noted that children in high-income countries tend to be inferior goods (in the economic sense).

Hardin wants to restrict the right to have children, but doesn’t say how. China has one-family-one-child laws, and is the world’s largest exporter of infants to adoptive parents. What incentives does this law create?

What if we auctioned off permits to have children or taxed children—what incentives would that create?

Can you think of less drastic policies—policies that would create incentives for reproductive self-restraint and make sure parents bear more of the costs of their children?

Although this article is most often cited for its articulation of the commons problem, its main value is in its discussion of the social inertia that frustrates attempts to create, expand or reform the institutions that should protect our common resources. The evolution of institutions is a slow, painful process of trial and error as peoples’ rights are abridged and redefined. We need our institutions to resolve ever more complicated conflicts arising in our congested society. Our nostalgia for the open commons, the frontier without limits, the past without scarcity, is quite understandable, even if these are more myth than history. We romanticize the past, dream of the homestead without the hardship. Unfortunately, this nostalgia blinds us to current realities of resource over-use and degradation. Since our institutions are a legacy of the past, we are reluctant to change them. Denial of the commons problem is natural, and even profitable for us in the short run. Appeals to conscience are indeed counterproductive.

EXTRA CREDIT: People have been worrying about over-population since long before Malthus’s "Essay on Population" (1798). For a really interesting approach to the problem, check out Jonathan Swift’s "A Modest Proposal" (1729).