[Reader-list] The Tragedy of the Commons

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

In my last postings there was refrences to the phrase `The Tragedy of the 
Commons`. On request from friends I am enclosing an article written in 1968 
which kind of gave velocity to this phrase. cheers. Jeebesh


The Tragedy of the Commons
Garrett Hardin (1968)

"The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin, Science, 162(1968):1243-1248.

At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, J.B. Wiesner 
and H.F. York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are
confronted by 
the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing 
national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this 
dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for 
solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to 
worsen the situation.'' [1]

I would like to focus your attention not on the subject of the article 
(national security in a nuclear world) but on the kind of conclusion they 
reached, namely that there is no technical solution to the problem. An 
implicit and almost universal assumption of discussions published in 
professional and semipopular scientific journals is that the problem under 
discussion has a technical solution. A technical solution may be defined as 
one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, 
demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of 
morality. 

In our day (though not in earlier times) technical solutions are always 
welcome. Because of previous failures in prophecy, it takes courage to assert 
that a desired technical solution is not possible. Wiesner and York exhibited 
this courage; publishing in a science journal, they insisted that the 
solution to the problem was not to be found in the natural sciences. They 
cautiously qualified their statement with the phrase, "It is our considered 
professional judgment...." Whether they were right or not is not the concern 
of the present article. Rather, the concern here is with the important 
concept of a class of human problems which can be called "no technical 
solution problems," and more specifically, with the identification and 
discussion of one of these. 

It is easy to show that the class is not a null class. Recall the game of 
tick-tack-toe. Consider the problem, "How can I win the game of 
tick-tack-toe?" It is well known that I cannot, if I assume (in keeping with 
the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game 
perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. 
I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can hit my 
opponent over the head; or I can falsify the records. Every way in which I 
"win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game, as we intuitively 
understand it. (I can also, of course, openly abandon the game -- refuse to 
play it. This is what most adults do.) 

The class of "no technical solution problems" has members. My thesis is that 
the "population problem," as conventionally conceived, is a member of this 
class. How it is conventionally conceived needs some comment. It is fair to 
say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to 
find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of 
the privileges they now enjoy. They think that farming the seas or developing 
new strains of wheat will solve the problem -- technologically. I try to show 
here that the solution they seek cannot be found. The population problem 
cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning 
the game of tick-tack-toe. 

What Shall We Maximize? 

Population, as Malthus said, naturally tends to grow "geometrically," or, as 
we would now say, exponentially. In a finite world this means that the 
per-capita share of the world's goods must decrease. Is ours a finite world?

A fair defense can be put forward for the view that the world is infinite or 
that we do not know that it is not. But, in terms of the practical problems 
that we must face in the next few generations with the foreseeable 
technology, it is clear that we will greatly increase human misery if we do 
not, during the immediate future, assume that the world available to the 
terrestrial human population is finite. "Space" is no escape. [2]

A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population 
growth must eventually equal zero. (The case of perpetual wide fluctuations 
above and below zero is a trivial variant that need not be discussed.) When 
this condition is met, what will be the situation of mankind? Specifically, 
can Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" be 
realized? 

No -- for two reasons, each sufficient by itself. The first is a theoretical 
one. It is not mathematically possible to maximize for two (or more) 
variables at the same time. This was clearly stated by von Neumann and 
Morgenstern, [3] but the principle is implicit in the theory of partial 
differential equations, dating back at least to D'Alembert (1717-1783).

The second reason springs directly from biological facts. To live, any 
organism must have a source of energy (for example, food). This energy is 
utilized for two purposes: mere maintenance and work. For man maintenance of 
life requires about 1600 kilocalories a day ("maintenance calories"). 
Anything that he does over and above merely staying alive will be defined as 
work, and is supported by "work calories" which he takes in. Work calories 
are used not only for what we call work in common speech; they are also 
required for all forms of enjoyment, from swimming and automobile racing to 
playing music and writing poetry. If our goal is to maximize population it is 
obvious what we must do: We must make the work calories per person approach 
as close to zero as possible. No gourmet meals, no vacations, no sports, no 
music, no literature, no art
I think that everyone will grant, without 
argument or proof, that maximizing population does not maximize goods. 
Bentham's goal is impossible. 

In reaching this conclusion I have made the usual assumption that it is the 
acquisition of energy that is the problem. The appearance of atomic energy 
has led some to question this assumption. However, given an infinite source 
of energy, population growth still produces an inescapable problem. The 
problem of the acquisition of energy is replaced by the problem of its 
dissipation, as J. H. Fremlin has so wittily shown. [4] The arithmetic signs 
in the analysis are, as it were, reversed; but Bentham's goal is 
unobtainable. 

The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum. The difficulty of 
defining the optimum is enormous; so far as I know, no one has seriously 
tackled this problem. Reaching an acceptable and stable solution will surely 
require more than one generation of hard analytical work -- and much 
persuasion. 

We want the maximum good per person; but what is good? To one person it is 
wilderness, to another it is ski lodges for thousands. To one it is estuaries 
to nourish ducks for hunters to shoot; to another it is factory land. 
Comparing one good with another is, we usually say, impossible because goods 
are incommensurable. Incommensurables cannot be compared. 

Theoretically this may be true; but in real life incommensurables are 
commensurable. Only a criterion of judgment and a system of weighting are 
needed. In nature the criterion is survival. Is it better for a species to be 
small and hideable, or large and powerful? Natural selection commensurates 
the incommensurables. The compromise achieved depends on a natural weighting 
of the values of the variables. 

Man must imitate this process. There is no doubt that in fact he already 
does, but unconsciously. It is when the hidden decisions are made explicit 
that the arguments begin. The problem for the years ahead is to work out an 
acceptable theory of weighting. Synergistic effects, nonlinear variation, and 
difficulties in discounting the future make the intellectual problem 
difficult, but not (in principle) insoluble. 

Has any cultural group solved this practical problem at the present time, 
even on an intuitive level? One simple fact proves that none has: there is no 
prosperous population in the world today that has, and has had for some time, 
a growth rate of zero. Any people that has intuitively identified its optimum 
point will soon reach it, after which its growth rate becomes and remains 
zero. 

Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a 
population is below its optimum. However, by any reasonable standards, the 
most rapidly growing populations on earth today are (in general) the most 
miserable. This association (which need not be invariable) casts doubt on the 
optimistic assumption that the positive growth rate of a population is 
evidence that it has yet to reach its optimum. 

We can make little progress in working toward optimum population size until 
we explicitly exorcise the spirit of Adam Smith in the field of practical 
demography. In economic affairs, The Wealth of Nations (1776) popularized the 
"invisible hand," the idea that an individual who "intends only his own 
gain," is, as it were, "led by an invisible hand to promote
the public 
interest." [5] Adam Smith did not assert that this was invariably true, and 
perhaps neither did any of his followers. But he contributed to a dominant 
tendency of thought that has ever since interfered with positive action based 
on rational analysis, namely, the tendency to assume that decisions reached 
individually will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society. If 
this assumption is correct it justifies the continuance of our present policy 
of laissez faire in reproduction. If it is correct we can assume that men 
will control their individual fecundity so as to produce the optimum 
population. If the assumption is not correct, we need to reexamine our 
individual freedoms to see which ones are defensible. 

Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons 

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." 

The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to 
all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle 
as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably 
satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep 
the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the 
land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the 
long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the 
inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. 

As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or 
implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of 
adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one 
positive component. 

1. The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since 
the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional 
animal, the positive utility is nearly + 1. 

2. The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created 
by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by 
all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision­making 
herdsman is only a fraction of - 1. 

Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman 
concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another 
animal to his herd. And another.... But this is the conclusion reached by 
each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. 
Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd 
without limit -- in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward 
which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that 
believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to 
all. 

Some would say that this is a platitude. Would that it were! In a sense, it 
was learned thousands of years ago, but natural selection favors the forces 
of psychological denial. [8] The individual benefits as an individual from 
his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is 
a part, suffers. Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the 
wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the 
basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed. 

A simple incident that occurred a few years ago in Leominster, Massachusetts 
shows how perishable the knowledge is. During the Christmas shopping season 
the parking meters downtown were covered with plastic bags that bore tags 
reading: "Do not open until after Christmas. Free parking courtesy of the 
mayor and city council." In other words, facing the prospect of an increased 
demand for already scarce space, the city fathers reinstituted the system of 
the commons. (Cynically, we suspect that they gained more votes than they 
lost by this retrogressive act.) 

In an approximate way, the logic of the commons has been understood for a 
long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of 
private property in real estate. But it is understood mostly only in special 
cases which are not sufficiently generalized. Even at this late date, 
cattlemen leasing national land on the Western ranges demonstrate no more 
than an ambivalent understanding, in constantly pressuring federal 
authorities to increase the head count to the point where overgrazing 
produces erosion and weed-dominance. Likewise, the oceans of the world 
continue to suffer from the survival of the philosophy of the commons. 
Maritime nations still respond automatically to the shibboleth of the 
"freedom of the seas." Professing to believe in the "inexhaustible resources 
of the oceans," they bring species after species of fish and whales closer to 
extinction. [9] 

The National Parks present another instance of the working out of the tragedy 
of the commons. At present, they are open to all, without limit. The parks 
themselves are limited in extent -- there is only one Yosemite Valley -- 
whereas population seems to grow without limit. The values that visitors seek 
in the parks are steadily eroded. Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the 
parks as commons or they will be of no value to anyone. 

What shall we do? We have several options. We might sell them off as private 
property. We might keep them as public property, but allocate the right to 
enter them. The allocation might be on the basis of wealth, by the use of an 
auction system. It might be on the basis of merit, as defined by some 
agreed­upon standards. It might be by lottery. Or it might be on a 
first-come, first-served basis, administered to long queues. These, I think, 
are all objectionable. But we must choose -- or acquiesce in the destruction 
of the commons that we call our National Parks. 

Pollution 

In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of 
pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, 
but of putting something in -- sewage, or chemical, radioactive, and heat 
wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air; and distracting 
and unpleasant advertising signs into the line of sight. The calculations of 
utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of 
the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost 
of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for 
everyone, we are locked into a system of "fouling our own nest," so long as 
we behave only as independent, rational, free enterprisers. 

The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, 
or something formally like it. But the air and waters surrounding us cannot 
readily be fenced, and so the tragedy of the commons as a cesspool must be 
prevented by different means, by coercive laws or taxing devices that make it 
cheaper for the polluter to treat his pollutants than to discharge them 
untreated. We have not progressed as far with the solution of this problem as 
we have with the first. Indeed, our particular concept of private property, 
which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors 
pollution. The owner of a factory on the bank of a stream -- whose property 
extends to the middle of the stream -- often has difficulty seeing why it is 
not his natural right to muddy the waters flowing past his door. The law, 
always behind the times, requires elaborate stitching and fitting to adapt it 
to this newly perceived aspect of the commons. 

The pollution problem is a consequence of population. It did not much matter 
how a lonely American frontiersman disposed of his waste. "Flowing water 
purifies itself every ten miles," my grandfather used to say, and the myth 
was near enough to the truth when he was a boy, for there were not too many 
people. But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological 
recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property 
rights. 

How to Legislate Temperance? 

Analysis of the pollution problem as a function of population density 
uncovers a not generally recognized principle of morality, namely: the 
morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is 
performed. [10] Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general 
public under frontier conditions, because there is no public; the same 
behavior in a metropolis is unbearable. A hundred and fifty years ago a 
plainsman could kill an American bison, cut out only the tongue for his 
dinner, and discard the rest of the animal. He was not in any important sense 
being wasteful. Today, with only a few thousand bison left, we would be 
appalled at such behavior. 

In passing, it is worth noting that the morality of an act cannot be 
determined from a photograph. One does not know whether a man killing an 
elephant or setting fire to the grassland is harming others until one knows 
the total system in which his act appears. "One picture is worth a thousand 
words," said an ancient Chinese; but it may take ten thousand words to 
validate it. It is as tempting to ecologists as it is to reformers in general 
to try to persuade others by way of the photographic shortcut. But the 
essence of an argument cannot be photographed: it must be presented 
rationally -- in words. 

That morality is system-sensitive escaped the attention of most codifiers of 
ethics in the past. "Thou shalt not
" is the form of traditional ethical 
directives which make no allowance for particular circumstances. The laws of 
our society follow the pattern of ancient ethics, and therefore are poorly 
suited to governing a complex, crowded, changeable world. Our epicyclic 
solution is to augment statutory law with administrative law. Since it is 
practically impossible to spell out all the conditions under which it is safe 
to burn trash in the back yard or to run an automobile without smog­control, 
by law we delegate the details to bureaus. The result is administrative law, 
which is rightly feared for an ancient reason -- Quis custodies ipsos 
custodes? --Who shall watch the watchers themselves? John Adams said that we 
must have a "government of laws and not men." Bureau administrators, trying 
to evaluate the morality of acts in the total system, are singularly liable 
to corruption, producing a government by men, not laws. 

Prohibition is easy to legislate (though not necessarily to enforce); but how 
do we legislate temperance? Experience indicates that it can be accomplished 
best through the mediation of administrative law. We limit possibilities 
unnecessarily if we suppose that the sentiment of Quis custodiet denies us 
the use of administrative law. We should rather retain the phrase as a 
perpetual reminder of fearful dangers we cannot avoid. The great challenge 
facing us now is to invent the corrective feedbacks that are needed to keep 
custodians honest. We must find ways to legitimate the needed authority of 
both the custodians and the corrective feedbacks. 

Freedom to Breed Is Intolerable 

The tragedy of the commons is involved in population problems in another way. 
In a world governed solely by the principle of "dog eat dog" --if indeed 
there ever was such a world--how many children a family had would not be a 
matter of public concern. Parents who bred too exuberantly would leave fewer 
descendants, not more, because they would be unable to care adequately for 
their children. David Lack and others have found that such a negative 
feedback demonstrably controls the fecundity of birds. [11] But men are not 
birds, and have not acted like them for millenniums, at least. 

If each human family were dependent only on its own resources; if the 
children of improvident parents starved to death; if thus, over breeding 
brought its own "punishment" to the germ line -- then there would be no 
public interest in controlling the breeding of families. But our society is 
deeply committed to the welfare state, [12] and hence is confronted with 
another aspect of the tragedy of the commons. 

In a welfare state, how shall we deal with the family, the religion, the 
race, or the class (or indeed any distinguishable and cohesive group) that 
adopts over breeding as a policy to secure its own aggrandizement? [13] 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. 

Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the 
United Nations. In late 1967, some thirty nations agreed to the following: 
"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the 
natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and 
decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the 
family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.'' [14]

It is painful to have to deny categorically the validity of this right; 
denying it, one feels as uncomfortable as a resident of Salem, Massachusetts, 
who denied the reality of witches in the seventeenth century. At the present 
time, in liberal quarters, something like a taboo acts to inhibit criticism 
of the United Nations. There is a feeling that the United Nations is "our 
last and best hope," that we shouldn't find fault with it; we shouldn't play 
into the hands of the archconservatives. However, let us not forget what 
Robert Louis Stevenson said: "The truth that is suppressed by friends is the 
readiest weapon of the enemy." If we love the truth we must openly deny the 
validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even though it is 
promoted by the United Nations. We should also join with Kingsley Davis [15] 
in attempting to get Planned Parenthood-World Population to see the error of 
its ways in embracing the same tragic ideal. 

Conscience Is Self-Eliminating 

It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the 
long run by an appeal to conscience. Charles Galton Darwin made this point 
when he spoke on the centennial of the publication of his grandfather's great 
book. The argument is straightforward and Darwinian. 

People vary. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will 
undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more 
children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those 
with more susceptible consciences. The differences will be accentuated, 
generation by generation. 

In C. G. Darwin's words: "It may well be that it would take hundreds of 
generations for the progenitive instinct to develop in this way, but if it 
should do so, nature would have taken her revenge, and the variety Homo 
contracipiens would become extinct and would be replaced by the variety Homo 
progenitivus. [16] 

The argument assumes that conscience or the desire for children (no matter 
which) is hereditary-but hereditary only in the most general formal sense. 
The result will be the same whether the attitude is transmitted through germ 
cells, or exosomatically, to use A. J. Lotka's term. (If one denies the 
latter possibility as well as the former, then what's the point of 
education?) The argument has here been stated in the context of the 
population problem, but it applies equally well to any instance in which 
society appeals to an individual exploiting a commons to restrain himself for 
the general good -- by means of his conscience. To make such an appeal is to 
set up a selective system that works toward the elimination of conscience 
from the race. 

Pathogenic Effects of Conscience 

The long-term disadvantage of an appeal to conscience should be enough to 
condemn it; but it has serious short-term disadvantages as well. If we ask a 
man who is exploiting a commons to desist "in the name of conscience," what 
are we saying to him? What does he hear? -- not only at the moment but also 
in the wee small hours of the night when, half asleep, he remembers not 
merely the words we used but also the nonverbal communication cues we gave 
him unawares? Sooner or later, consciously or subconsciously, he senses that 
he has received two communications, and that they are contradictory: 1. 
(intended communication) "If you don't do as we ask, we will openly condemn 
you for not acting like a responsible citizen"; 2. (the unintended 
communication) "If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn you for 
a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us 
exploit the commons." 

Every man then is caught in what Bateson has called a "double bind." Bateson 
and his co-workers have made a plausible case for viewing the double bind as 
an important causative factor in the genesis of schizophrenia. [17] The 
double bind may not always be so damaging, but it always endangers the mental 
health of anyone to whom it is applied. "A bad conscience," said Nietzsche, 
"is a kind of illness." 

To conjure up a conscience in others is tempting to anyone who wishes to 
extend his control beyond the legal limits. Leaders at the highest level 
succumb to this temptation. Has any president during the past generation 
failed to call on labor unions to moderate voluntarily their demands for 
higher wages, or to steel companies to honor voluntary guidelines on prices? 
I can recall none. The rhetoric used on such occasions is designed to produce 
feelings of guilt in noncooperators. 

For centuries it was assumed without proof that guilt was a valuable, perhaps 
even an indispensable, ingredient of the civilized life. Now, in this 
post-Freudian world, we doubt it. 

Paul Goodman speaks from the modern point of view when he says: "No good has 
ever come from feeling guilty, neither intelligence, policy, nor compassion. 
The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not 
even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their 
anxieties.'' [18] 

One does not have to be a professional psychiatrist to see the consequences 
of anxiety. We in the Western world are just emerging from a dreadful two 
centuries-long Dark Ages of Eros that was sustained partly by prohibition 
laws, but perhaps more effectively by the anxiety-generating mechanisms of 
education. Alex Comfort has told the story well in The Anxiety Makers; [19] 
it is not a pretty one. 

Since proof is difficult, we may even concede that the results of anxiety may 
sometimes, from certain points of view, be desirable. The larger question we 
should ask is whether, as a matter of policy, we should ever encourage the 
use of a technique the tendency (if not the intention) of which is 
psychologically pathogenic. We hear much talk these days of responsible 
parenthood; the coupled words are incorporated into the titles of some 
organizations devoted to birth control. Some people have proposed massive 
propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility into the nation's (or the 
world's) breeders. But what is the meaning of the word conscience? 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. 

If the word responsibility is to be used at all, I suggest that it be in the 
sense Charles Frankel uses it. [20] "Responsibility," says this philosopher, 
"is the product of definite social arrangements." Notice that Frankel calls 
for social arrangements -- not propaganda. 

Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon

The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that 
create coercion, of some sort. Consider bank robbing. The man who takes money 
from a bank acts as if the bank were a commons. How do we prevent such 
action? Certainly not by trying to control his behavior solely by a verbal 
appeal to his sense of responsibility. Rather than rely on propaganda we 
follow Frankel's lead and insist that a bank is not a commons; we seek the 
definite social arrangements that will keep it from becoming a commons. That 
we thereby infringe on the freedom of would-be robbers we neither deny nor 
regret. 

The morality of bank robbing is particularly easy to understand because we 
accept complete prohibition of this activity. We are willing to say "Thou 
shalt not rob banks," without providing for exceptions. But temperance also 
can be created by coercion. Taxing is a good coercive device. To keep 
downtown shoppers temperate in their use of parking space we introduce 
parking meters for short periods, and traffic fines for longer ones. We need 
not actually forbid a citizen to park as long as he wants to; we need merely 
make it increasingly expensive for him to do so. Not prohibition, but 
carefully biased options are what we offer him. A Madison Avenue man might 
call this persuasion; I prefer the greater candor of the word coercion. 

Coercion is a dirty word to most liberals now, but it need not forever be so. 
As with the four-letter words, its dirtiness can be cleansed away by exposure 
to the light, by saying it over and over without apology or embarrassment. To 
many, the word coercion implies arbitrary decisions of distant and 
irresponsible bureaucrats; but this is not a necessary part of its meaning. 
The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed 
upon by the majority of the people affected. 

To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required 
to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it. Who enjoys taxes? We all grumble 
about them. But we accept compulsory taxes because we recognize that 
voluntary taxes would favor the conscienceless. We institute and 
(grumblingly) support taxes and other coercive devices to escape the horror 
of the commons. 

An alternative to the commons need not be perfectly just to be preferable. 
With real estate and other material goods, the alternative we have chosen is 
the institution of private property coupled with legal inheritance. Is this 
system perfectly just? As a genetically trained biologist I deny that it is. 
It seems to me that, if there are to be differences in individual 
inheritance, legal possession should be perfectly correlated with biological 
inheritance-that those who are biologically more fit to be the custodians of 
property and power should legally inherit more. But genetic recombination 
continually makes a mockery of the doctrine of "like father, like son" 
implicit in our laws of legal inheritance. An idiot can inherit millions, and 
a trust fund can keep his estate intact. We must admit that our legal system 
of private property plus inheritance is unjust -- but we put up with it 
because we are not convinced, at the moment, that anyone has invented a 
better system. The alternative of the commons is too horrifying to 
contemplate. Injustice is preferable to total ruin. 

It is one of the peculiarities of the warfare between reform and the status 
quo that it is thoughtlessly governed by a double standard. Whenever a reform 
measure is proposed it is often defeated when its opponents triumphantly 
discover a flaw in it. As Kingsley Davis has pointed out, [21] worshipers of 
the status quo sometimes imply that no reform is possible without unanimous 
agreement, an implication contrary to historical fact. As nearly as I can 
make out, automatic rejection of proposed reforms is based on one of two 
unconscious assumptions: (1) that the status quo is perfect; or (2) that the 
choice we face is between reform and no action; if the proposed reform is 
imperfect, we presumably should take no action at all, while we wait for a 
perfect proposal. 

But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years 
is also action. It also produces evils. Once we are aware that the status quo 
is action, we can then compare its discoverable advantages and disadvantages 
with the predicted advantages and disadvantages of the proposed reform, 
discounting as best we can for our lack of experience. On the basis of such a 
comparison, we can make a rational decision which will not involve the 
unworkable assumption that only perfect systems are tolerable. 

Recognition of Necessity 

Perhaps the simplest summary of this analysis of man's population problems is 
this: the commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under 
conditions of low-population density. As the human population has increased, 
the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another. 

First we abandoned the commons in food gathering, enclosing farm land and 
restricting pastures and hunting and fishing areas. These restrictions are 
still not complete throughout the world. 

Somewhat later we saw that the commons as a place for waste disposal would 
also have to be abandoned. Restrictions on the disposal of domestic sewage 
are widely accepted in the Western world; we are still struggling to close 
the commons to pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers, 
fertilizing operations, and atomic energy installations. 

In a still more embryonic state is our recognition of the evils of the 
commons in matters of pleasure. There is almost no restriction on the 
propagation of sound waves in the public medium. The shopping public is 
assaulted with mindless music, without its consent. Our government has paid 
out billions of dollars to create a supersonic transport which would disturb 
50,000 people for every one person whisked from coast to coast 3 hours 
faster. Advertisers muddy the airwaves of radio and television and pollute 
the view of travelers. We are a long way from outlawing the commons in 
matters of pleasure. Is this because our Puritan inheritance makes us view 
pleasure as something of a sin, and pain (that is, the pollution of 
advertising) as the sign of virtue? 

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 infringements 
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." 

The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize, is the 
necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can 
rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin 
to all. At the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us are tempted to 
propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood. The temptation must 
be resisted, because an appeal to independently acting consciences selects 
for the disappearance of all conscience in the long run, and an increase in 
anxiety in the short. 

The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is 
by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. "Freedom is the 
recognition of necessity" -- and it is the role of education to reveal to all 
the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end 
to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons. 

Notes 

1. J. B. Wiesner and H. F. York, Scientific American 211 (No. 4), 27 (1964). 

2. G. Hardin, Journal of Heredity 50, 68 (1959), S. von Hoernor, Science 137, 
18, (1962). 

3. J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior 
(Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1947), p. 11. 

4. J. H. Fremlin, New Scientist, No. 415 (1964), p. 285. 

5. A. Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Modern Library, New York, 1937), p. 423.

6. W. F. Lloyd, Two Lectures on the Checks to Population (Oxford University 
Press, Oxford, England, 1833). 

7. A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Mentor, New York, 1948), p. 
17. 

8. G. Hardin, Ed., Population, Evolution, and Birth Control (Freeman, San 
Francisco, 1964), p. 56. 

9. S. McVay, Scientific American 216 (No. 8), 13 (1966). 

10. J. Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1966). 

11. D. Lack, The Natural Regulation of Animal Numbers (Clarendon Press, 
Oxford, England, 1954). 

12. H. Girvetz, From Wealth to Welfare (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 
Calif, 1950). 

13. G. Hardin, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 6, 366 (1963). 

14. U Thant, International Planned Parenthood News, No. 168 (February 1968), 
p. 3. 

15. K. Davis, Science 158, 730 (1967). 

16. S. Tax, Ed., Evolution After Darwin (University of Chicago Press, 
Chicago, 1960), vol. 2, p. 469. 

17. G. Bateson, D. D. Jackson, J. Haley, J. Weakland, Behavioral Science 1, 
251 (1956). 

18. P. Goodman, New York Review of Books 10 (8), 22 (23 May 1968). 

19. A. Comfort, The Anxiety Makers (Nelson, London, 1967). 

20. C. Frankel, The Case for Modern Man (Harper & Row, New York, 1955), p. 
203. 

21. J. D. Roslansky, Genetics and the Future of Man (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 
New York, 1966), p. 177. THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMON REVISITED
by Beryl Crowe (1969)
reprinted in MANAGING THE COMMONS
by Garrett Hardin and John Baden
W.H. Freeman, 1977; ISBN 0-7167-0476-5

"There has developed in the contemporary natural sciences a recognition that 
there is a subset of problems, such as population, atomic war, and 
environmental corruption, for which there are no technical solutions.

"There is also an increasing recognition among contemporary social scientists 
that there is a subset of problems, such as population, atomic war, 
environmental corruption, and the recovery of a livable urban environment, 
for which there are no current political solutions. The thesis of this 
article is that the common area shared by these two subsets contains most of 
the critical problems that threaten the very existence of contemporary man." 
[p. 53]ASSUMPTIONS NECESSARY TO AVOID THE TRAGEDY

"In passing the technically insoluble problems over to the political and 
social realm for solution, Hardin made three critical assumptions:

(1) that there exists, or can be developed, a 'criterion of judgment and 
system of weighting . . .' that will 'render the incommensurables . . . 
commensurable . . . ' in real life;

(2) that, possessing this criterion of judgment, 'coercion can be mutually 
agreed upon,' and that the application of coercion to effect a solution to 
problems will be effective in modern society; and

(3) that the administrative system, supported by the criterion of judgment 
and access to coercion, can and will protect the commons from further 
desecration." [p. 55]

ERODING MYTH OF THE COMMON VALUE SYSTEM

"In America there existed, until very recently, a set of conditions which 
perhaps made the solution to Hardin's subset possible; we lived with the myth 
that we were 'one people, indivisible. . . .' This myth postulated that we 
were the great 'melting pot' of the world wherein the diverse cultural ores 
of Europe were poured into the crucible of the frontier experience to produce 
a new alloy -- an American civilization. This new civilization was presumably 
united by a common value system that was democratic, equalitarian, and 
existing under universally enforceable rules contained in the Constitution 
and the Bill of Rights.

"In the United States today, however, there is emerging a new set of behavior 
patterns which suggest that the myth is either dead or dying. Instead of 
believing and behaving in accordance with the myth, large sectors of the 
population are developing life-styles and value hierarchies that give 
contemporary Americans an appearance more closely analogous to the 
particularistic, primitive forms of 'tribal' organizations in geographic 
proximity than to that shining new alloy, the American civilization." [p. 56]

"Looking at a more recent analysis of the sickness of the core city, Wallace 
F. Smith has argued that the productive model of the city is no longer viable 
for the purposes of economic analysis. Instead, he develops a model of the 
city as a site for leisure consumption, and then seems to suggest that the 
nature of this model is such is such that the city cannot regain its health 
because the leisure demands are value-based and, hence do not admit to 
compromise and accommodation; consequently there is no way of deciding among 
these value- oriented demands that are being made on the core city.

"In looking for the cause of the erosion of the myth of a common value 
system, it seems to me that so long as our perceptions and knowledge of other 
groups were formed largely through the written media of communication, the 
American myth that we were a giant melting pot of equalitarians could be 
sustained. In such a perceptual field it is tenable, if not obvious, that men 
are motivated by interests. Interests can always be compromised and 
accommodated without undermining our very being by sacrificing values. Under 
the impact of electronic media, however, this psychological distance has 
broken down and now we discover that these people with whom we could formerly 
compromise on interests are not, after all, really motivated by interests but 
by values. Their behavior in our very living room betrays a set of values, 
moreover, that are incompatible with our own, and consequently the 
compromises that we make are not those of contract but of culture. While the 
former are acceptable, any form of compromise on the latter is not a form of 
rational behavior but is rather a clear case of either apostasy or heresy. 
Thus we have arrived not at an age of accommodation but one of confrontation. 
In such an age 'incommensurables' remain 'incommensurable' in real life." [p. 
59]EROSION OF THE MYTH OF THE MONOPOLY OF COERCIVE FORCE

"In the past, those who no longer subscribed to the values of the dominant 
culture were held in check by the myth that the state possessed a monopoly on 
coercive force. This myth has undergone continual erosion since the end of 
World War II owing to the success of the strategy of guerrilla warfare, as 
first revealed to the French in Indochina, and later conclusively 
demonstrated in Algeria. Suffering as we do from what Senator Fulbright has 
called 'the arrogance of power,' we have been extremely slow to learn the 
lesson in Vietnam, although we now realize that war is political and cannot 
be won by military means. It is apparent that the myth of the monopoly of 
coercive force as it was first qualified in the civil rights conflict in the 
South, then in our urban ghettos, next on the streets of Chicago, and now on 
our college campuses has lost its hold over the minds of Americans. The 
technology of guerrilla warfare has made it evident that, while the state can 
win battles, it cannot win wars of values. Coercive force which is centered 
in the modern state cannot be sustained in the face of the active resistance 
of some 10 percent of the population unless the state is willing to embark on 
a deliberate policy of genocide directed against the value dissident groups. 
The factor that sustained the myth of coercive force in the past was the 
acceptance of a common value system. Whether the latter exists is 
questionable in the modern nation-state." [p.p. 59-60]EROSION OF THE MYTH OF 
ADMINISTRATORS OF THE COMMONS

"Indeed, the process has been so widely commented upon that one writer 
postulated a common life cycle for all of the attempts to develop regulatory 
policies. The life cycle is launched by an outcry so widespread and demanding 
that it generates enough political force to bring about establishment of a 
regulatory agency to insure the equitable, just, and rational distribution of 
the advantages among all holders of interest in the commons. This phase is 
followed by the symbolic reassurance of the offended as the agency goes into 
operation, developing a period of political quiescence among the great 
majority of those who hold a general but unorganized interest in the commons. 
Once this political quiescence has developed, the highly organized and 
specifically interested groups who wish to make incursions into the commons 
bring sufficient pressure to bear through other political processes to 
convert the agency to the protection and furthering of their interests. In 
the last phase even staffing of the regulating agency is accomplished by 
drawing the agency administrators from the ranks of the regulated." [p.p. 
60-61]