The miracle of the commons
January 6, 2023 3:15 PM Subscribe
Even before Hardin’s ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ was published, however, the young political scientist Elinor Ostrom had proven him wrong. 3700 words from Michelle Nijhuis for Aeon Magazine [an update to a previous post]
While Hardin speculated that the tragedy of the commons could be avoided only through total privatisation or total government control, Ostrom had witnessed groundwater users near her native Los Angeles hammer out a system for sharing their coveted resource. Over the next several decades, as a professor at Indiana University Bloomington, she studied collaborative management systems developed by cattle herders in Switzerland, forest dwellers in Japan, and irrigators in the Philippines. These communities had found ways of both preserving a shared resource – pasture, trees, water – and providing their members with a living. Some had been deftly avoiding the tragedy of the commons for centuries; Ostrom was simply one of the first scientists to pay close attention to their traditions, and analyse how and why they worked.
The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a reasonable balance of costs and benefits for participants; a predictable process for the fast and fair resolution of conflicts; an escalating series of punishments for cheaters; and good relationships between the community and other layers of authority, from household heads to international institutions.
While Hardin speculated that the tragedy of the commons could be avoided only through total privatisation or total government control, Ostrom had witnessed groundwater users near her native Los Angeles hammer out a system for sharing their coveted resource. Over the next several decades, as a professor at Indiana University Bloomington, she studied collaborative management systems developed by cattle herders in Switzerland, forest dwellers in Japan, and irrigators in the Philippines. These communities had found ways of both preserving a shared resource – pasture, trees, water – and providing their members with a living. Some had been deftly avoiding the tragedy of the commons for centuries; Ostrom was simply one of the first scientists to pay close attention to their traditions, and analyse how and why they worked.
The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a reasonable balance of costs and benefits for participants; a predictable process for the fast and fair resolution of conflicts; an escalating series of punishments for cheaters; and good relationships between the community and other layers of authority, from household heads to international institutions.
I had heard the title "Tragedy of the Commons" before, but knew nothing about it (I think I mixed it up with another term, related to climate change?), and had no idea this guy existed or that he was such a huge racist. Appreciate the education.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:39 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:39 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Heh, this is a pet peeve of mine.
Elinor Ostrom tells us how, given certain circumstances, we can resist the pull towards a tragedy of the commons. It does not refute the dynamics involved in the tragedy of the commons, it simply says that there are many situations in which we can find ways to avoid it.
There's a few strains of leftism that really want to believe there's no downside to certain kinds of anarchistic access to resources, and clearly didn't actually read Ostrom's work. Dragging Hardin and his racism is deserved, maybe the metaphor should be reworked, but a general version of the metaphor still holds tremendous utility.
posted by tychotesla at 1:31 AM on January 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
> But for a variety of reasons – perhaps because she was a woman in a male-dominated field, or perhaps because her sophisticated work didn’t lend itself to a catchy name – her carefully collected data hasn’t dislodged Hardin’s metaphor from the public imagination.Hmm, I wonder why it hasn't dislodged the metaphor? Previously:
> The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a reasonable balance of costs and benefits for participants; a predictable process for the fast and fair resolution of conflicts; an escalating series of punishments for cheaters; and good relationships between the community and other layers of authority, from household heads to international institutions.Ah. It hasn't dislodged the metaphor, because the metaphor still has validity.
Elinor Ostrom tells us how, given certain circumstances, we can resist the pull towards a tragedy of the commons. It does not refute the dynamics involved in the tragedy of the commons, it simply says that there are many situations in which we can find ways to avoid it.
There's a few strains of leftism that really want to believe there's no downside to certain kinds of anarchistic access to resources, and clearly didn't actually read Ostrom's work. Dragging Hardin and his racism is deserved, maybe the metaphor should be reworked, but a general version of the metaphor still holds tremendous utility.
posted by tychotesla at 1:31 AM on January 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
tychotesla: the pull towards a tragedy of the commons
For thousands of years, pretty much the entirety of recorded history, having commons was how human societies managed resources necessary for communal survival. The idea that there is a “tragedy of the commons” is a recent idea put forth by a racist weirdo a few decades ago.
On the one hand there is ample modern evidence that turning commons into private property is a disaster for the communities who relied on common resources, on the other there are millennia of evidence for commons being a very robust system.
The evidentiary burden is on people arguing that commons are bad, not the other way around.
posted by Kattullus at 3:47 AM on January 7, 2023 [18 favorites]
For thousands of years, pretty much the entirety of recorded history, having commons was how human societies managed resources necessary for communal survival. The idea that there is a “tragedy of the commons” is a recent idea put forth by a racist weirdo a few decades ago.
On the one hand there is ample modern evidence that turning commons into private property is a disaster for the communities who relied on common resources, on the other there are millennia of evidence for commons being a very robust system.
The evidentiary burden is on people arguing that commons are bad, not the other way around.
posted by Kattullus at 3:47 AM on January 7, 2023 [18 favorites]
The evidentiary burden is on people arguing that commons are bad, not the other way around.
The list of common pool resources that got overexploited to nothing through lack of management or mismanagement is long and _Governing the Commons_ includes many examples (which Ostrom would almost certainly put to bad institutional design).
Hardin was a racist pig but he didn't invent collective action problems, and collective action problems have existed and will keep on existing apart from his racism; the dreary stories about even more fisheries disappearing will tell that tale. Him being a racist pig just means that people like me should assign other readings about it, and luckily there are many (most obviously Olson who AFAIK is not particularly a milkshake duck).
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:11 AM on January 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
The list of common pool resources that got overexploited to nothing through lack of management or mismanagement is long and _Governing the Commons_ includes many examples (which Ostrom would almost certainly put to bad institutional design).
Hardin was a racist pig but he didn't invent collective action problems, and collective action problems have existed and will keep on existing apart from his racism; the dreary stories about even more fisheries disappearing will tell that tale. Him being a racist pig just means that people like me should assign other readings about it, and luckily there are many (most obviously Olson who AFAIK is not particularly a milkshake duck).
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:11 AM on January 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
This sounds like it's related to an iterated prisoner's dilemma. If the parties have relatively equal ability to reward and punish and there are repeated remembered interactions, cooperation happens. If not, then not.
The classic example is artillery on both sides on WWI who would aim to miss the other side. It drove the generals crazy until they accidentally found a solution, which was rotating the artillery crews often enough that a pattern of cooperation couldn't develop.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:19 AM on January 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
The classic example is artillery on both sides on WWI who would aim to miss the other side. It drove the generals crazy until they accidentally found a solution, which was rotating the artillery crews often enough that a pattern of cooperation couldn't develop.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:19 AM on January 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Seconding Kattullus. One could just as easily argue that abuse of common resources only happens given pretty specific circumstances. Assuming lack of relationships, clearly defined community, monitoring ability, and escalating consequences for cheaters as the baseline is historically inaccurate, and probably quite WEIRD.
posted by eviemath at 8:13 AM on January 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 8:13 AM on January 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
GCU Sweet and Full of Grace: The list of common pool resources that got overexploited to nothing through lack of management or mismanagement is long
Yes, and that’s why a system of commons is instituted. That people still conflate unmanaged and mismanaged shared resources shows how effective a piece of propaganda Hardin’s essay remains.
Also, I realize that I myself am conflating an incredibly varied set of cultural practices for resource management under the English name “commons”, but the basic idea, that resources which underpin the survival of everyone in a community, need to be pooled and managed by the community as a whole, is essentially the same in societies the world over.
I’m not saying these are perfect systems, of course they aren’t, they’re human creations, but the conceit of Hardin’s essay is that they inevitably lead to overexploitation, which doesn’t bear any kind of historically-informed scrutiny.
posted by Kattullus at 8:42 AM on January 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yes, and that’s why a system of commons is instituted. That people still conflate unmanaged and mismanaged shared resources shows how effective a piece of propaganda Hardin’s essay remains.
Also, I realize that I myself am conflating an incredibly varied set of cultural practices for resource management under the English name “commons”, but the basic idea, that resources which underpin the survival of everyone in a community, need to be pooled and managed by the community as a whole, is essentially the same in societies the world over.
I’m not saying these are perfect systems, of course they aren’t, they’re human creations, but the conceit of Hardin’s essay is that they inevitably lead to overexploitation, which doesn’t bear any kind of historically-informed scrutiny.
posted by Kattullus at 8:42 AM on January 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't know how people can argue against capitalism's ability to eventually optimize for equitable resource allocation via the heat death of the planet. We just need to give it some more time. It's just a couple of hundred Friedman units away!
posted by srboisvert at 8:45 AM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 8:45 AM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I know what the "tragedy of the commons" is supposed to be about but because I'm a medieval historian by training and know a fair amount about early modern England and Scotland as a result of my interests and living in the UK for a few years, I always think first of the actual tragedy of the commons, which was rich people "enclosing" it aka taking it out of the commons.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:26 AM on January 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:26 AM on January 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
For reference, from Governing the Commons, Ostrom, 1990. "CPR" means "common-pool resources", distinct from e.g. private or government property, or "open-access".
Table 3.1: Design principles illustrated by long-enduring CPR institutions
1. Clearly defined boundaries
Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.
2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions
Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money.
3. Collective-choice arrangements
Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.
4. Monitoring
Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.
5. Graduated sanctions
Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.
6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.
7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutuions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.
8. Nested enterprises
Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.
posted by clew at 12:20 PM on January 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
Table 3.1: Design principles illustrated by long-enduring CPR institutions
1. Clearly defined boundaries
Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.
2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions
Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money.
3. Collective-choice arrangements
Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.
4. Monitoring
Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.
5. Graduated sanctions
Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.
6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.
7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutuions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.
8. Nested enterprises
Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.
posted by clew at 12:20 PM on January 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
Elinor Ostrom spent a lot of time examining solutions to the problem of defectors using communal goods. I think she'd be very surprised if it turned out there was no problem there at all, actually.
posted by tychotesla at 5:39 PM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by tychotesla at 5:39 PM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have in my hands an indenture dated 20th August 1945 between Blanche Edith Vesey Widow (vendor) and 24 named farmers (the purchasers) conveying 465 acres, 3 roods and 29 perches (about 200 hectares) of mountainy land for a consideration of £20 to be held as tenants in common. 50 years later we bought one of those shares and so own (part of) a modest hill in the Irish midlands. Our common is thus recent and works despite not matching all of the successful CPR prerequisites cited by clew. Clearly 2 generations is not yet long-enduring but I love the idea that this is a recent example of anti-enclosure. In my experience, our common works because the main value of the asset is to claim money from the EU by right of ownership which damps down any aggro over exploitation of a limited resource. But the hill had been equably [and eco-unfortunately] stripped of peat for fuel before we arrived. Currently only 2½ of the shareholders run sheep on the hill [the only other value in the asset] because there are easier ways of making a living . . . like filling in an EU claim form at the kitchen table.
It works because, although some of the commoners hate each other, an uneasy truce is more sustainable than active spite. It is still normal for the neighbours, including feuders, to dig the graves of the dead communally so there is a good deal of cognitive dissonance. One of the benefits of the tenure is that all of the commoners have to agree to, for example, sell the asset for forestry. Because agreement is impossible among feuders, that won't happen and we preserve 200 hectares of upland heath for future moths, beetles and microbiome. That 200 hectares is embedded in 5,000 hectares of unenclosed land designated as Special Area of Conservation. Go buzzards!
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:20 AM on January 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
It works because, although some of the commoners hate each other, an uneasy truce is more sustainable than active spite. It is still normal for the neighbours, including feuders, to dig the graves of the dead communally so there is a good deal of cognitive dissonance. One of the benefits of the tenure is that all of the commoners have to agree to, for example, sell the asset for forestry. Because agreement is impossible among feuders, that won't happen and we preserve 200 hectares of upland heath for future moths, beetles and microbiome. That 200 hectares is embedded in 5,000 hectares of unenclosed land designated as Special Area of Conservation. Go buzzards!
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:20 AM on January 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
Our common is thus recent and works despite not matching all of the successful CPR prerequisites cited by clew.
In all seriousness, your heath isn't one of the CPRs Ostrom was talking about. There's no scarcity -- every appropriator who wants to use it is using it without causing any degredation of the resource. Likewise, it certainly sounds at least like nobody (except possibly the 2.5 people grazing sheep) depends on the heath in any serious way.
The peat likewise wasn't a CPR of interest to her because it regenerates slowly enough to be effectively mining and she's only talking about renewable (at human timescale) resources like fisheries.
Obviously there are other CPRs but her book is about ones where (1) the people using it are fucked if it goes under, (2) if the appropriators are fucked if they use it as much as they'd like to, and (3) it can potentially be maintained over the very long term by restricting its use. And some other requirements like being wholly contained in one polity and having low consequences for people outside their community.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:17 AM on January 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
In all seriousness, your heath isn't one of the CPRs Ostrom was talking about. There's no scarcity -- every appropriator who wants to use it is using it without causing any degredation of the resource. Likewise, it certainly sounds at least like nobody (except possibly the 2.5 people grazing sheep) depends on the heath in any serious way.
The peat likewise wasn't a CPR of interest to her because it regenerates slowly enough to be effectively mining and she's only talking about renewable (at human timescale) resources like fisheries.
Obviously there are other CPRs but her book is about ones where (1) the people using it are fucked if it goes under, (2) if the appropriators are fucked if they use it as much as they'd like to, and (3) it can potentially be maintained over the very long term by restricting its use. And some other requirements like being wholly contained in one polity and having low consequences for people outside their community.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:17 AM on January 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure why someone's racist sociological views have bearing on The Tragedy of the Commons. I don't condone his personal views, but I've seen the Tragedy play out so many times. There are just tons of selfish or at least inconsiderate people in the world, and the ratio of them to 'nice' folks doesn't matter in this context. It only takes one shithead to ruin things for the rest of us.
posted by ianhorse at 8:16 AM on January 9, 2023
posted by ianhorse at 8:16 AM on January 9, 2023
ianhorse: I'm not sure why someone's racist sociological views have bearing on The Tragedy of the Commons.
Because the essay The Tragedy of the Commons is white supremacist propaganda making an explicit case for genocide.
posted by Kattullus at 8:42 AM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Because the essay The Tragedy of the Commons is white supremacist propaganda making an explicit case for genocide.
posted by Kattullus at 8:42 AM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Kattullus, you seem to be implying that anyone who doesn't disagree with every element in Hardin's essay is somehow complicit with or fooled by his racism. I'd really appreciate you clarifying what me believing that there exist common pool resource problems that are hard to solve and that frequently just go unsolved to the detriment of their societies means. Am I complicit? Fooled? Racist?
I will say I found the original link not wrong but almost dangerously pollyannish. GTC is a very welcome corrective to the impulses of central bureaucrats, urging them to consider that the unsophisticated yokels in some fishing village might have actually solved their problem well enough already even without their urbane and well-educated help. But sometimes they haven't, and there remains a role for the central government to regulate CPRs apart from just celebrating local institutions and sometimes in ways that local communities might (very reasonably) disapprove of.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:24 AM on January 9, 2023
I will say I found the original link not wrong but almost dangerously pollyannish. GTC is a very welcome corrective to the impulses of central bureaucrats, urging them to consider that the unsophisticated yokels in some fishing village might have actually solved their problem well enough already even without their urbane and well-educated help. But sometimes they haven't, and there remains a role for the central government to regulate CPRs apart from just celebrating local institutions and sometimes in ways that local communities might (very reasonably) disapprove of.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:24 AM on January 9, 2023
My point is simply that the essay “The Tragedy of the Commons”, by noted white supremacist Garrett Hardin, is white supremacist propaganda with no scientific basis or value, and that if an argument partly rests on that essay, it is not a good argument.
Hardin’s essay seeks to answer the “population problem”, which for people not up in mid-century racist nonsense, was the widespread fear in western countries that the populations of Asia, Latin America and Africa were increasing much more quickly than the populations of Europe, Australia and North America. Hardin argues that there is no solution to the “population problem” other than population control.
And as the quote in the article cgc373 posted shows, he was very explicit that “the family, the religion, the race, or the class” that is growing in population too rapidly for his liking should have their human rights revoked. Or as the essay has it: “If we love the truth we must openly deny the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.
Bostrom, and countless other researchers, have shown that human behavior does not lead inexorably to overexploitation of shared resources. “The Tragedy of the Commons” is nothing but a justification for genocide, and since the concept originates there, and has no scientific validity independent of that origin, it shouldn’t be the basis for any other argument.
posted by Kattullus at 11:39 AM on January 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Hardin’s essay seeks to answer the “population problem”, which for people not up in mid-century racist nonsense, was the widespread fear in western countries that the populations of Asia, Latin America and Africa were increasing much more quickly than the populations of Europe, Australia and North America. Hardin argues that there is no solution to the “population problem” other than population control.
And as the quote in the article cgc373 posted shows, he was very explicit that “the family, the religion, the race, or the class” that is growing in population too rapidly for his liking should have their human rights revoked. Or as the essay has it: “If we love the truth we must openly deny the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.
Bostrom, and countless other researchers, have shown that human behavior does not lead inexorably to overexploitation of shared resources. “The Tragedy of the Commons” is nothing but a justification for genocide, and since the concept originates there, and has no scientific validity independent of that origin, it shouldn’t be the basis for any other argument.
posted by Kattullus at 11:39 AM on January 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
The concept doesn't originate with Hardin. Hardin only popularized it.
If you want to take it as a collective action problem, those go back to Hume in the 18th century; I've seen people argue for Hobbes in the 17th as well. If you want to take it more specifically as an externalities problem, those go back to no later than the late 19th with Sidgwick or the early 20th with Pigou (hence the term "Pigovian tax"). Hell, Olson was talking about fundamentally the same issue shortly before Hardin, only much better.
This is what's annoying me. "This inadvertantly got popularized by a racist, therefore it's wholly wrong, including the not-genocidal parts that predate that specific racist by decades to centuries" seems very silly.
It makes teaching this stuff annoying too. "Oh, is this like the tragedy of the commons," someone asks followed by my sighing and saying "Okay, buckle in, this is going to take a few minutes..."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:27 PM on January 9, 2023
If you want to take it as a collective action problem, those go back to Hume in the 18th century; I've seen people argue for Hobbes in the 17th as well. If you want to take it more specifically as an externalities problem, those go back to no later than the late 19th with Sidgwick or the early 20th with Pigou (hence the term "Pigovian tax"). Hell, Olson was talking about fundamentally the same issue shortly before Hardin, only much better.
This is what's annoying me. "This inadvertantly got popularized by a racist, therefore it's wholly wrong, including the not-genocidal parts that predate that specific racist by decades to centuries" seems very silly.
It makes teaching this stuff annoying too. "Oh, is this like the tragedy of the commons," someone asks followed by my sighing and saying "Okay, buckle in, this is going to take a few minutes..."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:27 PM on January 9, 2023
The phrase has certainly taken on a life of its own. Maybe we could just call them "collective action problems"? Avoids (a) inadvertently elevating the ideas of a real piece of work; and (b) inadvertently giving the impression that you might yourself be in favor of said ideas.
I guess that takes us back to the OP -- the whole idea that collective action is a problem, rather than just being the default way that people do things, is itself a pretty recent invention. And with benefit of hindsight, perhaps not such a great idea.
posted by Not A Thing at 12:41 PM on January 9, 2023
I guess that takes us back to the OP -- the whole idea that collective action is a problem, rather than just being the default way that people do things, is itself a pretty recent invention. And with benefit of hindsight, perhaps not such a great idea.
posted by Not A Thing at 12:41 PM on January 9, 2023
This is something I have studied in depth and since the post came up, I have felt I should contribute, but I just can't, it triggers me. I don't have PTSD because of academic discussions about the commons, but academic discussions about the commons triggered my PTSD so my whole life and livelihood was broken. Sorry for this unwanted information.
But I will post this video about an oasis in Sahara. Make of it what you will, I guess.
posted by mumimor at 2:03 PM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
But I will post this video about an oasis in Sahara. Make of it what you will, I guess.
posted by mumimor at 2:03 PM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Makes me wish all the women who had been holding society together for millennia ever had a chance to sit and think and write and get anything published, I guess.
Also, thank you for this post: I had no idea that the Tragedy of the Commons wasn't a foregone thing, which is embarrassing both to me and all of my former philosophy professors. It's blowing my whole mind to know about Ostrom, and you've set me on a path of really interesting reading for a while. Means a lot.
posted by lauranesson at 7:20 PM on January 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Also, thank you for this post: I had no idea that the Tragedy of the Commons wasn't a foregone thing, which is embarrassing both to me and all of my former philosophy professors. It's blowing my whole mind to know about Ostrom, and you've set me on a path of really interesting reading for a while. Means a lot.
posted by lauranesson at 7:20 PM on January 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
The tragedy of the commons isn’t a collective action problem, it’s the solution to what Hardin sees as a collective action problem, namely that there are too many humans of the wrong sort, and that they outnumber white Christians of means, which is the right sort according to his worldview. As he sees it, the tragedy of the commons, an idea and phrase he invented, will force people who don’t agree with him to realize that it will be necessary to forcibly sterilize the wrong sort of people. He’s arguing against what he calls “the freedom to breed”.
I should note that the word “tragedy” as used by Hardin is in reference to Alfred North Whitehead, who defined tragedy as the “remorseless working of things” (the full quote is in the essay). Hardin isn’t saying that people make bad choices and that’s tragic, he’s saying that any shared resources, i.e. not one that is private property, will inevitably be overexploited which will lead to overpopulation, unless the population is managed. And “managing a human population” is just another way to say genocide.
In case you think this is a contentious reading, you should read the essay, because absolutely none of what I have said is subtext.
Hardin wasn’t a pessimist, he was an optimist that believed that history would prove him right and all the wrong sorts of people would be sterilized.
posted by Kattullus at 2:53 PM on January 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I should note that the word “tragedy” as used by Hardin is in reference to Alfred North Whitehead, who defined tragedy as the “remorseless working of things” (the full quote is in the essay). Hardin isn’t saying that people make bad choices and that’s tragic, he’s saying that any shared resources, i.e. not one that is private property, will inevitably be overexploited which will lead to overpopulation, unless the population is managed. And “managing a human population” is just another way to say genocide.
In case you think this is a contentious reading, you should read the essay, because absolutely none of what I have said is subtext.
Hardin wasn’t a pessimist, he was an optimist that believed that history would prove him right and all the wrong sorts of people would be sterilized.
posted by Kattullus at 2:53 PM on January 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Right, I'm just saying that most people using the phrase "tragedy of the commons" are not intentionally calling back to Hardin's agenda, or saying anything about population growth at all, but are trying to call up some more general idea about collective action problems, and therefore it might be good to nudge people toward terminology that is more directly aligned with what they are trying to express.
(In defense of such folks, I'm fairly sure that the anthologized version of the essay that I encountered in my youth had (most of?) the racist stuff cut out. I guess that probably seemed like a good idea to the editors at the time. This may explain why, in seemingly every thread about this, there will be a predictable minority of people who seem genuinely bewildered by the reaction that arises.)
posted by Not A Thing at 3:05 PM on January 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
(In defense of such folks, I'm fairly sure that the anthologized version of the essay that I encountered in my youth had (most of?) the racist stuff cut out. I guess that probably seemed like a good idea to the editors at the time. This may explain why, in seemingly every thread about this, there will be a predictable minority of people who seem genuinely bewildered by the reaction that arises.)
posted by Not A Thing at 3:05 PM on January 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Those are good points, Not A Thing.
Though I’ll note that people still regularly cite Hardin’s essay in scientific articles, which gives it credibility. If Science magazine has ever come under pressure to remove it or add a “this is racist nonsense” disclaimer, I haven’t heard of it.
Ecofascism is gaining adherents around the world these days, and lots of people who should know better seem willing to give it a pass seemingly because they think that ecofascists are primarily environmentalists. They’re not. Like Hardin’s essay demonstrates, they’re people who like genocide, and the environment is simply a justification for it.
“The Tragedy of the Commons” isn’t something like the categorical imperative. Yes, Immanuel Kant was one of the originators of scientific racism, but his moral philosophy is separated enough from his racism to make it possible to separate the two. Hardin’s concept is not only completely without scientific or historical merit (if I recall he offers one data point, that no society has ever had an extended period of negative population growth, and it was wrong then and it’s wrong now), but it also grows out of his racist beliefs, and he fashioned it as a rhetorical device to argue for genocide.
It is a completely unusable concept.
posted by Kattullus at 5:28 AM on January 11, 2023
Though I’ll note that people still regularly cite Hardin’s essay in scientific articles, which gives it credibility. If Science magazine has ever come under pressure to remove it or add a “this is racist nonsense” disclaimer, I haven’t heard of it.
Ecofascism is gaining adherents around the world these days, and lots of people who should know better seem willing to give it a pass seemingly because they think that ecofascists are primarily environmentalists. They’re not. Like Hardin’s essay demonstrates, they’re people who like genocide, and the environment is simply a justification for it.
“The Tragedy of the Commons” isn’t something like the categorical imperative. Yes, Immanuel Kant was one of the originators of scientific racism, but his moral philosophy is separated enough from his racism to make it possible to separate the two. Hardin’s concept is not only completely without scientific or historical merit (if I recall he offers one data point, that no society has ever had an extended period of negative population growth, and it was wrong then and it’s wrong now), but it also grows out of his racist beliefs, and he fashioned it as a rhetorical device to argue for genocide.
It is a completely unusable concept.
posted by Kattullus at 5:28 AM on January 11, 2023
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The Tragedy Of The Commons was written by a xenophobe, white supremacist and dyed-in-the-wool ecofascist, and serves racist, white supremacist and ecofash ends. I mean, this is the guy who said flat out: This isn't some relic of the fifties or sixties; He said that in 1999.
Ostrom's beautiful reply to Hardin was as simple and elegant as it should have been final: that if something exists, and works, in practice, it should exist, and work, in theory. Anthropologists, not to mention millennia worth of stateless societies, have known for ages that people are perfectly capable of working out conventions to manage shared resources indefinitely.
In a better world that would have been the first and only nail needed in the coffin of Hardin's ideology. But Hardin's story was coherent, compelling, and served the interests of existing racist, capitalist power structures, and Ostrom's did not, so here we are.
In a better world, at 13 years old everyone gets a short course in communication, media literacy, critical thinking and propaganda, and taught to ask themselves - even if only in passing - to whom is it useful, that I believe this? If I hold these beliefs, who is served by my acting on them? Are they really on my side? Do I want to be on theirs?
That world is still possible, I think. I hope we can get there someday.
posted by mhoye at 8:17 PM on January 6, 2023 [46 favorites]