The Tragedy of the Commons - Detailed Notes

The Tragedy of the Commons

Introduction

Garrett Hardin argues that the population problem lacks a technical solution and requires a fundamental change in morality.
Wiesner and York's conclusion that the arms race dilemma has no technical solution is highlighted.
A technical solution is defined as one requiring changes only in natural sciences, not in human values or morality.
The author focuses on identifying and discussing human problems that have "no technical solution."

No Technical Solution Problems

The game of tick-tack-toe illustrates a problem with no technical solution, as winning requires abandoning the conventional understanding of the game.
The "population problem" is argued to be a member of this class of problems.
Conventional approaches to the population problem seek to avoid the evils of overpopulation without sacrificing privileges, often relying on technological solutions like farming the seas.
The author asserts that the population problem cannot be solved technically.

The Finite World

Population tends to grow exponentially, which means that in a finite world, the per capita share of resources must decrease.
While the world's finiteness can be debated, it is practical to assume its limitations for foreseeable future generations.
"Space" is not a viable escape.
A finite world can only support a finite population, necessitating that population growth eventually equals zero (Population_growth = 0).

Bentham's Goal

Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" is unattainable due to two reasons:
- It is mathematically impossible to maximize for two or more variables simultaneously (Von Neumann and Morgenstern).
- Biological facts dictate that organisms need energy for maintenance (approx. 1600 kilocalories/day for humans) and work (including enjoyment).
Maximizing population would require minimizing work calories per person, eliminating luxuries and enjoyment.
Maximizing population does not maximize goods; therefore, Bentham's goal is impossible.

Optimum Population

Even with an infinite energy source, population growth leads to the problem of energy dissipation (as shown by J.H. Fremlin).
The optimum population is less than the maximum, but defining the optimum is challenging.
Reaching an acceptable solution requires analytical work and persuasion.
Defining "good" is subjective (e.g., wilderness vs. ski lodges), making comparisons difficult.
Goods are commensurable, but need a criterion of judgment and a system of weighting.
In nature, survival is the criterion and natural selection commensurates the incommensurables.
Man needs to imitate this process, but the hidden decisions need to be made explicit.
Synergistic effects and difficulties in discounting the future make the intellectual problem difficult, but not insoluble.
No cultural group has solved this problem intuitively, as evidenced by the lack of a prosperous population with a zero growth rate.
Positive population growth is not necessarily evidence that a population is below its optimum, as rapidly growing populations are often the most miserable.

The Invisible Hand

Progress toward optimum population size is hindered by the spirit of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" concept.
Adam Smith's idea suggests that individuals acting in their self-interest inadvertently promote the public interest.
The assumption that individual decisions lead to the best societal decisions has interfered with rational analysis.
If this assumption is incorrect, individual freedoms need reexamination.

Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons

William Forster Lloyd's scenario (1833) illustrates the rebuttal to the invisible hand in population control, known as "the tragedy of the commons."
The tragedy is defined as the "remorseless working of things," where inevitability is illustrated through human unhappiness (Whitehead).
The tragedy occurs when individuals exploit a shared resource (commons) for personal gain, leading to its depletion.
Each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain by adding more animals to the commons.
The utility of adding an animal has a positive component (the herdsman receives all proceeds) and a negative component (overgrazing shared by all).
Rational herdsmen conclude that adding more animals is sensible, leading to a system where everyone increases their herd without limit in a limited world.
Ruin is the destination towards 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.
Natural selection favors psychological denial of the truth, where individuals benefit at the expense of society.

Education and the Commons

Education can counteract the tendency to do the wrong thing, but knowledge needs constant refreshing across generations.
An incident in Leominster, Massachusetts, illustrates the perishability of knowledge, where free parking during Christmas reinstituted the system of the commons.
The logic of the commons has been understood for a long time but is not sufficiently generalized, as seen in cattlemen overgrazing national land.
Oceans suffer from the survival of the philosophy of the commons, with maritime nations depleting fish and whale populations.
National Parks are also an example of the tragedy of the commons, with unlimited access eroding their value.
Options for managing National Parks include selling them as private property, allocating entry rights based on wealth or merit, lottery, or a first-come, first-served basis.
All options are objectionable, but a choice must be made to avoid the destruction of the commons.

Pollution

The tragedy of the commons reappears in pollution problems, where individuals discharge wastes into the commons.
The rational man finds that his share of the cost of waste disposal is less than the cost of purification, causing a system of "fouling our own nest."
The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is avoided by private property, but air and water pollution require coercive laws or taxing devices.
The concept of private property can deter the exhaustion of resources but favors pollution.
The pollution problem is a consequence of population density, requiring a redefinition of property rights.

How to Legislate Temperance?

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.
Using the commons as a cesspool is harmless under frontier conditions but unbearable in a metropolis.
The morality of an act cannot be determined from a photograph, requiring knowledge of the total system.
Traditional ethical directives (e.g., "Thou shalt not…") do not account for particular circumstances, making them poorly suited for governing complex, crowded world.
Administrative law augments statutory law to address specific conditions, but it raises the question of "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who shall watch the watchers themselves?)
Bureau administrators are susceptible to corruption, leading to a government by men, not laws.
Prohibition is easy to legislate, but temperance requires the mediation of administrative law.
The phrase "Quis custodiet" should be a reminder of fearful dangers that need corrective feedbacks to keep custodians honest.

Freedom to Breed Is Intolerable

The tragedy of the commons is involved in population problems.
In a "dog eat dog" world, family size is not a public concern because overbreeding leads to fewer descendants.
David Lack found negative feedback controls the fecundity of birds but men are not birds.
If each human family were dependent on its own resources, there would be no public interest in controlling breeding.
Societies are committed to the welfare state and face the problem of groups that adopt overbreeding as a policy.
Coupling freedom to breed with the belief that everyone has an equal right to the commons leads to tragedy, which is what the United Nations is pursuing.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that family size decisions must rest with the family itself.
The validity of this right must be denied, and Planned Parenthood-World Population should see the error of embracing this tragic ideal.

Conscience Is Self-Eliminating

Controlling breeding through an appeal to conscience is a mistake.
People vary in their response to appeals to limit breeding, and those with more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation.
C.G. Darwin: Nature would take her revenge, and Homo contracepiens would be replaced by Homo progenitivus.
Conscience or the desire for children is hereditary, either through germ cells or exosomatically.
The argument applies to any instance where society appeals to an individual exploiting a commons to restrain himself for the general good.
Appealing to conscience sets up a selective system that eliminates conscience from the race.

Pathogenic Effects of Conscience

Appealing to conscience has short-term disadvantages.
Asking a man exploiting a commons to desist in the name of conscience sends contradictory messages.
(i) Open condemnation for not acting responsibly.
(ii) Secret condemnation for being a simpleton.
Everyman is caught in a "double bind" that endangers mental health and can lead to Schizophrenia.
Conscience is a kind of illness (Nietzsche).
Conjuring up a conscience in others is tempting to leaders who want to extend control beyond legal limits.
Leaders call on labor unions to moderate demands or steel companies to honor guidelines, inducing guilt.
Guilt does not lead to intelligence, policy, or compassion (Paul Goodman).
Anxiety has consequences and the use of techniques that are psychologically pathogenic should not be encouraged.
Responsible parenthood is a synonym for conscience.
Responsibility is a verbal counterfeit for a substantial quid pro quo and is an attempt to get something for nothing.

Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon

Responsibility is the product of definite social arrangements (Charles Frankel).
Social arrangements create coercion, such as preventing bank robbing.
A bank is not a commons, and freedom of would-be robbers is infringed upon.
Temperance can also be created by coercion, such as taxing.
Parking meters and traffic fines are coercive devices.
Not prohibition, but carefully biased options are offered.
Coercion is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
Compulsory taxes are accepted because voluntary taxes would favor the conscienceless.
Coercive devices help escape the horror of the commons.
The alternative to the commons need not be perfectly just to be preferable.
Private property coupled with legal inheritance is an imperfect system, but the alternative of the commons is too horrifying.
Reforms are often defeated when opponents discover flaws.
Worshippers of the status quo imply that no reform is possible without unanimous agreement.
Automatic rejection of proposed reforms is based on the assumption that the status quo is perfect or that the choice is between reform and no action.
That which we have done for thousands of years is also action and produces evils.
The advantages and disadvantages of the status quo should be compared with the predicted advantages and disadvantages of proposed reform.
Rational decisions should not involve the unworkable assumption that only perfect systems are tolerable.

Recognition of Necessity

The commons 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, the commons in food gathering was abandoned, enclosing farm land and restricting pastures and hunting and fishing areas.
The commons as a place for waste disposal had to be abandoned.
Restrictions on domestic sewage are widely accepted.
The struggle to close the commons to pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers, fertilizing operations, and atomic energy installations continues.
Recognition of the evils of the commons in matters of pleasure is in an embryonic state.
There is almost no restriction on the propagation of sound waves in the public medium.
The shopping public is assaulted with mindless music.
Supersonic transport disturbs 50,000 people for every one person who is whisked from coast to coast 3 hours faster.
Advertisers pollute the airwaves and the view of travelers.
Outlawing the commons in matters of pleasure is a long way off.
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.
Newly proposed infringements are vigorously opposed, with cries of "rights" and "freedom."
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.
Mutual coercion allows freedom to pursue other goals.
Freedom is the recognition of necessity (Hegel).
The most important aspect of necessity is abandoning the commons in breeding.
No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation.
Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.
The temptation to propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood must be resisted because it selects for the disappearance of all conscience in the long run and increases anxiety in the short run.
The only way to preserve and nurture other 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 the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed.
Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.