{"id":795,"date":"2008-01-07T01:24:44","date_gmt":"2008-01-07T06:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=795"},"modified":"2018-08-15T13:53:30","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T17:53:30","slug":"15474-%c2%a0%c2%a0-2-garrett-hardin-the-tragedy-of-the-commons%c2%a0-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=795","title":{"rendered":"15474. [2] (Garrett Hardin) The Tragedy of the Commons [article]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"08-01-07<\/a>It\u2019s hard to account for the wide\u00adspread influ\u00adence of this arti\u00adcle, pub\u00adlished in Sci\u00adence<\/em> in 1968. It\u2019s a poor\u00adly argued jum\u00adble of unques\u00adtioned clich\u00e9s and slip\u00adshod rea\u00adson\u00ading. Few, now, seem to be aware of the orig\u00adi\u00adnal intent of the arti\u00adcle, which was to jus\u00adtify coer\u00adcive state con\u00adtrol of child\u00adbirth.<\/span> With such spe\u00adcious premis\u00ades as \u201cthe moral\u00adity of an act is a func\u00adtion of the state of the sys\u00adtem at the time it is per\u00adformed\u2019 [p.1245 \u2014 he took it from Joseph Fletcher\u2019s Sit\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion Ethics<\/em>, then mis\u00adap\u00adplied it], Hardin urged over\u00adwhelm\u00ading state pow\u00ader to reg\u00adu\u00adlate breed\u00ading, cit\u00ading the threat of \u201cthe fam\u00adily, the reli\u00adgion, the race, or the class\u2026 that adopts over\u00adbreed\u00ading as a pol\u00adicy to secure its own aggran\u00addize\u00adment<\/em>\u201d. This is just the old \u201cyel\u00adlow per\u00adil\u201d and ter\u00adror of the low\u00ader class\u00ades of the Vic\u00adto\u00adrian age, dust\u00aded off and restat\u00aded in 1960\u2019s pseu\u00addo\u00adsci\u00aden\u00adtific guise. Hardin assert\u00aded that the pres\u00adence of \u201cthe wel\u00adfare state\u201d and devel\u00adoped economies would ensure an unstop\u00adpable fecun\u00addity among such unde\u00adsir\u00adables. Yet, in 1968, it was already evi\u00addent to all pro\u00adfes\u00adsional demog\u00adra\u00adphers that that devel\u00adoped economies with infra\u00adstruc\u00adtures of social ser\u00advices invari\u00adably lev\u00adeled off their birthrates (this is why Europe and Amer\u00adica now can\u00adnot replace their pop\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions with\u00adout immigration).<\/span><\/p>\n

The key to his argu\u00adment was what he called \u201cthe tragedy of the com\u00admons\u201d, a phrase which sub\u00adse\u00adquently found its way into jus\u00adti\u00adfi\u00adca\u00adtions for a vari\u00adety of ide\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal trends. He claimed that there was a unal\u00adter\u00adable prin\u00adci\u00adple by which a \u201cratio\u00adnal herds\u00adman\u201d would auto\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcally seek to max\u00adi\u00admize his own graz\u00ading, thus inevitably lead\u00ading to over\u00adgraz\u00ading of the whole pas\u00adture. He takes it for grant\u00aded that medieval com\u00admon pas\u00adturage was over\u00adgrazed \u2014 though I know of no evi\u00addence show\u00ading this. If medieval com\u00admons had been made so worth\u00adless, why were the rich so eager to expro\u00adpri\u00adate them for them\u00adselves, in the bru\u00adtally vio\u00adlent process known as \u201cenclo\u00adsure\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

Per\u00adhaps the key to the article\u2019s suc\u00adcess is Hardin\u2019s con\u00adstant use of the word \u201cratio\u00adnal\u201d, bor\u00adrowed in a spe\u00adcial usage from game the\u00adory, and then employed in an arbi\u00adtrary way which bears no resem\u00adblance to any com\u00admon-sense use of the word \u201cratio\u00adnal\u201d. Peo\u00adple are always intrigued and delight\u00aded by what they inter\u00adpret as \u201cironies\u201d or \u201cpara\u00addoxes\u201d in eco\u00adnom\u00adics, soci\u00adol\u00adogy, or psy\u00adchol\u00adogy. It seems espe\u00adcially deli\u00adcious to con\u00adtem\u00adplate a \u201cpara\u00addox\u201d where \u201cratio\u00adnal\u00adity\u201d cre\u00adates chaos or dis\u00adas\u00adter by some sup\u00adposed neces\u00adsity, and that is prob\u00ada\u00adbly why the essay\u2019s argu\u00adments have been repli\u00adcated in so many oth\u00ader con\u00adtexts. But the appear\u00adance of such \u201cpara\u00addoxes\u201d does not indi\u00adcate sophis\u00adti\u00adca\u00adtion \u2014 it sim\u00adply marks the pres\u00adence of slop\u00adpy think\u00ading. Para\u00addoxes are the result of con\u00adfu\u00adsion, inat\u00adten\u00adtion, or inad\u00ade\u00adquacy in the observ\u00ader. They do not exist in the real world. Hardin\u2019s fic\u00adtional shep\u00adherds exhib\u00adit only the \u201cratio\u00adnal\u00adity\u201d of a hero\u00adin addict decid\u00ading on a sec\u00adond-by-sec\u00adond basis whether to inject him\u00adself. No real shep\u00adherd ever thought or behaved in the way that Hardin con\u00adsid\u00aders \u201cinevitable\u201d. Trust me in this: I was trained pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adally as a shep\u00adherd. No real life shep\u00adherd was ever as stu\u00adpid as Hardin\u2019s imag\u00adi\u00adnary ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

To see how \u201cthe tragedy of the com\u00admons\u201d has been employed by a vari\u00adety of ide\u00ado\u00adlogues to advance their par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar polit\u00adi\u00adcal agen\u00addas, I refer you to a bril\u00adliant piece of analy\u00adsis of the eco\u00adnom\u00adics of \u201ccom\u00admons\u201d by Eli\u00adnor Ostrom [item 15500].<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to account for the wide\u00adspread influ\u00adence of this arti\u00adcle, pub\u00adlished in Sci\u00adence in 1968. It\u2019s a poor\u00adly argued jum\u00adble of unques\u00adtioned clich\u00e9s and slip\u00adshod rea\u00adson\u00ading. Few, now, seem to be aware of the orig\u00adi\u00adnal intent of the article, \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bs-reading-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8731,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/8731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}