pdf-to-markdown/examples/Tragedy-Of-The-Commons.md

What Shanl We Mam?

The Tragedy of the Commons

The population problem has no technical solution;

it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

Garrett Hardin

and,morespecifically,withtheidentifi-

cationanddiscussionofone ofthese.

the arms race are ... confronted by the

dilemma of steadily increasing military

power and steadily decreasing national

security. It is our considered profes-

sional judgment that this dilemma has

no technical solution. If the great pow-

ers continue to look for solutions in

the area of science and technology only,

the result will be to worsen the situa-

tion."

I would like to focus your attention

not on the subject of the article (na-

tional security in a nuclear world) but

on the kind of conclusion they reached,

namely that there is no technical solu-

tion to the problem. An implicit and

almost universal assumption of discus-

sions 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 profes-

The author is professor of biology, University

of California, Santa Barbara. This article is

based on a presidential address presented before

the meeting of the Pacific Division of the Ameri-

can Association for the Advancement of Science

at Utah State University, Logan, [^25]: June 1968.

sional judgment... ." Vhether 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 identifi-

cation 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 as-

sume (in keeping with the conventions

of game theory) that my opponent un-

derstands the game perfectly. Put an-

other way, there is no "technical solu-

tion" 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 drug him; or I can falsify

the records. Every way in which I "win"

involves, in some sense, an abandon-

ment of the game, as we intuitively un-

derstand 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 con-

ventionally conceived, is a member of

this class. How it is conventionally con-

ceived 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 over-

population without relinquishing any of

the privileges they now enjoy. They

think that farming the seas or develop-

ing 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 can-

not be solved in a technical way, any

more than can the problem of winning

the game of tick-tack-toe.

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

steadily 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 genera-

tions 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 pop-

ulation 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 situa-

tion of mankind? Specifically, can Ben-

tham'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 puposes: mere main-

tenance and work. For man, mainte-

nance of life requires about 1600 kilo-

calories a day ("maintenance calories').

Anything that he does over and above

merely staying alive will be defined as

work, and is supported by "work cal-

ories" which he takes in. Work calories

are used not only for what we call work

in common speech; they are also re-

quired 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 ap-

proach 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

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argument or proof, that maximizing

population does not max2imize 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 en-

ergy is replaced by the problem of its

dissipation, as J. H. Fremlin has so wit-

tily shown (4). The arithmetic signs in

-t-he analysis are, as it were, reversed;

but Bentham's goal is still 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 ac-

ceptable and stable solution will surely

require more than one generation of

hard analytical work-and much per-

suasion.

We want the maximum good per

person; but what is good? To one per-

son it is wilderness, to another it is ski

lodges for thousands. To one it is estu-

aries 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. Incommen-

surables cannot be compared.

Theoretically this may be true; but in

real life incommensurables are commen-

surable. 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 hide-

able, or large and powerful? Natural

selection commensurates the incommen-

surables. The compromise achieved de-

pends 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 accept-

able theory of weighting. Synergistic

effects, nonlinear variation, and difficul-

ties 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 to-

day that has, and has had for some

1244

time,-p - rate of zero. Any people

that has intuitively identified its opti-

mum point will soon reach it, after

which its growth rate becomes and re-

mains zero.

Of course, a positive growth rate

might be taken as evidence that a pop-

ulation is below its optimum. However,

by any reasonable standards, the most

rapidly growing populations on earth

today are (in general) the most misera-

ble. 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 work-

ing toward optimum poulation size until

we explicitly exorcize 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 as-

sume 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 as-

sume that men will control their individ-

ual fecundity so as to produce the opti-

mum 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 (6) in[^1833] by a mathematical

amateur named William Forster Lloyd

(1794-1852). 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 remorse-

less working of things." He then' goes on.

to say, "This inevitableness of destiny

can only be illustrated in terms of hu-

man life by incidents which in fact in-

volve 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 herds-

man will try to keep as many cattle as

possible on the commons. Such an ar-

rangement may work reasonably satis-

factorily 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 be-

comes a reality. At this point, the in-

herent logic of the commons remorse-

lessly 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 func-

tion 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 func-

tion 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 decision-

making herdsman is only a fraction of

-1.

Adding together the component par-

tial utilities, the rational herdsman

concludes that the only sensible course

for him to pursue is to add another

animal to his herd. And another; 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 to-

ward which all men rush, each pursuing

his own best interest in a society that

believes in the freedom of the com-

mons. Freedom in a commons brings

ruin to all.

Some would say that this is a plati-

tude. 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.

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Education can counteract the natural

tendency to do the wrong thing, but the

inexorable succession of generations

requires that the basis for this knowl-

edge 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 Christ-

mas. Free parking courtesy of the

mayor and city council." In other words,

facing the prospect of an increased de-

mand 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 dis-

covery of agriculture or the invention

of private property in real estate. But

it is understood mostly only in special

cases which are not sufficiently general-

ized. 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 over-

grazing produces erosion and weed-

dominance. Likewise, the oceans of the

world continue to suffer from the sur-

vival of the philosophy of the commons.

Maritime nations still respond automat-

ically 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 with-

out 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 pri-

vate 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 agreed-

upon 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 the

reasonable possibilities. They are all

objectionable. But we must choose-or

acquiesce in the destruction of the com-

mons 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 danger-

ous 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-enter-

prisers.

The tragedy of the commons as a

food basket is averted by private prop-

erty, or something formally like it. But

the air and waters surrounding us can-

not readily be fenced, and so the trag-

edy of the commons as a cesspool must

be prevented by different means, by co-

ercive laws or taxing devices that make

it cheaper for the polluter to treat his

pollutants than to discharge them un-

treated. We have not progressed as far

with the solution of this problem as we

have with the first. Indeed, our particu-

lar 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 con-

sequence of population. It did not much

matter how a lonely American frontiers-

man disposed of his waste. "Flowing

water purifies itself every 10 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 re-

cycling 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 un-

covers a not generally recognized prin-

ciple 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 metropo-

lis 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 impor-

tant 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 flre 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 10,000

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 essense

of an argument cannot be photo-

graphed: 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 allow-

ance 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 solu-

tion 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 smog-control, by law we dele-

gate the details to bureaus. The result

is administrative law, which is rightly

feared for an ancient reason-Quis

custodiet ipsos custodes?-"Who shall

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watch the watchers themselves?" John

Adams said that we must have "a gov-

ernment of laws and not men." Bureau

administrators, trying to evaluate the

morality of acts in the total system, are

singularly liable to corruption, produc-

ing a government by men, not laws.

Prohibition is easy to legislate

(though not necessarily to enforce); but

how do we legislate temperance? Ex-

perience indicates that it can be ac-

complished best through the mediation

of administrative law. We limit possi-

bilities 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 cus-

todians honest. We must find ways to

legitimate the needed authority of both

the custodians and the corrective feed-

backs.

Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable

The tragedy of the commons is in-

volved in population problems in an-

other 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, be-

cause they would be unable to care

adequately for their children. David

Lack and others have found that such a

negative feedback demonstrably con-

trols 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 depen-

dent only on its own resources; if the

children of improvident parents starved

to death; if, thus, overbreeding 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 distinguish-

able and cohesive group) that adopts

overbreeding 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

1246

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 30

nations agreed to the following (14):

The Universal Declaration of Human

Rights describes the family as the natural

and fundamental unit of society. It fol-

lows that any choice and decision with

regard to the size of the family must irte-

vocably rest with the family itself, and

cannot be made by anyone else.

It is painful to have to deny categor-

ically the validity of this right; denying

it, one feels as uncomfortable as a resi-

dent of Salem, Massachusetts, who

denied the reality of witches in the 17th

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 Popula-

tion to see the error of its ways in em-

bracing 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 un-

doubtedly 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 dif-

ference 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 contra-

cipiens would become extinct and

would be replaced by the variety Homo

progenitivus" (16).

The argument assumes that con-

science or the desire for children (no

matter which) is hereditary-but heredi-

tary 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 educa-

tion?) 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 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 communica-

tions, and that they are contradictory:

(i) (intended communication) "If you

don't do as we ask, we will openly con-

demn you for not acting like a respon-

sible citizen"; (ii) (the unintended

communication) "If you do behave as

we ask, we will secretly condemr. you

for a simpleton who can be shamed

into standing aside while the rest of us

exploit the commons."

Everyman 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

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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 moder-

ate 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 feel-

ings 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 them-

selves, and not even to their own in-

terests, which might make sense, but to

their anxieties" (18).

One does not have to be a profes-

sional psychiatrist to see the conse-

quences 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 prohibi-

tion 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 psycholog-

ically pathogenic. We hear much talk

these days of responsible parenthood;

the coupled words are incorporated

into the titles of some organizations de-

voted 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

responsibility in this context? Is it not

merely a synonym for the word con-

science? When we use the word re-

sponsibility 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.

13 DECEMBER 1968

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 ar-

rangements." Notice that Frankel calls

for social arrangements-not propa-

ganda.

Mutual Coercion

Mutually Agreed upon

The social arrangements that produce

responsibility are arrangements that

create coercion, of some sort. Consid-

er 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 free-

dom 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 Madi-

son Avenue man might call this per-

suasion; 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 ex-

posure to the light, by saying it over and

over without apology or embarrassment.

To many, the word coercion implies

arbitrary decisions of distant and irre-

sponsible 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 re-

quired 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 (grum-

blingly) 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 dif-

ferences in individual inheritance, legal

possession should be perfectly cor-

related 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 in-

heritance. 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 inheri-

tance 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 contem-

plate. 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 re-

form measure is proposed it is often

defeated when its opponents trium-

phantly discover a flaw in it. As Kings-

ley Davis has pointed out (21), worship-

pers of the status quo sometimes imply

that no reform is possible without unan-

imous agreement, an implication con-

trary to historical fact. As nearly as I

can make out, automatic rejection of

proposed reforms is based on one of

two unconscious assumptions: (i) that

the status quo is perfect; or (ii) 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

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status quo is action, we can then com-

pare its discoverable advantages and

disadvantages with the predicted ad-

vantages and disadvantages of the pro-

posed 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 hu-

man 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 com-

mons as a place for waste disposal

would also have to be abandoned. Re-

strictions 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 mind-

less music, without its consent. Our

government is paying out billions of

dollars to create supersonic transport

which will disturb 50,000 people for

every one person who is whisked from

coast to coast[^3] hours faster. Adver-

tisers muddy the airwaves of radio and

television and pollute the view of

travelers. We are a long way from out-

lawing 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 com-

mons involves the infringement of

somebody's personal liberty. Infringe-

ments made in the distant past are ac-

cepted because no contemporary com-

plains of a loss. It is the newly pro-

posed 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 be-

came 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 neces-

sity that we must now recognize, is the

necessity of abandoning the commons

in breeding. No technical solution can

rescue us from the misery of overpopu-

lation. 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 tempta-

tion must be resisted, because an ap-

peal to independently acting con-

sciences selects for the disappearance

of all conscience in the long run, and

anin,crease in anxiety in the short.

The only way we can preserve and

nurture other and more precious free-

doms 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 free-

dom to breed. Only so, can we put an

end to this aspect of the tragedy of the

commons.

References

1. J. B. Wiesner and H. F. York, Sci. Amer.

211 (No. 4),[^27] (1964).

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The Tragedy of the Commons

Garrett Hardin

DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

Science [^162]: (3859), 1243-1248.

ARTICLE TOOLS http://science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243

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