The Tragedy of the Commons

1
The Tragedy of the Commons
2
Garrett Hardin

• American Ecologist and Microbiologist
• (1915-2003)
• Controversial figure
• Concerned with overpopulation
• Pro-abortion
• Pro-population control by government
• Pro-assisted suicide
• Anti-immigration
• Anti-international aid
• The Tragedy of the Commons
• Published in Science magazine 1968
• Had four children
• Committed suicide together with his wife when he
  was 88 (she was 81)

3
Problems with no technical solution
Some problems cannot be solved with science, e.g.
the arms race. Overpopulation and competition
for resources is this kind of problem. Since no
technical solution, the solution must be
political.

• Thomas Malthus (1766-1834, English political
  economist)
• Population grows exponentially, food supply can
  only increase arithmetically, so eventually we
  will starve (or decrease population via wars,
  disease or anarchy)

4
The Commons

• Commons common land available to all for grazing
  animals, gathering wood, etc.
• Tragedy of the commons every farmer will tend to
  maximize their own profits by increasing their
  herd or increasing their gathering of resources
  without regard to the long-term depletion of the
  land. This is rational because the benefit to the
  individual farmer (of, for example, grazing one
  more animal on the commons) is larger than that
  farmers share of the overall depletion of the
  shared resource (i.e. the commons).
• Historical commons not really a free-for-all.
  Not public land. Only small number of farmers had
  inherited limited bundles of rights, numbers of
  animals were limited.

5
The New Commons

• The tragedy of the commons is a metaphor for
  anything held in common, used by all freely and
  not regulated.
• Everyone will maximize his own benefit to the
  detriment of the whole.
• Modern commons include
• The sea -- overfishing
• The air, the land, rivers -- pollution
• The public noise level -- sound pollution
• National parks overuse
• The earth itself (energy, food supply, living
  standards) -- overpopulation

6
Overpopulation

• Hardins main concern.
• Freedom to breed is intolerable
• Overpopulation harms the world as a whole. The
  more
• people there are, the fewer resources there are
  available to each person.
• As long as we have a welfare state, people will
  continue to have more children than is good for
  society. Rational agents maximize their own good
  (more children), when the cost to them is
  relatively low because the cost is shared in
  common with society as a whole.
• Assumption each child is a net good to its
  parents but a net bad to society.
• Has any cultural group solved this practical
  problem at the present time, even on an intuitive
  level? One simple fact proves that none has
  there is no prosperous population in the world
  today that has, and has had for some time, a
  growth rate of zero.

7
New Developments in World Population

• Hardins work written in 1968. Since then
• Chinas one-child policy
• Nearly one hundred countries now have a
  fertility rate below replacement level, including
  the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany,
  Vietnam, Brazil,, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Brunei,
  Russia, Japan, China, Thailand, Macao and Hong
  Kong.
• Hong Kong is the lowest at .98 children per
  woman.
• the most rapidly growing populations on earth
  today are (in general) the most miserable.
• Still true.
• Countries with the highest fertility rates
  Mali, Niger, Uganda, Somalia, Afganistan, Yemen,
  Burundi, Burkina Faso, the Congo, Angola, Sierra
  Leone (all over 6 children per woman)
• The demographic economic paradox.

8
Solution

• Hardin appeals to individual conscience are bad
  because
• 1) It discriminates against people of good
  conscience, and tends to eliminate them from the
  population.
• 2) It wont work in the long run. Natures
  revenge. People without conscience with outbreed
  the others, and population will increase again
  eventually.
• 3) It is not psychologically healthy to force
  people to act against their own interests on the
  basis of conscience.
• So the only choice is mutual coercion mutually
  agreed upon
• Freedom must be limited.

9
Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon

• Mutual coercion to solve population problem
  (government regulation on number of offspring
  allowed) and other problems of the commons
• Enclose the commons as private property,
• Or limit usage of the commons (e.g. limits on
  peoples right to pollute, to fish on the high
  seas, to increase public noise levels, etc.)
• Quotes Hegel (Engels) Freedom is the
  recognition of necessity
• Rights and freedoms must be restricted for the
  good of everyone.
• The right to breed in excess is like the right
  to steal from banks it must be controlled.

10
Questions for discussion

• Is what Hardin advocates fascism?
• Is it justified? Is it necessary?
• Is Chinas one-child policy justified?
• Why have birth rates fallen in the developed
  world (and much of the developing world?)
• Why is it so low in Hong Kong?
• Is it conscience?
• Is relying on conscience/voluntary restriction of
  anti-social behavior self-defeating in the long
  run?
• Is the Hong Kong government right to try to
  persuade people to have at least three children?

11
Reading

• Required
• Naess, Arne, (1983) The Deep Ecological
  Movement Some Philosophical Aspects, in
  Environmental Philosophy, p. 193-211, on handout
• Des Jardins, Environmental Ethics, Chapter 10,
  Deep Ecology p. 210-231, on handout
• Suggested
• Des Jardins, Environmental Ethics, Chapter 7,
  Biocentric Ethics and the Inherent Value of
  LIfe p. 128-151, on reserve in Philosophy Dept.
• Berry, Thomas, The Viable Human, , in
  Environmental Philosophy, p. 171-181, on reserve
  in Philosophy Dept.