The Tragedy of the Commons What Shall We Maximize?

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pursuing his own best interest in a society thatbelieves in the freedom of the commons.Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.Some would say that this is a platitude. Wouldthat it were! In a sense, it was learned thousandsof years ago, but natural selection favors theforces of psychological denial. [8] The individualbenefits as an individual from his ability to denythe truth even though society as a whole, ofwhich he is a part, suffers. Education cancounteract the natural tendency to do the wrongthing, but the inexorable succession ofgenerations requires that the basis for thisknowledge be constantly refreshed.A simple incident that occurred a few years agoin Leominster, Massachusetts shows howperishable the knowledge is. During theChristmas shopping season the parking metersdowntown were covered with plastic bags thatbore tags reading: "Do not open until afterChristmas. Free parking courtesy of the mayorand city council." In other words, facing theprospect of an increased demand for alreadyscarce space, the city fathers reinstituted thesystem of the commons. (Cynically, we suspectthat they gained more votes than they lost by thisretrogressive act.)In an approximate way, the logic of the commonshas been understood for a long time, perhapssince the discovery of agriculture or the inventionof private property in real estate. But it isunderstood mostly only in special cases whichare not sufficiently generalized. Even at this latedate, cattlemen leasing national land on theWestern ranges demonstrate no more than anambivalent understanding, in constantlypressuring federal authorities to increase thehead count to the point where overgrazingproduces erosion and weed-dominance.Likewise, the oceans of the world continue tosuffer from the survival of the philosophy of thecommons. Maritime nations still respondautomatically to the shibboleth of the "freedom ofthe seas." Professing to believe in the"inexhaustible resources of the oceans," theybring species after species of fish and whalescloser to extinction. [9]The National Parks present another instance ofthe working out of the tragedy of the commons.At present, they are open to all, without limit. Theparks themselves are limited in extent -- there isonly one Yosemite Valley -- whereas populationseems to grow without limit. The values thatvisitors seek in the parks are steadily eroded.Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the parks ascommons or they will be of no value to anyone.What shall we do? We have several options. Wemight sell them off as private property. We mightkeep them as public property, but allocate theright to enter them. The allocation might be onthe basis of wealth, by the use of an auctionsystem. It might be on the basis of merit, asdefined by some agreed upon standards. It mightbe by lottery. Or it might be on a first-come, firstservedbasis, administered to long queues.These, I think, are all objectionable. But we mustchoose -- or acquiesce in the destruction of thecommons that we call our National Parks.PollutionIn a reverse way, the tragedy of the commonsreappears in problems of pollution. Here it is nota question of taking something out of thecommons, but of putting something in -- sewage,or chemical, radioactive, and heat wastes intowater; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air;and distracting and unpleasant advertising signsinto the line of sight. The calculations of utility aremuch the same as before. The rational man findsthat his share of the cost of the wastes hedischarges into the commons is less than thecost of purifying his wastes before releasingthem. Since this is true for everyone, we arelocked into a system of "fouling our own nest," solong as we behave only as independent, rational,free enterprisers.The tragedy of the commons as a food basket isaverted by private property, or somethingformally like it. But the air and waters surroundingus cannot readily be fenced, and so the tragedyof the commons as a cesspool must beprevented by different means, by coercive lawsor taxing devices that make it cheaper for thepolluter to treat his pollutants than to dischargethem untreated. We have not progressed as far
with the solution of this problem as we have withthe first. Indeed, our particular concept of privateproperty, which deters us from exhausting thepositive resources of the earth, favors pollution.The owner of a factory on the bank of a stream --whose property extends to the middle of thestream -- often has difficulty seeing why it is nothis natural right to muddy the waters flowing pasthis door. The law, always behind the times,requires elaborate stitching and fitting to adapt itto this newly perceived aspect of the commons.The pollution problem is a consequence ofpopulation. It did not much matter how a lonelyAmerican frontiersman disposed of his waste."Flowing water purifies itself every ten miles," mygrandfather used to say, and the myth was nearenough to the truth when he was a boy, for therewere not too many people. But as populationbecame denser, the natural chemical andbiological recycling processes becameoverloaded, calling for a redefinition of propertyrights.How to LegislateTemperance?Analysis of the pollution problem as a function ofpopulation density uncovers a not generallyrecognized principle of morality, namely: themorality of an act is a function of the state of thesystem at the time it is performed. [10] Using thecommons as a cesspool does not harm thegeneral public under frontier conditions, becausethere is no public; the same behavior in ametropolis is unbearable. A hundred and fiftyyears ago a plainsman could kill an Americanbison, cut out only the tongue for his dinner, anddiscard the rest of the animal. He was not in anyimportant sense being wasteful. Today, with onlya few thousand bison left, we would be appalledat such behavior.In passing, it is worth noting that the morality ofan act cannot be determined from a photograph.One does not know whether a man killing anelephant or setting fire to the grassland isharming others until one knows the total systemin which his act appears. "One picture is worth athousand words," said an ancient Chinese; but itmay take ten thousand words to validate it. It isas tempting to ecologists as it is to reformers ingeneral to try to persuade others by way of thephotographic shortcut. But the essence of anargument cannot be photographed: it must bepresented rationally -- in words.That morality is system-sensitive escaped theattention of most codifiers of ethics in the past."Thou shalt not…" is the form of traditional ethicaldirectives which make no allowance for particularcircumstances. The laws of our society follow thepattern of ancient ethics, and therefore are poorlysuited to governing a complex, crowded,changeable world. Our epicyclic solution is toaugment statutory law with administrative law.Since it is practically impossible to spell out allthe conditions under which it is safe to burn trashin the back yard or to run an automobile withoutsmog control, by law we delegate the details tobureaus. The result is administrative law, whichis rightly feared for an ancient reason -- Quiscustodies ipsos custodes? --Who shall watch thewatchers themselves? John Adams said that wemust have a "government of laws and not men."Bureau administrators, trying to evaluate themorality of acts in the total system, are singularlyliable to corruption, producing a government bymen, not laws.Prohibition is easy to legislate (though notnecessarily to enforce); but how do we legislatetemperance? Experience indicates that it can beaccomplished best through the mediation ofadministrative law. We limit possibilitiesunnecessarily if we suppose that the sentiment ofQuis custodiet denies us the use ofadministrative law. We should rather retain thephrase as a perpetual reminder of fearfuldangers we cannot avoid. The great challengefacing us now is to invent the correctivefeedbacks that are needed to keep custodianshonest. We must find ways to legitimate theneeded authority of both the custodians and thecorrective feedbacks.Freedom to Breed IsIntolerableThe tragedy of the commons is involved inpopulation problems in another way. In a worldgoverned solely by the principle of "dog eat dog"
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