The Tragedy of the Commons What Shall We Maximize?

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The social arrangements that produceresponsibility are arrangements that createcoercion, of some sort. Consider bank robbing.The man who takes money from a bank acts as ifthe bank were a commons. How do we preventsuch action? Certainly not by trying to control hisbehavior solely by a verbal appeal to his sense ofresponsibility. Rather than rely on propagandawe follow Frankel's lead and insist that a bank isnot a commons; we seek the definite socialarrangements that will keep it from becoming acommons. That we thereby infringe on thefreedom of would-be robbers we neither deny norregret.The morality of bank robbing is particularly easyto understand because we accept completeprohibition of this activity. We are willing to say"Thou shalt not rob banks," without providing forexceptions. But temperance also can be createdby coercion. Taxing is a good coercive device. Tokeep downtown shoppers temperate in their useof parking space we introduce parking meters forshort periods, and traffic fines for longer ones.We need not actually forbid a citizen to park aslong as he wants to; we need merely make itincreasingly expensive for him to do so. Notprohibition, but carefully biased options are whatwe offer him. A Madison Avenue man might callthis persuasion; I prefer the greater candor of theword coercion.Coercion is a dirty word to most liberals now, butit need not forever be so. As with the four-letterwords, its dirtiness can be cleansed away byexposure to the light, by saying it over and overwithout apology or embarrassment. To many, theword coercion implies arbitrary decisions ofdistant and irresponsible bureaucrats; but this isnot a necessary part of its meaning. The onlykind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion,mutually agreed upon by the majority of thepeople affected.To say that we mutually agree to coercion is notto say that we are required to enjoy it, or even topretend we enjoy it. Who enjoys taxes? We allgrumble about them. But we accept compulsorytaxes because we recognize that voluntary taxeswould favor the conscienceless. We institute and(grumblingly) support taxes and other coercivedevices to escape the horror of the commons.An alternative to the commons need not beperfectly just to be preferable. With real estateand other material goods, the alternative wehave chosen is the institution of private propertycoupled with legal inheritance. Is this systemperfectly just? As a genetically trained biologist Ideny that it is. It seems to me that, if there are tobe differences in individual inheritance, legalpossession should be perfectly correlated withbiological inheritance-that those who arebiologically more fit to be the custodians ofproperty and power should legally inherit more.But genetic recombination continually makes amockery of the doctrine of "like father, like son"implicit in our laws of legal inheritance. An idiotcan inherit millions, and a trust fund can keep hisestate intact. We must admit that our legalsystem of private property plus inheritance isunjust -- but we put up with it because we are notconvinced, at the moment, that anyone hasinvented a better system. The alternative of thecommons is too horrifying to contemplate.Injustice is preferable to total ruin.It is one of the peculiarities of the warfarebetween reform and the status quo that it isthoughtlessly governed by a double standard.Whenever a reform measure is proposed it isoften defeated when its opponents triumphantlydiscover a flaw in it. As Kingsley Davis haspointed out, [21] worshipers of the status quosometimes imply that no reform is possiblewithout unanimous agreement, an implicationcontrary to historical fact. As nearly as I canmake out, automatic rejection of proposedreforms is based on one of two unconsciousassumptions: (1) that the status quo is perfect; or(2) that the choice we face is between reformand no action; if the proposed reform isimperfect, we presumably should take no actionat all, while we wait for a perfect proposal.But we can never do nothing. That which wehave done for thousands of years is also action.It also produces evils. Once we are aware thatthe status quo is action, we can then compare itsdiscoverable advantages and disadvantages withthe predicted advantages and disadvantages ofthe proposed reform, discounting as best we can
for our lack of experience. On the basis of such acomparison, we can make a rational decisionwhich will not involve the unworkable assumptionthat only perfect systems are tolerable.Recognition of NecessityPerhaps the simplest summary of this analysis ofman's population problems is this: the commons,if justifiable at all, is justifiable only underconditions of low-population density. As thehuman population has increased, the commonshas had to be abandoned in one aspect afteranother.First we abandoned the commons in foodgathering, enclosing farm land and restrictingpastures and hunting and fishing areas. Theserestrictions are still not complete throughout theworld.Somewhat later we saw that the commons as aplace for waste disposal would also have to beabandoned. Restrictions on the disposal ofdomestic sewage are widely accepted in theWestern world; we are still struggling to close thecommons to pollution by automobiles, factories,insecticide sprayers, fertilizing operations, andatomic energy installations.In a still more embryonic state is our recognitionof the evils of the commons in matters ofpleasure. There is almost no restriction on thepropagation of sound waves in the publicmedium. The shopping public is assaulted withmindless music, without its consent. Ourgovernment has paid out billions of dollars tocreate a supersonic transport which woulddisturb 50,000 people for every one personwhisked from coast to coast 3 hours faster.Advertisers muddy the airwaves of radio andtelevision and pollute the view of travelers. Weare a long way from outlawing the commons inmatters of pleasure. Is this because our Puritaninheritance makes us view pleasure assomething of a sin, and pain (that is, the pollutionof advertising) as the sign of virtue?Every new enclosure of the commons involvesthe infringement of somebody's personal liberty.Infringements made in the distant past areaccepted because no contemporary complains ofa loss. It is the newly proposed infringementsthat we vigorously oppose; cries of "rights" and"freedom" fill the air. But what does "freedom"mean? When men mutually agreed to pass lawsagainst robbing, mankind became more free, notless so. Individuals locked into the logic of thecommons are free only to bring on universal ruin;once they see the necessity of mutual coercion,they become free to pursue other goals. I believeit was Hegel who said, "Freedom is therecognition of necessity."The most important aspect of necessity that wemust now recognize, is the necessity ofabandoning the commons in breeding. Notechnical solution can rescue us from the miseryof overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bringruin to all. At the moment, to avoid harddecisions many of us are tempted topropagandize for conscience and responsibleparenthood. The temptation must be resisted,because an appeal to independently actingconsciences selects for the disappearance of allconscience in the long run, and an increase inanxiety in the short.The only way we can preserve and nurture otherand more precious freedoms is by relinquishingthe freedom to breed, and that very soon."Freedom is the recognition of necessity" -- and itis the role of education to reveal to all thenecessity of abandoning the freedom to breed.Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of thetragedy of the commons.
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The Tragedy of the Commons What Shall We Maximize?

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