Taylor Walters - March 13, 2026: Tragedy of the Commons (In-Class Entry)

Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" is both frustrating and clarifying. The argument is basically when resources are unowned and shared, and people are self-interested (which if I'm being honest people are), the incentive is always to overuse and never maintain. That creates a vicious cycle where overuse increases, zero-sum competition is created, and eventually the resources are just depleted. The tragedy isn't people are evil, it's that the system incentivizes bad behavior even from people who might know better. I keep thinking abut this in the context of the ocean. The ocean is essentially a commons because nobody owns it. Overfishing, plastic pollution, and chemical runoff all fit into the system Hardin described. Everyone benefits from a healthy ocean but the cost of protecting it is individual while the benefit is shared, so the rational self-interest is to exploit it. My question is, does Hardin's model assume too much about human selfishness? Because I feel like it doesn't account for communities that have historically managed shared resources really well without destroying them.

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