I recently read Garrett Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" for the first time and thought it might make for interesting discussion. To keep things somewhat focused I've pulled out the essence of Hardin's tragedy for quotation here. You can read the whole thing if you want, but be warned that he gets a little "out there" in some regards, and I didn't want this thread to stray into too many directions at once.

Anyway, the Tragedy of the Commons is basically a refutation of the "Invisible Hand" of the market theory. It attempts to demonstrate how, in regard to commonly owned resources, free competition in which each actor pursues his own best interest will lead, not to the best or most productive arrange, but to eventual impoverishment for all concerned. It is something of a challenge for those who assert that the market, if left alone, will take care of itself and that governmental regulation always has a negative impact.

I'll add another comment at the bottom, but for now, I give you the tragedy of the commons:

There are a couple different ways of approaching the same issue, if one wishes to get away from pastures and cows. Historian Arthur McEvoy writes about what he calls "The Fisherman's Problem", in which the fish in the sea (and or stream) are seen as common property. Each fisherman knows that a certain percentage of the fish must be allowed to survive to spawn if there are to be fish in the future. However, in a competitive environment, each fisherman may reasonably assume that each fish he spares is merely one more fish for another fisherman to catch. In other words, the benefits of catching the fish go entirely to the fisherman himself; the penalties of the reduced re productiveness of the fishery are shared evenly among all fishermen. A rational, self-interested fisherman therefore will catch all the fish he/she can.

But, of course, the most obvious example of the Tragedy of the Commons is pollution, only here the situation is reversed. Rather than taking something out of the commons (meaning, in this case, the air and water) the actors are putting something in. Each factory can calculate the benefits of some amount of pollution-generating production. Those benefits go directly and more-or-less completely to the factory. The costs of that increased pollution, however, are distributed to many different people (possibly globally). Consequentially, the benefits of production will always outweigh the costs, so all rational, self-interested factories will always increase production and increase pollution until the planet is destroyed.

The only obvious ways to avoid the tragedy are:
(1) Mutual consensus to restrain in which everyone agrees to take less from the commons then they could, for the benefit of all. In other words, everyone agrees not to act in rational self-interest. This would work, but it puts a great amount of faith in human nature, especially since it takes only a handful of dishonest individuals to crash the system.
(2) What Hardin refers to as "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon", which is basically enforced governmental regulation (though the government in question may be political, social or whatever). In this case, regulations create an artificial cost for adding "one more cow" to the commons, thus changing the cost/benefit equations so that they encourage communally beneficial limits.

Both 'The invisible hand' - which, by the way, is all the time erroneously attributed to Adam Smith as a basic tenet of his ideas, while he used it only once and solely as a metaphor- and this argument rest on a faulty assumption, expressed here : This is an ideological, cultural statement and not an observation of human nature, let alone of rationality. As Kropotkin demonstrates conclusively, the predominant factor in human society is, and always has been, cooperation. Competition is secondary. Humans are not solitarily living rhinoceroses or mindless viri. The complete absence of awareness of the effects of personal decisions on the other members of society is actually a symptom of a number of pathologies.

As such, these typically reductionistic approaches to human enterprise, so prevalent in economic theories, are cathedrals built on quicksand. Humans have feedback systems in place, both manifest and latent, and have the ability to communicate information. Sure, there are examples where e.g. the exhaustion of freely available resources does occur, but, obviously, if this were the general rule, there simply would never have emerged human societies in the first place.

Metaphorically speaking, this is the equivalent of creationism applied to anthropology. A completely arbitrary tenet, specific to a culture, and not based on empiricism, is used as the central axiom of theories, that are in turn used to justify policies, above all. It's pseudoscience.

Do you deny the actuality of the phenomena known as the "tragedy of the commons"???

I understand one may have theoretical issues with some of the arguments referenced in the OP (economic 'rational-maximal man'), but do you deny the phenomena itself?

I don't think there is sufficient evidence to say that human society is inherently cooperative any more than one can say it is inherently competitive. It is a combination of both. Just the same way that human nature is a combination of rationalism and irrationalism.

I sympathize with your wariness of reductionist approaches, but I think you've somewhat avoided the point.
You've mentioned the importance of cooperation in human society and the awareness of one's effect on society. In so doing I think you've highlight what is arguably the premier flaw in Hardin's model: the herdsman never attempt to communicate with each other. However, I don't think flaw totally undermines Hardin's metaphor, nor does it escape the two possible solutions to the "tragedy".
Either one must claim that humanities cooperative tendencies and awareness of consequences will naturally lead all (or, at least, almost all) individuals acting on the commons to eschew opportunities for personal gain in favor of what is best for the all: the rosy outlook of option (1).
Or one must admit the need for some sort of coercion which forces (or "persuades") those of a more self-serving nature to restrain themselves: option (2)

The last sentence seems to ignore two key facts:
(A) The Tragedy of the Commons is only a factor when the commons is limited. In situations of very low population-to-resource ratios, its a non-issue; a society can always simply open up more pasture as soon as what they have becomes over-grazed. A society could easily emerge and thrive so long as its numbers remained too few (or its resources so expansive) that no real competition for the commons existed.
(B) More importantly, practically every successful and enduring human society as embraced solution #2: coercive regulations that punish those who seek personal gain at the expense of the general good. These coercive regulations may be cast in political, cultural or religious terms, but they are the same in that they create an artificial cost for those who would attempt to use more than "their share" of a common resource. This is Hardin's "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon", which in our culture exists primarily in the form of governmental regulations, fees, and laws.

It strikes me that it might be worthwhile to highlight that section of the essay as well:

Do you really believe that strength of economic theory rests on the assumptions being true. There are theories of consumption that are commonly used by economists that assume that people live forever. They generally do a decent job predicating behavior. It is clearly not the case that people are rationally self-interested. Just talking to people should provide ample evidence against this. Yet the cases originally mentioned are clear examples where a neoclassical economic framework predicts behavior that is inefficient. Further regulation that uses solutions created under neoclassical assumptions generally work quite well as solutions to these types of problems.

(1) could also be looked as social conventions. In many cases social conventions are in place that reduce or eliminate commons problems (or externalities). When there a small number of people in a group forming a consensus is generally a better way to address these problems. As the group starts to get larger regulation becomes a more viable solution.

I reject it as a metaphor for all human enterprise, something which is implicitly present in the statement "As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain.". This is merely an ideological statement that may be predominant in some culture, but is not a hallmark of global humanity. It's nevertheless used as one of the major axioms in economic theory generally and this theory specifically.

The main problem is not the occurence of the allegory, but the poverty of the suggested solutions. Even a quick glance at the variety of contemporary and historical cultures of mankind would lead to a plethora of possibilities instead of merely the two exclusively presented by the author (Hardin, not Dil.)

I agree about the mixture of cooperation and competition, but it is clear that cooperation comes first and is even necessary to bring about the conditions for competition. To use a simple metaphor : People see the competing athletes but are blind to the cooperation required for the setting of the competiton, i.e. the buildings, teams, schedules, infrastructure, etc. This myopic view is what makes it ideological. Solid science builds on all data, not a biased selection thereof.

My already sceptic view of economics just plummeted even further. So it's not even necessary that the assumptions are valid ? The economists are thus really doing nothing more than tweaking simple polynomial functions until they fit the data? And when then the tweaked function diverges again from reality, here comes the meta-tweaked function, and when that one becomes obsolete, here comes the meta-meta-function. I've called it 'adding epicycles' before and this confirms my view.

Until the economists start using a solid framework, and with mathematical tools that fit the complexity of the subject, i.c. non linear equations -required by the feedback properties of the human system- there is not a shred of a chance that the meta(n) function will ever be the final one. The meta(n) function will simply perfectly describe yesterday's data but will have no predictive power for tomorrow's data.

Luckily, some seem to begin to realize this. I've plugged them before and here goes again:
Santa Fe Institute
and specifically:
SFI | Research | Publications | Working Papers

It seems you're confusing self-interested cooperation with cooperation in all things, a position which is itself myopic and ideological. Yes, the herdsmen must have cooperated at some point to even establish a commons. They must cooperate at a level that precludes or minimizes theft of stock or murder of competitors. They must cooperate with the greater society that facilitates their trading their stock for other goods. There are probably other things I'm not thinking of. All these things are indeed examples of the 'hidden cooperation' you refer to, but in each case, the herdsman gains more than he loses. In unilaterally limiting the size of his heard, his loss (the utility of n animals) usually exceeds his gain (not having to care for n animals) unless some incarnation of one of the OP solutions facilitates some significant gain (sustainable pasture due to other herdsmen also limiting their herds).


Not 'no' predictive power, just Limited predictive power. Truly comprehensive mathematical models are effectively impossible due to the variables involved, just as the weather man cannot predict with 100% certainty.

Gasoline sales tomorrow can be reasonably predicted based on day of the week, season, price, weather, and possibly a few other factors like holidays, sporting events, etc. Gasoline sales ten years from now may be similarly predicable, or maybe the economy will collapse, or somebody will invent usable cold fusion, or there will be considerable advances in fuel efficiency or public transportation, or maybe we really will annex Iraq, or I'm sure I could think of dozens of other factors and I'm sure there are dozens of possibilities that would never occur to me. So because we have only a vague guess with 55% reliability (or less) for the 10-year forecast, we should instead base decisions on a monkey sitting at a typewriter? Or worse, ignore the 90+% certain prediction for tomorrow when trying to determine sales stocks, distribution plans, tax strategies, and whatever else?

__________________
Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

That maxim was given only as a premise for the conclusion, not as something that is implicit to the human enterprise.

As I noted above, I recognize the essential theoretical weakness of the argument given, and expected you to reject it for the same reasons.

What I'm asking here is, regardless of the arguments referenced in the OP, do you recognize that there can be a 'tragedy of the commons' in actuality?

Btw, the assertion given is quite specific in applying only in specific situations (commonly held resources).

I don't think your assertion that this was offered as a general principle of human nature is tenable.

Again, you are taking the a singular and specific example and transfering it to the general case which was not part of the OP thesis. You are arguing against something other than the OP here.

You know I hold almost as contemptuous of a view of academic economics as you do, so please don't imply that I'm taking the human rationalist or the maximizing sheppard as gospel.

So, do you accept the idea that a 'tragedy of the commons' can occur as a phenomena independent of any arguments given in the OP?

An assumption by its very nature is invalid. In a simplification of the problem something is lost. If people act close enough to being rational in a certain situation then the assumption of rationality may be appropriate when modeling the situation. If someone is addressing information regulation then assumptions about rationality have to be altered. By the same token a macroeconomic model may be approached by assuming that people have infinite lives because they don’t all die at once and they care about the welfare of the children. When examining something pertaining to social security this assumption is absolutely ridiculous.

Perhaps it may be advisable to learn something about the discipline you are criticizing before you make baseless claims. Even applied economists don't do things in a way that resembles what you talked about and they are in a naive sense the "curve fitters" among economists. Your name implies you place some value on some higher form of awareness. Perhaps it may be beneficial to realize that most disciplines have been challenged by people who are at least equal in intellect to you and who have far more knowledgeable in the subject.

You mean things like using a general functional form and dynamic programming?

There is really nothing special about the articles about economic theory. Articles of this complexity commonly grace theory journals.

The cooperation consists of two things, self-interested cooperation and selfless cooperation. Neoclassical economic theory would handle self-interested cooperation appropriately.

I took a course in college called "Environmental Economics", the professor was promoting systems that would align market incentives with environmental concerns to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
He pointed out that of the thousands of species that have gone extinct, no domesticated animal had ever been threatened with extinction, even though they are slaughtered in greater numbers than any wild species.
Ownership provided stewardship, and this should be extended to the great commons of the world, the lakes, the rivers, the seas, the atmosphere.
That if the fish of the sea were owned, the owners would set catch limits that would maximize their long term gains, that if the atmosphere was owned, the owners would limit pollution to maximize the economic benefits, etc.
His example was that of riparian rights, which were thrown out of US common law in the 1800's as a hindrance to industry. Under riparian rights owners of waterfront property can sue and for loss of economic benefits caused by pollution. So a factory that discharged pollution into a river would have to compensate all those downstream for the loss of fishing and swimming and drinking water that was caused by their pollution, making water treatment cheaper than releasing the pollutants.
In Scotland, one of the most industrialized landscapes in the world, there are still clear pristine streams that run through heavily industrialized areas, because the fishing rights are owned by someone who can sue and recover for fish kills caused by pollution, which makes it cheaper to avoid polluting those streams.
The legal framework for this doesn't really exist in the world today, and I'm not sure what it would look like, only that the Nation-state would probably not be a part of it.

__________________
“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

Hmmm...that's an approach I hadn't really thought much about: avoid the tragedy of the commons by simply eliminating the commons all together and making it private property.
I think you're right about the legal framework not existing today. But its certainly an intriguing idea.