Garrett Hardin

The “tragedy of the commons” is the name the biologist Garrett Hardin gave to a thought experiment in a now famous 1968 Science article. It predicted global resource
degradation and societal ruin from the net consequences of individuals acting in their short-term interests but at a long-term cost to the environment. This chapter will outline
the history of the concept and, after presenting some compelling critiques of it, demonstrate its continuing utility in helping us understand environmental problems.

Abstract: This article, originally a book review written for the first translation of Hardin' Tragedy of the Commons in French, puts in perspective Hardin's famous work with its later developments and criticisms, as well as with the " extension " to the Tragedy of the commons that is included in this volume. The review underlines the fact that Hardin, far from being one of the main contenders of the private property, argues on the contrary that defining collectively the limits of property rights is a necessity. In Hardin's thought, property therefore appears as nothing more than a social institution, and private as well as exclusive property as nothing more than contextual social arrangements.

Résumé Cette recension, publiée à l'occasion de la première traduction de l'ouvrage de Hardin en France, propose une (re)lecture de la fameuse Tragédie des communs, à la lumières de ses développements ultérieurs et des critiques dont elle a fait l'objet. Nous soulignons, entre autres, le fait que Hardin, loin de faire de l'institution de la propriété privée une fin en soi, défend au contraire la besoin de d'imposer des limites collectives aux droits de propriété. La propriété apparaît ainsi comme une institution sociale au sens fort et sa version privative et exclusive n'est que le fruit d'arrangements sociaux spécifiques. Une (re)lecture nécessaire pour les philosophes « La tragédie des communs », article de Garrett Hardin publié pour la première fois en 1968 par la revue Science, a connu un destin extraordinaire, devenant une référence dans des disciplines aussi diverses que l'économie, l'écologie, la géographie, la philosophie, l'anthropologie ou encore le droit. On mesure qui est plus est son succès au fait que son propos a pu être utilisé pour défendre des thèses parfois opposées. On pensera notamment à la façon dont il est devenu à la fois l'argument favori des défenseurs d'une conception libertarienne de la propriété exclusive et de ceux d'une limitation drastique des droits de propriété individuels pour des raisons écologiques. De telles contradictions ne peuvent être que le signe de la richesse du propos de Hardin, ouvert aux interprétations sélectives les plus divergentes. Il est alors nécessaire de (re)lire un ouvrage dont la mention est si fréquente que

In 1968 Garrett Harding presented to the world a very captivating vantage point of the worlds population problem. He illustrated from the onset that his concern was ‘with the important concept of a class of human problems which can be called "no technical solution problems," and more specifically, with the identification and discussion’ (Hardin, 1968) of these problems.

In 1974 Garrett Hardin published a series of polemics on foreign aid based around the metaphor of the lifeboat.  Developed nations are in the boat; developing nations are drowning.  Based on this analogy, Hardin argues that it is ethically best to conserve resources rather than risk capsizing the ships and drowning everyone.  This paper argues that "lifeboat ethics" is affectively persuasive by borrowing from the topoi of the horror genre.  Conversely, I argue that horror narratives can be read for their placement of the capacity for ethics to show a shared border between these genres around the lifeboat. Finally, reading these modes together, we can see that the either/or of ethics/horror is a false dilemma dissolved by the inclusion of the historical dimension.

This essay takes the motif of ruin as an entry point for a foray into the subject of the commons. It engages Garrett Hardin’s nearly unknown discussions of literature and poetry to shed critical light on his famous idea of “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and on the general relation of the commons to questions of language and measure. To summon resources for thinking against enclosure, the essay follows an itinerary that constellates historian J. M. Neeson, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the poet and theorist Fred Moten, and the Romantic poetry of William Wordsworth.

Commons, Comune, beni comuni: da ormai più di un quarto di secolo, l'area semantica individuata dal lemma latino communis e dai suoi derivati nelle principali lingue occidentali è stata al centro di un dibattito importante per qualità e quantità, coinvolgendo discipline e ambiti di ricerca disparati -dall'economia alla sociologia, al diritto, alla storia, alla filosofia. La letteratura sul tema è già sterminata e sempre più difficilmente maneggiabile, e le pubblicazionisoprattutto negli ultimi dieci anni -si sono succedute a ritmi impressionanti. Non solo. Grazie a un rapido e significativo fenomeno osmotico, l'attenzione per i beni comuni non è rimasta confinata al solo piano teorico ma ha interessato anche la sfera delle pratiche e dei linguaggi della politica, istituzionale e non (spesso ingenerando anche qualche ambiguità e confusione concettuale): si è così parlato, nell'ordine, di "acqua bene comune", di "università bene comune", di "lavoro bene comune", 1 di "Italia bene comune". E l'elenco potrebbe essere prolungato a piacimento. 2 Nelle poche pagine che seguiranno, vorrei innanzitutto tentare di offrire una panoramica -per forza di cose limitata -del complesso di studi e ricerche in argomento, mettendone in luce gli _____________ 1 Cfr. A. Amendola, Il lavoro è un bene comune?, in M.R. Marella (a cura di), Oltre il pubblico e il privato. Per un diritto dei beni comuni, Ombre Corte, Verona 2012, pp. 258-276. 2 Per un'utile tassonomia dei vari usi del concetto di commons, impossibile non rinviare a M.R. Marella, Introduzione. Per un diritto dei beni comuni, in Ead. (a cura di), Oltre il pubblico, cit., pp. 9-28.

‘The tragedy of the commons’ and ‘the common heritage of mankind’ are concepts that dominate the legal discourse on governing  global commons, including spaces beyond national jurisdictions, essential resources and concerns such as biodiversity conservation and climate change. This article offers a critical account of their origins. It associates each with a prominent speech act of the late 1960s: Garrett Hardin introduced the former to a group of scientists in 1968, while Arvid Pardo articulated the latter to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly in 1967. The article shows that Hardin’s and Pardo’s interventions responded to pressing issues of the time: decolonization, developed/developing state relations and pressures of population and resource security. Channelling this period’s fascination with integrative knowledge, these feats were an impressive, if error-laden, synthesis of economic, legal and scientific data and theories. At the same time, they had parochial, illiberal and even imperial dimensions, playing upon, and exacerbating, the mistrust that then typified international relations. These are all legacies we must contend with today in our legal engagements with global commons.

The article “The tragedy of the commons” by Garrett Hardin is a central reference in the contemporary debates on property, environment, and the economy of material and immaterial resources. Its main thesis is the incompatibility between common property and sustainability. Although this text is one of the most influential of the last decades, we have very few elements on the historical processes that shaped its production and reception ; on its author Garrett Hardin, his biographical trajectory, his political motives, his involvement in the political and intellectual struggles of the second half of the twentieth century. This article aims at historicizing the contemporary debates on the political economy of the commons, by providing this historical perspective. We analyze, in particular, the biopolitical project underlying the Hardin’s involvement in the environmental movement and the influence of the Cold War intellectual culture on the framing of his theories on resources and property. This article also aims at providing a contribution to the general history of neo-liberalism, when applied to natural resources and environment.

Regina, SK: Changing Suns Press, 2016.  A critique of neo-Malthusianism and “lifeboat ethics,” and an analysis of the moral dimensions of debates concerning world hunger, foreign aid, immigration policy, and population growth. See "Papers - English" for two articles on which this book is based.

This paper will propose that the extraction of gas by hydraulic fracturing, and the social and environmental disasters that shadow it, can be best explained by the influence exerted by a select few extremely wealthy people in order to secure their private interests: to protect and further embed their wealth and power. Oligarchs in the United States form an exceptionally small proportion of the total population, but control a vast amount of the financial resources. These financial resources allow the oligarchs access to high-ranking government officials, but those same resources can also be used to influence political decision-making through 'think tanks', contributions to political campaigns or by employing the services of professional lobby agents. This paper will first, though briefly, examine the contemporary energy crisis caused by the depletion of finite natural resources. Then it will look into the history and process of hydraulic fracturing, before turning to the environmental impacts, with a particular focus on the local communities and the social impacts.

This article argues that Garrett Hardin’s primary object of critique in his influential “The Tragedy of the Commons” is not the commons or shared property at all—as is almost universally assumed by Hardin’s critics—but is rather Adam Smith’s theory of markets and its viability for protecting scarce resources. On the basis of this revised understanding this article then offers a different interpretation of Hardin’s thesis by assigning hermeneutic priority to the concept of “tragedy” (Aristotle, Nietzsche) rather than the concept of the “commons.” Read through the concept of tragedy, it argues that Hardin’s thesis effectively asserts a rigid incompatibility between market economics and environmental protection, and to this extent “The Tragedy of the Commons” is more aptly read as a political critique that questions the viability of unlimited growth as the axiomatic premise of planetary economics.

Este artigo discute as contribuições de sete cientistas naturais – Paul Sears, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Donella Meadows, Garrett Hardin e James Lovelock – na construção da agenda ambiental contemporânea. O texto sustenta que os cientistas sociais chegaram a ela de forma retardatária e, por vezes, parcialmente equivocada, por se apegarem à tradição de explicar o “social apenas pelo social”. Muitos cometeram ainda o erro de ignorar as contribuições daqueles pioneiros, com prejuízo para as suas próprias análises. É imprescindível que pesquisadores do campo das ciências exatas e humanas dialoguem de forma mais intensa sobre os temas da agenda ambiental.

NATURAL SCIENTISTS AS LEADERS IN THE CREATION OF THE CONTEMPORARY ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA.

The article discusses the contributions made by seven natural scientists – Paul Sears, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Donella Meadows, Garrett Hardin, and James Lovelock - to the establishment of the contemporary environmental agenda. It argues that almost every major issue in this agenda was brought up and publicized originally by natural scientists. Social scientists interested in these issues were latecomers, mostly because they held on to the “human exemption paradigm.” Sometimes they also ignore the contributions of their colleagues in the natural sciences, a flaw that affects negatively the quality of their own endeavors. The article proposes that social scientists and natural scientists should deepen their exchanges on environmental matters.

In “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garret Hardin outlines a number of social and ecological problems associated with the common usage of resources.  As he argues, the implications of eventual resource exhaustion leads to social ruin.  In this paper, I demonstrate similarities with Friedrich Ratzel’s Lebensraum theory and advance Hardin’s considerations, scrutinizing his conclusion, of coercive statism as a solution, and instead offer anarchism as the best of possible solutions.

This Article analyses both the role of historiography in Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons (1968) and his paper's impact on historiographical debates of the last five decades. Concerning the role of historiography in Hardin's argument, the 'tragedy of the commons' itself derived from a pamphlet written by a nineteenth century supporter of English enclosures, who proposed a variant of Malthus' theory. If Hardin inevitably dealt with previous historical interpretations of the commons, the reverberations aroused by his paper have strongly influenced subsequent historical research on this subject. It is possible to group the historiographical production of the last decades concerning the commons into three main lines of research. The first line has developed in the field of economic history and has been influenced by Elinor Ostrom's principles for long-enduring institutions that efficaciously manage commons. The second line has focused on the conflicts caused by exogenous interferences in the management of common land, such as state or market intervention, and their social and environmental consequences. The third line has devoted attention to the role of common lands in the internal dynamics of the local communities and the conflicts over their use at the local level. The conclusion of this Article focuses on the role of Hardin's legacy in the current debate on the global environmental crisis.

Ortak mal, orta malı, ortak varlık, ortak alanlar veya müşterekler, herhangi bir mülkiyet hakkı barındırmayan, girişlerin serbest, herkesin kullanımına açık olan, tüketiciler tarafından kullanımın engellenmediği alanlardır. Ortak alanların bir bölümü devlete ait; bir bölümü ise herkese açık alanlar olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Atmosfer, yeraltı yerüstü suları, açık denizler, balık avlanma alanları, doğal plajlar, su rezervleri, ormanlar, meralar, parklar, kıyılar,çocuk oyun alanları, yaya kaldırımları gibi alanlar ortak alanlardır. Nüfusun artması, yaşanan teknolojik ilerlemeler bu alanlarda güçlü bir rekabet eğiliminin ve baskının ortaya çıkmasına neden olmuştur. Yaşanılan bu rekabet ve baskıların, ortak alanların kullanımı üzerinde bir trajediye yol açtığı dikkat çekmektedir. Bu trajedinin önüne geçebilmek adına önemli düşünürler tarafından koruma stratejileri
geliştirilmiştir. Ortak alanların genel olarak önemi ve koruma stratejilerini konu alan bu çalışma da, bu alanların temel değerini yitirmesinin yarattığı eşitsizliklerin önüne geçebilmek ve bu eşitsizliklerin en aza indirilmesini sağlamak adına önerilen koruma stratejilerinin incelenmesini amaçlamaktadır. Çalışma kapsamında ortak malların kullanımında yaşanan trajediyi anlatan Garrett Hardin incelemeye alınmış ve bu alanların korunmasına dair önerdiği koruma modelleri tartışılmıştır. Yine çalışma kapsamında Hardin tarafından önerilen modellere getirilen eleştiriler, Elinor Ostrom tarafından ele alınan kolektif denetim stratejisi bağlamında değerlendirilmiştir. Yapılan tüm değerlendirmeler Türkiye üzerinden ortak alanlar için uygulanan mevcut politikalar ışığında ele alınmış ve tartışılmıştır.

ABSTRACT

Common goods, common assets, common areas or commons are areas that do not have any property rights, are free to enter, open to everyone, and their use by consumers is not prohibited. Some of the common areas belong to the state; some of them are defined as public spaces. Areas such as atmosphere, underground waters, open seas, fishing areas, natural beaches, water reserves, forests, pastures, parks, coasts, children's playgrounds, pedestrian sidewalks are common areas. The increase in population and technological advances have caused a strong competitive tendency and pressure in these areas. It is noteworthy that these rivalries and pressures experienced a tragedy over the use of common areas. In order to prevent this tragedy, protection strategies have been developed by important thinkers. This study, which deals with the general importance of common areas and conservation strategies, aims to examine the protection strategies proposed in order to prevent the inequalities caused by the loss of the basic value of these areas and to minimize these inequalities. Within the scope of the study, Garrett Hardin, who tells about the tragedy experienced in the use of common goods, was examined and the protection models proposed for the protection of these areas were discussed. Again within the scope of the study, the criticisms brought to the models proposed by Hardin were evaluated in the context of the collective control strategy addressed by Elinor Ostrom. All assessments were made in the light of present policies that apply to common areas via Turkey and discussed.

RESUVIEN: Desde sus inicios, la ecología política ha recurrido a la imagen de la trayedia de los cornunes con un callejón sin salida de la racionalidad instrumental. De esa forma, la crisis ecológica puede ser descrita como un dilema del prisionero resuelto de la peor opción. Más allá de los límites de este tipo de imágenes en la explicación de la acción social, lógicas colectivas definidas por la opacidad de las relaciones causales y por mediaciones altamente abstractas, como es el caso de las extemalidades en sociedades complejas globalizadas, tiene cierta utilidad. La cuestión reside en delimitar escenarios que favorezcan la expansión de sujetos e instituciones, guiados por otro tipo de razón, capaces de poner ataduras al Ulises social. ABSTRACT: From its origin. political ecology has used the trayed)~ of iile comtnons figure as an radical noway-out of instrumental reason. Then, ecological crisis is described as a resolved pri~oner diler?it?la into its worst option. Beyond the lacks of this kind of figures in the explanation o social action, it becomes useful in collective logics defined by opaque causal relations and high abstract mediations, as in externa1 effects in complex and globalized societies. The challenje is to design appropiated contexts to build and spread out institutions and to capacite ageuts guided by another kind of reason and able to limit social Ulises.

L’article de Garrett Hardin paru en 1968, « La tragédie des communs », est une référence essentielle dans les débats sur la propriété, l’environnement, l’économie des ressources matérielles et immatérielles. Sa thèse : l’incompatibilité entre propriété commune et durabilité. Or, si ce texte est sans cesse mobilisé, on sait très peu de choses des logiques historiques qui ont présidé à son élaboration, à sa réception ; très peu de choses sur son auteur Garrett Hardin, sur sa trajectoire, ses motivations, les éléments vis-à-vis desquels son propos fait sens lorsqu’il décide, fin 1968, de formuler un raisonnement dont l’onde de choc s’est propagée jusqu’à notre époque de crise environnementale, de réflexion sur les communs numériques. Ce constat a motivé notre enquête. Son ambition est de contribuer, par le détour de l’histoire, aux réflexions contemporaines sur les différentes formes du « commun ». S’y révèlent aussi certaines dimensions méconnues de l’environnementalisme américain au XXe siècle : ses liens étroits et complexes à la configuration de Guerre froide ; la place qu’y occupent des courants combinant souci de l’environnement et projet de contrôle de la « qualité » des populations. Enfin, cette histoire de la « tragédie des communs » est aussi un chapitre de l’histoire du néolibéralisme, lorsque celui-ci s’empare de la question du gouvernement des ressources et des environnements.

The tragedy of the commons is one of the principle tenets of ecology. A virtual learning environment is used to experience first-hand depletion of common property resources and to explore issues of sustainability and co-operation vs. competition.

The tragedy of the commons is one of the principle tenets of ecology. A virtual learning environment is used to experience first-hand depletion of common property resources and to explore issues of sustainability and co-operation vs. competition.