The tragedy of the commons
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
Why do people have so much trouble managing
natural resources? I mean, they grow back.
The tragedy of the commons might help explain.
Let's say there's some land that people use as pasture for their animals.
Nobody owns it and anyone can come graze their livestock here.
So we would call this an open access field.
But the thing is, if nobody owns it, then
really everybody owns it.
Let's assume the number of animals this field
can feed is based on the quantity and quality
of the grass, which is based on the health
of the soil.
This is the carrying capacity.
If more animals than this are added, the grass
can't re-grow fast enough to support them
all.
The grass protects the soil from erosion and
the field may decline in productivity,
lowering the carrying capacity.
The animals will be less healthy and provide
lesser quality products lowering the profit
each animal provides.
Eventually, the field might be so eroded that it can't support any animals.
So obviously it's in the group's best interest
to keep the number of animals on the field
at or below the carrying capacity.
But since this field is open for access it
will probably end up being overgrazed.
This is the tragedy of the commons:
Every herdsman that puts animals on the field
will get the direct benefit that that animal
provide for him. But they will each only share
a portion of the costs of the degraded field.
let's say the field is at carrying capacity
and a herdsmen decides to add an extra animal.
The added animals takes some food that would
have gone to the others. This reduces their
value. But the owner of that additional animal
comes out ahead because, even though his animals
also are less healthy, he has more of them.
So each herdsmen will keep adding animals
to their herd or let their animals graze longer,
so long as its profitable for themselves.
This is like the prisoner's dilemma. Where
if the individual only looks at themselves
they feel that they are gaining by adding
more animals.
But this is unsustainable use and over time
the field will decline and all the herdsmen
will lose out.
Since new people can't be excluded from using
the field, and people can't stop others from
using it, there's almost no point in boycotting it.
Someone else could just come in.
Since none of the herdsmen own the field and
they can see the field may not be around forever.
They see no point in conservation and just
try to use it before someone else does.
And there's no point planning for future use
if everyone else is just using it as much
as they want.
These open access resources suffer from 2
main problems: non-excludability because anyone
can come and use it, and no reason to cooperate.
So what are some alternatives. Let's look
quickly at two options, private ownership
and communal ownership.
Private ownership is when it's is owned by
1 person or business.
So if 1 person owns the land and adds an extra
animal after carrying capacity, he will only
hurt himself so he won't do it. He knows the
field will be around later and won't value
short term gains and work on long term investment.
private ownership solves the problems of exclusion
and cooperation as long as there is some sort
of legitimate force like a government that
can uphold the boundaries. Most of the land
in North America is held privately and it
works well here but it is not a solution to
all open access problems.
If the land is uneven in productivity over
time, then any sectioned parcel of land may
not provide enough to sustain someone for
a season and they may overuse just so they
can make a living.
And with most ocean resources, the resource
swims around and it's difficult to draw and
enforce boundaries.
This leads us to an advantages of communal ownership.
If the whole area is shared by a group, then
they can move to the productive areas when
the season is right.
Communal ownership is different than open
access because only those within a certain
group of people or community are allowed to
use it. To those outside the community it
might as well be privately owned. So it can
solve the exclusion problem.
But communal ownership doesn't necessarily
solve the cooperation problem. If the community
does not work together than you have essentially
have a tragedy of the commons.
Traditional thought it to give control over
to some government or central authority when
private ownership is not appropriate. But
this usually just causes more problems.
...the people didn't work together. They couldn't
work together. Because the forests weren't
technically theirs to manage. And deforestation
actually accelerated. It wasn't that government
was incompetent or evil. It's just to implement
the plan the government needed to decide...