...REVISITING THE ”TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS” University Sciences Po Paris Semester: Fall 2011/2012 Student: Sönke-Timo Kisker Student – ID: 100033186 Course: Thinking and Acting the Environment Course-ID: 23811 Course Coordinaton: Florence Faucher-King; Thomas Léon Assignment: Mid-term paper Word-count: 2746 Date: 18.10.2011 | Agenda I. Introduction 2 II. Specifying a framework 2 a. Defining ‘global public good’ 2 b. Defining the “Tragedy,”within Game theory 3 III. Revisiting Hardin's main assumptions and argumentations 4 c. Variables influencing rational choices of Individuals 4 d. The concept value and ethics in decisionmaking 5 IV. Practical examples of dealing with the commons 6 e. Mc Evoy's findings of assigning responsibility 6 f. Co-Management 6 ...
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...the fact that earth can only support a finite amount of people. Hardin’s argument is convincing because it is based on a known fact; each population requires a specific amount of resources in order to maintain itself, but when the population exceeds this finite number, there will be an insufficient amount of resources. Hardin believes that ignoring poor countries and focusing on wealthy countries will ensure the prosperity for the future. Hardin states the increase in population differs from rich countries and poor countries. In Hardin’s argument, he states that, “As of 1973, the U.S had a population of 210 million people, who were increasing by 0.8 percent per year … another 210 million people (say the combined populations of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Morocco, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines) who are increasing at a rate of 3.3 percent per year. Put differently, the doubling time for this aggregate population is 21 years, compared to 87 years for the U.S.” as we all know, the earth has a limited amount of resources, this justifies Hardin’s argument of ignoring poor countries (page 2 line11-15). But with Hardin’s argument is a prediction error. Hardin stated that the population of India (starting at 600million people) will swell to 1.2 billion people within 28 years, yet the population of India did not reach that number until 2010 with a population of 1.206 billion. Never the less, Hardin‘s argument of overloading our environment is a known truth; due to the...
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...Discussion on Tragedy of the Commons | This paper intends to discuss the basic theories within the scope of the tragedy of commons, especially from the ethics perspective. In addition, the paper also explicitly explores two possible ways to solve the tragedy of the commons, the free market solution and the socialism solution, and applies these ways to a real case of Euro’s Tragedy. In the end, referring to Elinor Ostrom’s theory in 2009, the paper recommends the collective agreement from the moral perspective to be the possible ideal solution to the tragedy of the commons. | | Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Formation 2 2.1 Theoretical explain of the formation 2 2.2 Hardin’s grazing model 4 3. Ethics Involved 5 3.1 Ethical Egoism Theory 5 3.2 Utilitarian Theory 5 3.3 Moral Foundation Theory, Virtue Theory and Confucius 6 3.4 Right Theory 6 4. Solutions to the Tragedy 7 4.1 Free market solution 7 4.2 Socialism solution 9 4.3 Comparison of the Two Solutions 10 4.3.1 Attitude towards self-interest 11 4.3.2 Attitude towards common resources 11 4.3.3 Government Function 11 4.3.4 Incentive structures 11 4.3.5 Outcomes 12 5. Case of Euro’s Tragedy 12 5.1 How Euro’s Tragedy Happened 13 5.2 How it related to Tragedy of the Commons 14 5.3 Free Market Capitalism Solution and the Tragedy of Euro 14 5.4 Socialism Solution and the Tragedy of Euro 15 6. A Third Solution 17 6.1 Ethical Obligation 17 6.2 Cultivating Ethics 17 6.3 Elinor Ostrom’s Theory 18 ...
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...ecosystems in business because we need the earth’s resources to conduct business and sell products, and many companies have no choice but to dispose of waste and pollute one way or another. Businesses have traditionally shown no regard towards the environment and the societies in which it operated. Environmental protection was rarely seen as an issue and people thought that the world’s resources could be taken without end and without any harm done. Pollution could damage the environment, but the damage done was considered to be insignificant because the world was seen as such a large place. Resources aren’t unlimited and people and animals are harmed from environmental damage. In Garrett Hardin’s parable, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” he describes the importance of the environment to human interests based on the fact that it’s limited. He describes villages who share a pasture and let farm animals graze indiscriminately. The meadow...
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...incentive system. This can be seen in the relative economic backwardness of communist economic systems, where private property is minimal and productivity is stifled due to a lack of personal material reward for work. By allowing more private property and their transfer, property interests ought to settle with those who value them most and can utilise them most effectively. In addition, one of the main drivers of economic development is lending, and as de Soto has noted, this cannot readily occur without a mortgage over existing private property, hindering economies lacking in such. The leading evidence for the economic efficiency argument is Hardin’s notion of the ‘tragedy of the commons’, whereby people with access to common land choose to overexploit it, because even if they decided to use the land sustainably, someone else would abuse the common property for their own gain, eventually ruining it for everyone. This problem is ever increasing, as global population increases while fish, water and clean air become scarcer. Private...
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...Professor Richter Tragedy of the Commons Analysis The Tragedy of the Commons is an effective metaphor to understanding the exploitation of global property resources by private producers. Its flaws as a metaphor stems from the gross assumptions it makes on human behavior and motivations. When taken at face value, the metaphor can be used to explain broad resource issues that nations are still dealing with today, such as global climate change and the use of natural resources. However, when closely inspected, its generalization about the community-shared commons is not as accurate. Garret Hardin's article has received vast critical acclaim and is considered one of the finest works regarding natural resource issues. In his article, Hardin claims that all commonly owned resources are doomed to destruction. This is due to the fact that men are greedy, and instinctively pursue their own best interests. Given is an example involving a common pasture open to all, in which it is expected that every herdsman is going to try keep as many cattle on the commons as possible in-order to try make the most profit. However as the commons is overgrazed productivity goes down causing each herdsman to add more cattle in an attempt to bring their profits back up. It is in this desire for self-interest that the tragedy of the commons occurs. The Tragedy of the Commons metaphor is best understood when applied to large-scale resource issues. In order to do so, the community commons Hardin referred...
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...Jessica Carling 10/28/2010 Tues/Thur. 2:00 - 3:15 Overpopulation and Environmental Degradation The planet on which we live is dying, harsh: yes, but true. The sustaining capacity of the globe is shrinking a little bit every year and soon, if the population trend continues at the current rate the sustaining capacity will have reached its peak. The ignorance of humanity has lead all to believe that the planets resources are infinite well, I'm here to tell you that research, study, and observation has proven that it is in fact very finite. The population explosion has its roots in developing countries such as China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. The basic fact is people are having more children than their surrounding environment can support. Overpopulation is creating severe problems to the air quality, water supplies, and cropland sustainability; cultural views pose as road blocks to taking steps toward destroying this epidemic. Should the population continue at its current rate of expansion there will be an estimated 50 billion people on the planet by the dawn of the next century according to Arthur McCormack in his 1970 book The Population Problem (9). The question now is are we as a species destined to die from resource depletion or are there ways to stop this growth before it becomes a global catastrophe? Walter K. Dodds, author of Humanities Footprint, mentions...
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...REACTION to “Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin” A human being is naturally greedy, looking after his own interests before those of others. According to Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons, humans would rather seek temporary gain with long-term disadvantages than suffer little inconveniences for long-term gain. But unfortunately, the majority who contribute to this tragedy are not aware of what they are doing. Before reading this paper, I myself was not aware of this problem, and honestly, I still do not know how to avert this tragedy. Our population problem is not diminishing. Instead, it continues to grow and grow. But our world is finite and our resources limited. Therefore, each person’s share in this world must lessen with the increase in human number. But what is happening now? Each person grabs whatever resources he can for himself and his family. As a result, imbalance is gradually becoming evident in our society, and soon, in our world. We, as human beings, keep doing what we want instead of what we need: reproducing and satisfying our own needs. We increase our demand from this earth’s resources yet we refuse to sacrifice even the most unnecessary inconveniences. Basically, human population continues to increase while the world’s resources continue to decrease. This is tragedy in itself when we think of the generations that will follow. Illegal logging is one of this topic’s most relevant environmental issues. Illegal loggers only wish to retrieve...
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...TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS AND THE PROBLEM OF ANARCHY IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY By: Ma. Hazel Joy M. Faco BA Political Science – 2 "Freedom in a common brings ruin to all." As proposed by Garrett Hardin, the “Tragedy of the Commons” is an inevitable result of the exploitation of a shared resource by rational and egoistic individuals who solely seek to maximize their own consumption. It is predicted that there will come a time when the supply of that resource will no longer be able to keep up with the rapidly growing demand. This is where the tragedy comes into the picture. This apathetic and nonchalant consumption will eventually lead to the irreversible depletion and degradation of that particular common resource. To avoid this ultimate tragedy, there is no technical solution that we can possibly adopt. No amount of science or technology can reverse this damage. The only way that we can possibly preclude this destruction is by undergoing a dramatic re-examination and transformation of our conscience and fundamental conceptions of ethics and morality. But the real question is this: Is that even possible? Hardin’s pessimistic parable is widely and almost universally accepted as an all-encompassing, catchall framework in explaining the ecological crisis that currently confronts commonly-held goods such as the earth’s atmosphere, fisheries, grasslands, water, forests, roads and even population growth. However, in this essay, I am going to analyze this tragedy by...
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...The Continuation of the Commons In Garrett Hardins “The Tragedy of the Commons” he goes into great detail about how the commons, publicly own space or property, needs to be less common and controlled to prevent its self-destruction. Hardins makes the claim that man rationalizes using his freedom to the commons by saying he is doing just as much good as he is doing harm. As well, he states that we all will continue to use the commons and this will eventually exhaust the resources of because of the volume of the population that uses it. To Hardins, the idea that man’s use of the commons is exponentially growing, we are using up our limited resources on the planet. This is not entirely true because in the process of man using the common property...
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...1/3 2. 2/3 3. 3/4 4. 4/5 1. How many pounds of hazardous materials enter the air each year? 1. 20 million 2. 90 milllion 3. 2 billion 4. 9 billion 1. Which gas is responsible for the greenhouse effect? 1. H2SO4 2. H2O 3. CO 4. CO2 1. How many tons of animal manure does the US generate each year? 1. 900 million 2. 1 billion 3. 1.4 billion 4. 2 billion 1. Which virus is responsible for the decline of the wolf population in Yellowstone Park? 1. Retrovirus 2. Herpesvirus 3. Parvovirus 4. Ebolavirus 2. The belief that natural resources are free and limitless encourages 1. Conservation 2. Preservation 3. Wasteful consumption of them 4. Waste management 1. Which industry exemplifies Hardin’s point about the tragedy of the commons? 1. Car manufacturing 2. International fishing 3. International steel production 4. Clothing manufacturing 1. How many gallons of water does it take to make an automobile? 1. 50, 000 2. 100, 000 3. 150, 000 4. 200, 000 1. How many gallons of rainwater does America use for every 60 returned by nature? 1. 50 2. 65 3. 75 4. 80 1. In a case in Thailand what was worth 75% more when left to provide natural resources rather than be converted into a fish farm? 1. A mangrove swamp 2. A lake 3. A freshwater estuary 4. A scenic pond 1. The Interior...
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...1/3 2. 2/3 3. 3/4 4. 4/5 1. How many pounds of hazardous materials enter the air each year? 1. 20 million 2. 90 milllion 3. 2 billion 4. 9 billion 1. Which gas is responsible for the greenhouse effect? 1. H2SO4 2. H2O 3. CO 4. CO2 1. How many tons of animal manure does the US generate each year? 1. 900 million 2. 1 billion 3. 1.4 billion 4. 2 billion 1. Which virus is responsible for the decline of the wolf population in Yellowstone Park? 1. Retrovirus 2. Herpesvirus 3. Parvovirus 4. Ebolavirus 2. The belief that natural resources are free and limitless encourages 1. Conservation 2. Preservation 3. Wasteful consumption of them 4. Waste management 1. Which industry exemplifies Hardin’s point about the tragedy of the commons? 1. Car manufacturing 2. International fishing 3. International steel production 4. Clothing manufacturing 1. How many gallons of water does it take to make an automobile? 1. 50, 000 2. 100, 000 3. 150, 000 4. 200, 000 1. How many gallons of rainwater does America use for every 60 returned by nature? 1. 50 2. 65 3. 75 4. 80 1. In a case in Thailand what was worth 75% more when left to provide natural resources rather than be converted into a fish farm? 1. A mangrove swamp 2. A lake 3. A freshwater estuary 4. A scenic pond 1. The Interior...
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...company is known for in the industry, in which the competition has become increasingly fierce. Recently, AWC Inc. is facing a decision regarding the installation of an air treatment system in the welding portion of the plant, as the company’s current pollution control system will no longer comply with the new Ontario’s Environmental Emissions and Occupational Heath and Safety regulations. The cost of the required emissions control system will have a major impact on the company’s overall profit and cash flow, which may jeopardize AWC Inc’s survival under the current recession. This article will examine the past practices and current situation of AWC Inc. using two different frameworks—Bill Gates’ “creative capitalism” and Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” analogy. Using these frameworks the company’s potential alternative solution of is found unethical or less favorable for the long-term competitiveness of the company. Finally, we will develop a paradigm from the ethical framework outlined by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer. This methodology agrees with our suggested solution, which perfectly follows government regulations,...
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...so as to ensure their long-term economic viability. Some people recommend that the state control most natural resources to prevent their destruction and overuse; others recommend that privatizing those resources will solve the problem. The reality is not that simple; the logic of the tragedy of the commons depends on a set of assumptions about human motivation, about the rules of governing the use of the commons, and about the character of the common resource. According to Elinor Ostrom, “neither the state nor the market is uniformly successful in enabling individuals to sustain long-term, productive use of natural resource systems”. This means that there isn’t just “one way” to solve problems concerning common resources. Aristotle observed that “what is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest”. The purpose of this paper is to present what the tragedy of the commons is and the approach of the study of self-governance; also, to give an overview of the commons in modern life. The Tragedy of the Commons Professor Garret Hardin developed this idea in a well-known essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968). He argued that commonly owned and freely accessible resources tend to become depleted when or...
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...Environmental Issues Carissa Gilson Soc 120 introduction to Ethics & Social Responsibility Ms. Soard 8/12/2010 History of environmental ethics: It started in the late 60’s with the publications of Lynn White’s “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” (March1967) and Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (December 1968). These publications and others started the debate into environmental issues. The first thing they needed to do was to decide what” the field of environmental ethics might look like”. There were many philosophers who got into the mix and started writing publications as well. Then in the 1990’s the International Society for Environmental Ethics was founded through the efforts of Laura Westra and Holmes Rolston, III (www.cep.unt.edu/novice). This started today’s various organizations such as Greenpeace, the earth charter initiative, the environmental protection society, friends of the earth to mention just a few. These organizations are designed to create an awareness of today’s environmental issues. Some of the issues we are facing in the future seem to have to do with global warming and its impact on the earth’s environment. The issue here seems to be our use of gas and oil and the need for an alternate energy source. There are so many thoughts as to what should be done in this area; it makes your head spin. I’m all for green technology provided it really works. It is very hard to sort out what green really means to the average person. One...
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