The Tragedy of the Non-Commons

“The Tragedy of the Commons”, a paper published by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, is arguably one of the most influential ecology publications of all times. Its central claim is that ‘commons’ — which Hardin equates with open, unregulated access — inevitably result in environmental destruction, with each individual stakeholder maximising their own (short-term) gains but destroying the shared public good in the process. The Tragedy of the Commons thesis has been thoroughly debunked by Nobel prize winning development economist <a href="https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/5887/tragedy%20of%20the%20commons%20_%20Th...pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Elinor Ostrom</a> and countless other researchers and practitioners; they have shown that, in fact, most commons like grazing lands and water supply are not open access regimes but managed very successfully through community institutions and local access rules. Nevertheless, as <a href="https://twitter.com/jaredmargulies/status/1560704522963587072?s=20&t=lsfwpTC0mPOn39RNzmmc6w" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter again discussed recently</a>, the Tragedy of the Commons continues to be taught in Environmental Science and a Ecology classes as a “given”, and continues to shape environment and development thinking and policy, legitimising land appropriation and privatisation at ever growing scale. <a href="https://medium.com/@p.vonhellermann/the-tragedy-of-the-non-commons-4bfad884cdbe">Read More</a>