A Tragic Story of Hope
By Esther Godfrey
Imagine you live in a village with four other people. All four of you share a singular fishpond for food. Now this is a hypothetical scenario, so don’t get too caught up in the logistics of a human surviving solely on fish. In this fishpond, there are 12 fish. In this particular pond, for every pair of fish, a baby fish (fishling if you like) will be produced every night and it will be fully grown by the following midday. To maximise your personal supply of food, how many fish should you catch a day? You might say 3, 4, 8 or even 12 but the real answer is 1. The best way to maximise everyone’s food supply is for each person to take just one fish a day. Let’s break down how this works: if each person takes one fish from the 12, there will be 8 fish left. Each pair within this 8 will reproduce to create 4 fish, leaving 12 fish for the next morning. If anyone villager takes any more than 1 fish a day, the population will not be able to regenerate to its original size and there will eventually be no fish left (i.e., everyone goes hungry). Whilst this may seem like a bizarre hypothetical, showcasing magic fish and greedy malnourished villagers, it highlights a very classic yet contemporary issue, the tragedy of the commons.
The tragedy of the commons was first posed in 1833 by William Forster Lloyd when he wrote on the overgrazing of cattle in shared grassed areas (did someone say thrilling) however it was revived in the 20th century by ecologist Garrett Hardin. Hardin used it as a way to show what happens when many individuals are forced to share limited resources.
These situations pit two steadfast opponents: short term self-interest and long term common good. Whilst it may seem to those catching more fish in the short term that they have the upper hand, they actually are digging their own and all the other villagers graves without even realising. Clean air, fish in our seas and fresh water in our streams are all limited resources that we are forced to share that become polluted and depleted individuals venture for self-interested goals. The key concept in the tragedy of the commons is that it allows any individual to create advantages for themselves whilst also spreading out any disadvantages through the society.
One person may conclude that to feed their family best and stay on top of the other villagers, its in their best interest to catch as many fish as possible. The only problem here is that all of the other villagers will have come to the same conclusion. In this lies our tragedy of the commons. Optimal gains for the self do not equate to optimal gains for all; in fact it isn’t optimal for anyone. Out of our imaginary village there are many applications of the tragedy of the commons. Coal fired power plants create cheap and easy electricity for customers and significant profits for CEOs however in the long term pollution from the mining and processing of coal spreads across the globe and is felt by all. It might be convenient to throw rubbish on the ground rather than walking to a bin; short term this is very convenient but it reduces the livability of our communities significantly in the long run.
The tragedy of the commons is a widespread problem but humans have proven time and time again we have the capability of doing remarkable things. We form agreements for the community, we elect governments, pass laws and sign social contracts. All of this is to save our collective selves from the tragedies of our own individual impulses. We don’t get it right all the time but activism, democracy and social justice have shown that we at our best can solves these problems and find ways to avoid the tragedy in our common grounds.
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