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THE TRAGEDY AND COMEDY OF THE COMMONS 153
Environmental problems
as tragedies of the commons
The above tale is about far more things than would seem at first reading. It is
actually a variant on the famous parable of the tragedy of the commons.’ The
model can be applied to a broad spectrum of phenomena. Let us leave pasture,
cows and farmers, and look at the problem at a more abstract and general level.
What does the story boil down to? We have a common (natural) good freely
available to us.” We use it more and more in rivalry with each other till it becomes
overused, leading to the deterioration of the quality of our common (natural)
good, then its demise and eventually social tragedy. The model has two key
premises: (1) there is free access to the pasture; (2) the herdsmen are motivated by
short-term self-interest. When both postulates apply, the story inevitably ends in
tragedy.
The original parable was also about an environmental problem, but the pasture
can easily be replaced by the game or wood stocks of the forests, the fish stock of
the oceans, the water of the rivers, the atmosphere of the earth, etc. (e.g. Ostrom
et al. 1999; Gardner — Stern 2002). (This means that the common natural goods
comprise not only “natural resources” but also “natural devourers”, the recipients
— including the atmosphere — of our contamination, waste, and pollution.) We
have to put ourselves in the cattle farmers’ shoes. Importantly, it concerns not
only individuals, but also groups, people or organizations (e.g. companies and
governments). The parable can therefore be applied to innumerable environmental
problems from the local to the global level. It applies to all environmental problems
in which a natural resource or a natural devourer is freely accessible, that is, it is
not owned by anyone (or the proprietary rights cannot be asserted, or only with
great difficulties), or again, when there is rivalry among the users and one actor’s
activity decreases the chances of the rest (Ostrom et al. 1999). In light of the
above, nearly all environmental problems have an aspect of the commons (Dietz
et al. 2002).4
? The model of the tragedy of the commons was first proposed by mathematical amateur W. F.
Lloyd, but today it is mainly associated with Garrett Hardin, who revived it in his famous article
(Hardin 1968) (see also Hardin 1994; 1998). In Hungary, the model was made widely known by
Elemér Hankiss (Hankiss 1979). In terms of game theory, it is generally described as a prisoner's
dilemma of many actors in which those involved always choose rivalry instead of cooperation
(Méré 1996). There are, however, other possible game theory approaches to the tragedy of the
commons, too (Dietz et al. 2002).
The term “tragedy of the commons” is misleading. It would be more accurate to say “tragedy of
freely accessible pastures”. “The commons” can be taken as a freely accessible pasture but it may
equally be a pasture owned and groomed by a human community or, for that matter, by the state.
Below it will be seen that one possible way to prevent the “tragedy of the commons’ is the regulation
of the use of the “common pasture” by a government or a (small) community, who devise certain
institutions for the control of access. Yet, as the “tragedy of the commons” is a time-tested phrase,
I also use it. (The Hungarian saying , közös lónak túrós a háta" (literally, a common horse has a
sore back) is inaccurate and misleading; actually, the freely accessible horse fares badly, while one
owned by a collective (or the state) does not necessarily suffer from common usage).
In his above-mentioned classic article (Hardin 1968), Hardin focused on one of the main causes
of the environmental problems, overpopulation, and not on the ecological problems themselves.
The analogy can thus be applied to the population as well, although not accurately, on two counts.