Hardin, Garrett.  1968.  The Tragedy of the Commons.  Science, Vol. 162.  6 pp.    

Subtitle:  The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

Here are the first two paragraphs of this important paper:

"At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York... concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security.  It is our considered professional judgement that this dilemma has no technical solution.  If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation."

I would like to focus your attention not on the subject of the article (national security in a nuclear world) but on the kind of conclusion they reached, namely that there is no technical solution to the problem.  An implicit and almost universal assumption of discussions published in professional and semipopular scientific journals is that the prolem under discussin has a technical solution.  A technical solution may be defined as one that requries a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way change in human values or ideas of morality."



The "tragedy" referred to is such because 'what belongs to everyone belongs to no one' (the commons), therefore the result of commons, with no moral basis, is its degradation and ultimate loss.   Hardin uses the analogy of the traditional 'commons' of livestock grazing, and how anyone who unilaterally reduces his/her grazing pressure, i.e., the number of animals grazing, out of a sense of responsibility, this only sacrifices his/her own share, and can encourage abuse of the grazing resource by others.  On the central topic in the paper of human overpopulation, the "invisible hand" described by Adam Smith acting on behalf of the 'commons' of world population growth is debunked, and appeals to a moral conclusion on how humans should manage population, since there is no technical solution.

It has been argued since Hardin published this paper that he is in fact calling for the end of "commons", but this not the case at all.  Calling for an extension of morals clearly demonstrates his support of the concept of the commons.  Rather, he is calling for a better means of sharing the commons for the benefit of all, and "all" goes far beyond mere human concerns.   The concept of the commons can easily be extended to many current crises, such as climate warming, loss of habitat, wars for resources, overfishing of the world's oceans, and on and on.    

The principles stated in this paper have applications in many fields, hence the wide range of Areas of Focus, and therefore this is a very worthwhile paper.  It is available for a fee from Science.org, but you can get it at your library, probably for a lot less, or you can find it free in other places on the Web.  In any case, it is worth finding, reading, and applying to many aspects of our movement.