29 pages • 58 minutes read
Garrett James HardinThe Tragedy of the Commons
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Critical Context
Hardin’s work has influenced the environmental movement but also has been a lightning rod for criticism.
Some critics lambasted Hardin for grounding his arguments on the unregulated commons: They insisted that many common resources, especially among small, local groups, already are regulated, which resolves many of Hardin’s claims (Cox, Susan Jane Buck. “No tragedy of the commons.” Journal of Environmental Ethics, Spring 1985, vol. 7, pp. 49-61). Their concern is that an overweening central regulator’s legislation would upset carefully worked-out agreements by local communities that already successfully manage their common resources.
The two sides aren’t that far apart, though: Hardin confessed that he should have titled his essay “The Tragedy of the Unregulated Commons” (Hardin, Garrett. “Extensions of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons.’” Science, 1 May 1998, pp. 682-83). His later works address the distinction between regulated and unregulated commons. His 1968 thesis stresses that many resources remain unregulated and need to be protected by enforceable standards to limit misuse; this remains valid on a planetary level, where poisoned air and water and overfished oceans, for example, can adversely affect everyone on Earth.
Since Hardin’s article in 1968, and to some degree because of that article, grassroots environmental movements have pressed governments the world over to take steps to regulate pollution and the overuse of natural resources. It’s an ongoing, incomplete process, and many difficulties remain to be solved. The effort, however, does partially fulfill Hardin’s campaign to regulate the worldwide commons and protect the environment.
Other critics have faulted Hardin for neglecting how demographic shifts in developed countries have lowered birth rates there. However, as Hardin was writing in 1968, he was working with suspect data; it since has become an obvious trend, to the point where industrialized countries with low birth rates—like Japan and Eastern Europe—now struggle to find enough workers among younger generations to pay for their parents’ pensions. This trend has reduced, but not yet eliminated, the worldwide growth rate in human population; Hardin’s general point—that oversized human population puts undue pressure on ecosystems—remains valid.
Ideological Context
When Hardin released his article, environmentalism was a new movement primarily championed by advocates from the left wing of the political spectrum. Hardin, though, had mixed beliefs. In an age when abortion was largely unlawful in the US—deplored on the right, and supported on the left—Hardin favored it because it might help check unfettered population growth.
He also was distinctly critical of an unchecked market wherein businesses pollute or overuse the commons. His advocacy for government regulation of common resources struck a chord with progressives, who tend to favor a strict hand on business activity. In contrast, he also argued for restrictions to welfare and immigration, distinctly right-wing ideas, for their putative effects on population.
In both cases, Hardin’s purpose was to help alleviate population pressure on the world’s ecosystems. Whatever might lead to population reduction Hardin would consider, regardless of its political pedigree.
Hardin’s concerns about immigration and welfare stem from his belief that some public policies inadvertently encourage larger family sizes—for example, he believed that welfare payments motivate under-financed people to raise more kids, and that immigration policies released population pressure in crowded countries by channeling the overflow to more prosperous nations. His argument against large families applies to any group, rich or poor; the ultimate goal is to reduce the chance that human population as a whole will overwhelm Earth’s environment.
Hardin took a stance against a major United Nations policy statement beloved by many or most member nations. Some countries are ruled by one ethnic group that dominates other groups, and these nations’ governments might be tempted to pass laws that limit other ethnic groups’ family sizes. For this reason, the United Nations in 1966 appended to its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights a covenant that guaranteed populations the right to reproduce. This was a pushback against the genocidal tendencies of some dictatorships, but Hardin argues that such a declaration—making freedom of procreation a universal right—can exacerbate overpopulation and its negative environmental impact. Once again, Hardin doesn’t care if his stance offends; his concerns always focus on overpopulation.
Hardin also supported research that postulated IQ differences between various populations, and this strikes many as a case of racial bias. He also says, in “The Tragedy of the Commons,” that
if the children of improvident parents starved to death; if, thus, overbreeding brought its own ‘punishment’ to the germ line—then there would be no public interest in controlling the breeding of families. But our society is committed to the welfare state (Section 6, Paragraph 2).
While his intended assertion may be that a well-intentioned public policy has created a population problem that otherwise wouldn’t exist, his statements plainly imply that poverty results from a person’s lack of foresight, and that this poverty would ideally function as the fatal punishment—or, as he earlier terms it, “negative feedback”—for that ostensible intellectual defect. While Hardin’s point may be to warn about the inadvertent effects of institutional altruism, his supporting arguments indirectly reveal viewpoints that merit serious scrutiny.
Critics have taken these remarks, along with his belief in racial IQ variations and his stance against open immigration, as evidence that Hardin was a racist and white nationalist (Mildenberger, Matto. “The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons.” Scientific American, 23 April 2019). The debate over Hardin and his beliefs continues.
The irony is that Hardin also did much to advance the cause of environmentalism; his theories on population growth and ecological stress are still taught today. Hardin thus is both admired and despised by those whose work to save the world’s ecosystems he supported.
