The Tragedy of the Commons by Hardin - Article Example

The tragedy of the commons is the idea that society and people seem blindsided by an appeal to the commons as something that is to be had by all, even when the commons that is referred to here, whether food, or land, or the ability of the environment to take in pollution and waste, are finite things. Hardin essentially says that in fact the individual cannot be trusted to work for the common good, and that society, hardwired as it is to treat the commons as something that is unlimited in supply, is in effect perpetually in a course to deplete the commons and to wreak havoc on the very same things that sustain it.

Hardin essentially says that in a world of exploding populations there is less and less room for the notion of the commons as something that can be exploited and used without restraint or conditions. This outdated notion worked when the populations were low and the actions of men individually and collectively had little effect on the quality and availability of those common things, in the same way, that adding a pinch of salt to a glass of water would not alter the taste of the water substantially, but adding more and more salt would eventually change the character of the water and its taste fundamentally.

This is the same with the commons and the way the commons has been conceived and abused by society. This old notion of the inexhaustible nature of the commons must go, according to Hardin. Already he says, there have been curbs set in place with regard to the land and the tilling and grazing of the land; in the disposal of waste; in the indulgence of pleasure; and in those other areas where freedom has to be redefined in the way people make use of the things that they traditionally considered to be free and unfettered, as more and more people occupy the same space and make the space denser.

The next thing to go, Hardin says, is the unfettered freedom to breed, which on its own will not be corrected, given the way society values family and breeding as something sacred and untouchable, and the foundation of society. This is gist is the tragedy of the commons for which no technical solutions suffice (Hardin). Hardin’s tragedy of the commons position is compelling and lends itself to being used to yield some insights into the present realities of social life. His insights into the tragedy of treating the ecosystem as something to which man has unfettered right of exploitation is something that has bred arguably the current problems with the environment, and in particular global warming, the depletion of the food stocks in the oceans, the rush to exploit new frontiers for oil and gas to feed the growing economies of the world, and the problems attendant to the air pollution and other forms of pollution that have come to hound all of humanity.

At present too, one can see that the disparities between rich and poor countries in terms of consumption and share of the world’s wealth has bred the kinds of problems tied to that, including the rich nations having access to more resources, and contributing their equivalent larger share of the pollution and problems of the world, while the rest of the world suffers from want. The tragedy of the commons here is in full display, in areas where some countries breed without pause while not having sufficient resources to support that growing population, even as rich nations get their inordinate share of the world’s goods (Hardin).