The TRAGEDY
of the COMMONS
and other matters
A Tribute to Garrett Hardin by Val Stevens
neat to argue from the perspective of the medieval village community and its grazing land,
wherein an obvious need for restraint over stocking levels must be observed by all users if the
collapse of that vital amenity was to be avoided.
It is then but a short step for the reader to grasp
its significance in relation to today’s global commons of the oceans, forests and air.
Garrett Hardin was one of the early environmental
movement’s great inspirational figures. An
American, born in 1915, he contributed so many
seminal insights. Indeed, nearly every book I read
during the 70s, 80s and 90s quoted something
that was his.
Early in his career he set the innovative and
often controversial tone that was to characterise his writing. ‘The Economics of Wilderness’
was a work that flew in the face of contemporary, populist, egalitarian reasoning which, at
that time, was arguing that wilderness should
be made accessible to all, including the weak
and disabled – in other words, by motor vehicle
and a network of access roads. Yet Hardin was
himself physically handicapped.
When environmentalists offered technical solutions to waste and pollution, such as increased
recycling, or lean-burn motor engines, or alternative energy sources, Hardin could agree they
were good ideas, good ways to provide present
populations with modern amenities without further high levels of damage to the Earth; but he
would add: ‘And then what?’ Meaning – when
all that has been achieved and there are twice
as many people wanting those things, what else
do you have to do?
In another essay, ‘Living on a Lifeboat’, a work
stressing the finite nature of the world, he
unflinchingly tackled taboo ethical issues of the
sort that politically correct elites shunned. It was
a course that led him to be pilloried by the far
left and the religious right and even by many
calling themselves environmentalists. What
Hardin was doing was posing – with the greatest clarity – the stark choices that face humanity.
But society’s response, all too often, was that he
was racist, or fascist, or uncaring about human
dignity.
He coined the word longage, as in ‘The problem is not so much a shortage of vital minerals/water/land etc. but a longage of people’.
And today we can agree that few of the environmental crises we face would exist if it wasn’t for
the huge increase in human numbers since the
1950s (alongside the great, though not evenly
distributed, increases in individual consumption).
Hardin was a teacher and scientist at the
University of California (Santa Barbara). He
was president of the Pacific Division of the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS) and also involved with CAPS
– Californians for Population Stabilisation and
But the title of his major analysis of competitive consumption, and the work by which he is
mainly revered, has been ‘The Tragedy of the
Commons’, published in 1968. It, along with
many of his titles and phrases, has entered the
vocabulary of green activists. It was wonderfully
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From The Jackdaw, Issue No 17, August 2010
The Tragedy of the Commons, a tribute to Garrett Hardin – continued
CCN – Carrying Capacity Network. 1993 saw
the publication of his book ‘Living within Limits’
and around this time the editors of the greatly
esteemed journal ‘Science’ announced that
Hardin’s paper ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’
had been reprinted more times than any other
piece in the history of that publication.
Hardin and his wife, Jane, both in poor health,
took their own lives. I presume that they felt this
was an act of generosity to the overburdened
earth, when they had reached an age when they
could not contribute as much as they desired
to humanity’s future. What a supreme act of
integrity and courage.
In writing this review I am indebted to Tim Murray’s kindness in sending me a tribute to Hardin
written by his friend Leon Kolankiewicz, a lifelong wilderness devotee, scientist, and admirer of
Hardin. The full tribute can be found on the website of the Garrett Hardin Society, where ‘The
Tragedy of the Commons’ and other works can be viewed: www.garretthardinsociety.org
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From The Jackdaw, Issue No 17, August 2010