Introduction: What is the tragedy of the commons? As you review this video segment,
try to identify which “common resources” are mentioned.
22:53:17
JOHN STOSSEL
(OC) Finally, we're at the end of our countdown. Myth number one.
Everything is better if we share. How can I say that's a myth? Of
course sharing is good.
GRAPHICS: 1 SHARING IS BETTER
22:53:29
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) Everyone says that.
22:53:31
LOCAL RESIDENT
Society would clearly be better off if we all shared more.
22:53:34
LOCAL RESIDENT
Sharing is everything.
22:53:36
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) But wait a moment. Think about shared public property like public
toilets. They're often gross. Public streets tend to get trashed.
You saw earlier how people litter on public lands. And think about
what you share at work.
22:53:51
JOHN STOSSEL
(OC) This is the refrigerator we share at my office, and look at this
thing. It's disgusting. And look at what's in here. This cottage
cheese expired in October of last year.
22:54:03
PROFESSOR Russell Roberts
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
When something belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one. No one owns
it. There's no incentive to take care of it. It gets abused and
degraded.
22:54:10
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) Russell Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason
University, points out that private property rarely gets abused or
degraded. Private property sounds selfish. Rich people taking
advantage of other people.
22:54:22
PROFESSOR Russell Roberts
But it works a lot better.
22:54:24
JOHN STOSSEL
(OC) Remember that public toilet? Here's a private toilet. They're
common in Europe, and cleaner, because their owners, selfishly seeking
a profit, work at keeping them clean. And why do we have so many
catastrophic forest fires? Well, did you know that most of them are on
government land, land we share? The Feds only own a third of the
forests, but they have most of the forest fires. Private forests are
less likely to burn because the livelihood of greedy timber companies
depends on having healthy trees. But the government, managing land we
all share, is less careful.
22:55:06
JOHN STOSSEL
er tends to stay here.
It's the same reason people over-fish the sea. The ocean's public
property, shared property. So for years, fishermen took all they
could. They had little incentive to make sure enough fish were left to
reproduce. So the supply of these fish has dropped drastically.
Suppose ...
22:55:47
TORI HAIDINGER,
ST. MARGARET'S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL
You are the head of a family that is fed by catching fish.
22:55:51
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) This high school teacher runs an experiment to show her students
that this is just the way people act.
22:55:56
TORI HAIDINGER
Our fish are Hershey's kisses. You will get to eat them.
22:56:00
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) Each table gets a covered beaker of kisses they must share. She
tells the kids, take as many as you want and then pass them on to the
next kid. Any left over will reproduce, just like fish, because the
teacher will double them. What happens?
22:56:15
TORI HAIDINGER
Hold up your beaker. Show us. Nothing.
22:56:21
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) Bad news if the kisses were fish.
22:56:24
TORI HAIDINGER
You have depleted your ponds of their fish. Gone.
22:56:31
STUDENT
I was thinking, you know, I probably should share, but I didn't think
anybody else was sharing, so I took more.
22:56:35
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) Economists call this the tragedy of the commons. Then she changes
the rules. Each kid gets their own private beaker, like a private
pond.
22:56:45
TORI HAIDINGER
What this has actually done is a sense of privatization.
22:56:49
JOHN STOSSEL
(VO) Oh, isn't privatization that evil word? But this time no one
over-fishes. Kids are careful to leave enough in their ponds and new
generations of chocolate kisses are born.
22:57:00
STUDENT
So are you saying that if it's ours, we will care more about it?
22:57:03
TORI HAIDINGER
Yep.