Hah! It's SO ironic in this case. :) My hyperbolic-seeming opening line was actually emphasizing that it's not even hyperbole. AND I CAN'T EDIT to emphasize th

Hah! It's SO ironic in this case. :) My hyperbolic-seeming opening line was actually emphasizing that it's not even hyperbole. AND I CAN'T EDIT to emphasize that I was NOT being sarcastic! (I realize now people probably guessed I was sarcastic when I was actually sincere). The classic models of economics really are that bad, no exaggeration. The post I was replying to was both correct and truly understated. I think the tragedy of the commons is just an example of a whole class of similar phenomena that exist and that classic economic models ignore. And you're plainly right about the "mass psychology" macro-level stuff, but that's also not the whole picture. The core issue is that macro level phenomena are real. So much economics today actually claims that macro is nothing more than aggregate micro (and they get micro wrong too, with simplistic understanding of psychology when considered at all and so much else). I heard this analogy from a friend (don't know the original source though): assuming we can understand macro by studying micro is like saying we can understand the behavior of a gas by simply tracking the isolated locations and movements of single molecules!