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This is called the tragedy of the commons.
by blauditore 6y ago
This is called the tragedy of the commons.
- sharker8 6y agoEconomists have many choices when their models break: they can go poetic "tragedy of the commons", technical "externalities", John Nash "prisoner's dilemma", or even sort of nonsensical "internalizing externalities".
- pnutjam 6y agoSkience is like that, we should stick with science.
- pvaldes 6y agoNope. Tragedy of commons means that everybody share a legit right over resources but management fails. This is invasion, burn and plunder by a third part (one that does not necessarily has a legit right over the resource) while the commons are sleeping. Totally different situation.
- hansvm 6y agoI've never heard that definition of "tragedy of the commons." Rather, I've always seen it used to describe a situation where everyone would benefit if everyone took one action, but individually the incentive structure is to do the opposite -- effectively you're able to get the things you want for minimal personal cost and with large external costs. It very explicitly applies to shared resources like fisheries, and it crops up in much more mundane scenarios too. E.g., when water costs are split between multiple apartments you can pay peanuts for nearly unrestricted personal water use by offloading most of the costs to everyone else.
- pvaldes 6y ago> I've never heard that definition of "tragedy of the commons." Is a simplification, but the idea that I wanted to stress is that everybody in a "tragedy of the commons" case has some kind of legal rights to exploit the shared resource. Pirate fishing doesn't has rights over the resource. Is an illegal activity, parallel to the legal quotes, that boycotts any measures taken for a sustainable management.
- hansvm 6y agoI definitely misread your comment as saying that it's only tragedy of the commons if piracy and whatnot are involved; sorry about that.