In 1968, Garrett Hardin wrote a highly influential article titled “The Tragedy of the Commons,” in which he examined the problems that inherently arise when property is owned “in common.” Hardin tells the story of a pasture shared by a number of herdsmen:
As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, “What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?” This utility has one negative and one positive component….
Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another…. But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit–in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
A few weeks ago, the Houston Chronicle repeated this refrain in an article titled “When polluting is in a company’s rational self-interest.” In the aftermath of Harvey, the chemical company Arkema suffered a series of explosions at its facility near Crosby. Those explosions released chemicals that sickened first responders.
Public officials allege that, having had ample warning about the approaching storm, the company could’ve taken measures to neutralize the dangers before everything went so terribly wrong. Arkema strongly disagrees, saying it took every possible precaution — but if Harris County is right, it wouldn’t be the first time a company weighed the benefits of doing the right thing and decided they didn’t outweigh the potential costs.
In the article, Hardin proposed two possible solutions: privatization and government regulation.
But Hardin rejected privatization because air and water cannot be easily fenced, implying that fencing, or enclosure, is the only way to establish property rights. Hardin concluded that air and water have been, are, and always will be a part of the commons. While acknowledging the life-sustaining benefits of recognizing property rights, he claimed that “our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.” A factory owner, for example, would find no economic benefit to treat his waste, and would simply dump it into the nearby river.
Hardin concluded that the only solution to pollution is “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.” In other words, we will actually benefit if we are forced to act contrary to our own independent judgment; we will be better off if we are compelled to put aside our self-interest.
While it is true that air and water cannot be fenced, property rights can be applied to air and water. In my next post, we will examine how this can be accomplished.