Tragedy of the Commons

The tragedy of the commons is a situation in which individuals acting in their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all others by depleting or spoiling a shared resource through their collective action. The phenomenon was first described by the British economist William Forster Lloyd in 1833. Lloyd observed that because grazing on the commons (fields that were open to anyone) was free, the land was spoiled, which diminished the value of the fields for everyone. Can you think of a free resource that’s possibly subject to the same tragedy? Sharks might!

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COLLABORATORS
Script: Jonas Koblin
Artist: Pascal Gaggelli
Voice: Mithril
Coloring: Nalin
Editing: Peera Lertsukittipongsa
Head of Partnership Program: Selina Bador
Production: Morgan Lizop, Bianka
Proofreading: Susan
Sound Design: Miguel Ojeda
Classroom exercise: Morgan Lizop

SOUNDTRACKS
Toys Are Alive - Studio Le Bus
Terror Avenue - Jack Pierce

DIG DEEPER with these resources:
Bruce Yandle talks about the tragedy of the commons and the ways that people have avoided the overuse of resources that are held in common. Examples discussed in this econtalk include fisheries, roads, rivers and the air.
Learn about carbon tax as a solution for polluting the air and reducing carbon emissions. Carbon taxes are intended to make visible the "hidden" social costs of carbon emissions, which are otherwise felt only in indirect ways like more severe weather events.

SOURCES
Tragedy of the commons

Plastics in ocean

Swiss alps law

Age of Humans

Age of Sharks

Homework assignment

CLASSROOM EXERCISE
Don’t Kill The Rabbit! To experience the tragedy of the commons first hand, here is a group game.

The game has four elements:
A circle = the commons
Participants = farmers
Carrots = food
Rabbits = animals to be fed

Getting started:
Choose a number of people (say 5) to do this exercise with.
On an erasable board, draw a circle, then draw carrots in it (say 20).
Give each participant a secret note with a number on it (say: 1, 3, 1, 1, 4). This number represents how many rabbits each participant has to feed. Each rabbit needs to eat at least one carrot per round to stay alive.
Ask participants, one after the other, to take as many carrots from the circle as they want. At the end of the round, double the amount of all the carrots that are left.
Then continue to play round after round until all carrots are gone and the first rabbit dies.

The first time you do this, make sure you have exactly twice as many carrots as there are rabbits to feed so that if everyone picks just what they need (the carrots are replenished). What do you observe? Are the commons being depleted and do the rabbits die?

Try to do this again with a different number of carrots, letting participants tell each other how many rabbits they are feeding, or with settings we haven’t thought of. Let us know what you observe in the comments below.

Chapter
00:00 Introduction
00:47 Tragedy of the Commons theory
01:31 Social Norms
02:01 Privatization
02:33 State Regulation
03:50 What do you think?
04:15 Ending

[farcamp]

This theory appears to be relevant to many more spheres than the physical world…it’s positive and negative aspects can be applied to cultures, societies and personal interactions.

[rvignesh]

I don't know why but I read it as Tragedy of Condoms 😭😭

AND the thumbnail isn't helping either! 😜

[bboyneon]

This is the way.
Ideally.
In theory, this approach seems almost flawless. But, privatization and government have to regulate with public interest and also, regularly enforce them.

Which they don't seem to be inclined to do as their profit design is based on numbers and exploitation. Not, the sustainable way because it doesn't yield the profits.

[EonWhite]

Tragedy of commons.
I did not know this had a term.
I have been pondering about this issue for so long.
I’m glad that I finally have a term for this issue.
Thanks for sharing good knowledge such as this.

[nataliel]

I don’t agree with this video. It feels very inept at advising us how to move forward. We need to reduce the production of these goods and privatization is not the solution. Instead of creating punishments for making people take care of nature we should be supporting people and nature with our wallet. Yes we need to clean the ocean but single use bottles shouldn’t be produced. We can do what we did for millennia. Carry our own drinking vessle and have it filled. Our germiphobia does not merrit having stuipid single use bottles. Additionally if private land is going to make the person who own it pay for the damage they do and they are ignorant to the damage this helps no one at all especially the animals that should be able to roam free on that land but since it’s privatized the human thinks they should be the sole resident. No

[aaronscrivener]

Save The Oceans Before it's Too late 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

[justinboggin]

The problem here is there are malicious actors and they cannot be coerced. You included China in your animation for international agreement. A significant amount of the plastic is there because of China. Many places pay China to take plastics for recycling. The contracts state that China must recycle this plastic. They do not. They just dump it in the ocean. Now these places that were paying China to take the plastics don't have the local facilities to recycle because they assumed China was properly honoring the contract. There is no way to coerce China to honor these contracts.

A great deal of our supply chain relies on plastic containers. Restricting how many we make will lead to shortages elsewhere. Notably with food. Food shortages on top of the issues caused by the pandemic and extremist governors of major ports (one policy by Newsom is why we had the giant buildup of ships waiting outside Cali) would cause major societal instability.

[svetkopetko]

ok, but why everyone is always concerned about the plastic bags and no one ever mentions plastic TOYS??? look at any 1 household with children and you will find toys equal in weight with the plastic bags of of the whole neighborhood for at least 5 years! the plastic toy is the most disregarded danger from absolutely any perspective - it pollutes, it messes up children psychologically, sometimes it's a danger even physically, it over clutters house space, it depletes budget, it serves as a substitute for parenting and in general makes the whole family look (at the least) stupid.

[kaputfretudy]

Falls apart when private owners 'lobby' (legally bribe) regulators not to regulate.

[freesk]

The Tragedy of the Commons is a type of Prisoners' Dilemma from Game Theory.

[EonWhite]

So in short:
Tragedy of commons is bad.
Creative commons is great.

[Meme-Republic]

Solution? Destroy Humanity, of course.

[wortgeschepper]

Privatization made things worse for us! I think we need to go back to a democratic based economy, where everyone gets involved about shared ressources in their local area. So the needs are considered of people affected by.

[randallcraft]

American Liberals say this is fake american conservatives say its too real. Alot of the issues the Can/US and the UK have with this other countries dont, i wonder if this has to do with our individualism mindset being higher than our idea of communalism

[floridaman]

Government intervention always sounds like a good idea until it becomes a bloated, bureaucratic mess and ends up being one of the worst you can think of

[nyk]

how much DOES it cost to clean up after a business and what do you do when they go to somewhere else without the fees?

[vtbn]

That's it! Punish the innocent - oh wait! Question, if all of my plastic goes into my recycle bin, how does it end up in the ocean?

[tosreturns]

"We humans, " not "us humans."

Sharks have been here longer than trees.

[christophergardiner]

The last two things that should have been mentioned is making sure that the policy (whether creating awareness, privatization, or regulation) is based on doing good rather than feeling good, and practicality rather than the ideal.

[OLDCHEMIST]

Some ways to restrict pollution by plastics: encourage the development of bacteria that can break down plastics under certain conditions and make those who deal with waste plastic use them in to consume the waste; tax plastic production to get people to use other things like wood and paper that are easily biodegradable at the end of their useful existence; get people to use reusable plastics only and phase out plastics that burn when you attempt to melt them. To work, plastics must be integrated into natural cycles so that they can be decomposed and not clog up the environment.