[[Fat-tailed sheep]] in Afghanistan. The "tragedy of the commons" is one way of accounting for [[overexploitation]] - [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fat_tailed_sheep,_Afghanistan,_1976.jpg wikimedia]
The __tragedy of the commons__ describes a situation in economic science when individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use, act independently according to their [[selfishness]] and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action. The concept originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist [[William Forster Lloyd]], who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on [[common land]] (also known as a "common") in [[Great Britain]] and [[Ireland]]. The concept became widely known as the "tragedy of the commons" over a century later after an article written by [[Garrett Hardin]] in 1968 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons wikipedia]
Although open-access resource systems may collapse due to overuse (such as in [[over-fishing]]), many examples have existed and still do exist where members of a community with regulated access to a common resource co-operate to exploit those resources prudently without collapse or even creating [[Perfect Order]]. [[Elinor Ostrom]] was awarded the 2009 [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences]] for demonstrating exactly this concept in her book ''Governing the Commons'', which included examples of how local communities were able to do this without top-down regulations or [[privatization]].
In a modern economic context, "[[commons]]" is taken to mean any open-access and unregulated resource such as the [[Carbon dioxide#In the Earth's atmosphere]], [[Great Pacific garbage patch]], [[river]]s, ocean [[fish stocks]], or even an office refrigerator. In a legal context, it is a type of property that is neither private nor public, but rather held jointly by the members of a community, who govern access and use through social structures, traditions, or formal rules.
The term is used also in [[environmental science]]. The "tragedy of the commons" is often cited in connection with [[sustainable development]], meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the [[Global warming controversy]]. It has also been used in analyzing behavior in the fields of [[economics]], [[evolutionary psychology]], [[anthropology]], [[game theory]], [[politics]], [[taxation]], and [[sociology]].
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