Tragedy of the Commons

Abstracted from "peer-to-peer: harnessing the power of the disruptive technologies"

Biologist Garrett Hardin labeled this economic plight the "tragedy of the commons". The "commons" (originally a grazing area in the middle of a village) is any resource shared by a group of people: it includes the air we breathe, the water we drink, land for farming and grazing, and fish from the sea. The tragedy of the commons is that a commonly owned resource will be overused until it is degraded, as all agents pursue self-interest first. Freedom in a ommons brings ruin to all; in the end, the resource is exhausted.