Tragedy of the commons
The parable demonstrates how free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, each of which is motivated to maximize his or her own use of the resource, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those to whom the resource is available (which may be a wider class of individuals than those who are exploiting it).
Like William Lloyd and Thomas Malthus before him, Hardin was primarily interested in population and especially the problem of human population growth. In his essay he also focused more widely on the use of limited resources such as the atmosphere and oceans, as well as pointing out the "negative commons" of pollution (i.e. instead of dealing with the deliberate privatisation of a positive resource, a "negative commons" deals with the deliberate commonisation of a negative cost, pollution).
As a metaphor, the "Tragedy of the commons" should not be taken too literally as defining a concept. The phrase is shorthand for a phenomenon, not an accurate description of it. The "tragedy" should not be seen as tragic in the conventional sense, nor must it be taken as condemnation of the processes that are ascribed to it. Similarly, Hardin's use of "commons" has frequently been misunderstood, leading Hardin to later remark that he should have titled his work, "The Tragedy of the Unregulated Commons".
The "Tragedy of the Commons" has particular relevance in explaining behaviour in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, game theory and sociology. Some also see it as an example of emergent behaviour, with the "tragedy" the outcome of individual interactions in a complex system.
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