Tragedy of the commons

The "Tragedy of the Commons" is a metaphor which should not be taken too literally as defining the concept. The phrase is a shorthand for a phenomenon, not an accurate description of it. Hardin himself said that he used the word "tragedy" in the sense that the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead used it: "the remorseless working of things". 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.

In the course of his essay, Hardin develops the theme, drawing in examples of latter day "commons", such as the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, National Parks, advertising and even parking meters. A major theme running throughout the essay is the growth of human population, with the Earth's resources being a general commons.

Hardin draws attention to problems that cannot be solved by technical means (i.e. as opposed to those problems with solutions that require "a change only in techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality"). Hardin contends that this class of problems includes those raised by human population growth and the use of the Earth's natural resources.

To make the case for no "technical solutions", Hardin notes the limits placed on the availability of energy (and material resources) on Earth, and also the consequences of these limits for "quality of life". To maximize population, one needs to minimize resources spent on anything other that simple survival, and vice versa. Consequently, he concludes that there is no foreseeable technical solution to increasing both human populations and their standard of living on a finite planet.