ABSTRACT
Some thirty years ago, Hardin (1968) analysed an ancient parable, ‘the Tragedy of the Commons’. In this a number of herdsmen (in those days, only men had herds) graze their cattle on a commonly shared pasturage. Since no one owns the pasture, it is clearly in each herdsman’s interest to increase the size of the herd that he grazes there because each of his animals represents a potential profit to him. There is a cost attached to grazing the animal, of course, and this can be measured by the damage done to the common pasturage. The cost, though, is a shared one; unlike the profit, which goes directly to the individual, the losses are evenly distributed among all those who graze their herd on the common land.
