Beyond The Tragedy Of The Commons

This chapter describes the feasibility and challenge of moving beyond "The Tragedy of the Commons". It discusses—who are inexorably led to overuse their common pasture—as an allegory for common-pool resources (CPRs) not owned privately or by a government. CPRs are normally used by multiple individuals and generate finite quantities of resource units where one person's use subtracts from the quantity of resource units available to others. If the experimental subjects are enabled to sit in a circle talking about the puzzle in a face-to-face group, they usually develop trust and reciprocity. Further, many smaller groups that use CPRs—inshore fisheries, forests, irrigation systems, and pastures—have developed a diversity of norms and rules that have enabled them to solve problems of overharvesting. While some self-governed CPR systems are capable of surviving long periods of time, others falter and fail. After an extensive search and study, no specific set of rules was found to be associated with long-surviving CPR institutions.