AboutDan Smith Expertise I have been a professional writer and editor for more than 30 years, taught speech and English composition at the university level, and have developed speech and English composition courses and seminars for businesses. I am experienced in editing a wide variety of materials, especially business, scientific, and other academic papers. I am familiar with all the major style guides.
Experience I have edited any number of graduate papers and other technical materials in such advanced fields as civil and electrical engineering and semiconductor fabrication. I have extensive experience in working with non-native English speakers.
Expert: Dan Smith Date: 2/2/2008 Subject: Writting a paper
Question Hi,
I have a paper that is due and i don't know how to get started. The essay that i have to read is called The tragedy of the commons written by Garret Hardin. I tried to read and understand what the author is trying to imply, but the text was to hard for my comprehension. As i was reading, i couldn't really understand what he means by the tragedy of the common and also what he means by the commons. I tried to focus throughout the essay to try to figure out what his (Hardin's) understanding on freedom and responsibility was, and how the "tragedy of the commons" can be avoided. The last thing i was trying to do was to find out what Hardin is trying to prescribe. The place where you can find the essay is http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html
If you can help me out with those 3 questions, It would be a great contribution to helping me get started on my paper. Please help me... Because I tried to understand but i really couldn't.
thanks so very much!!!
Answer I am already familiar with the concept, though I am not certain I have read this essay. But here is an explanation. I'll number things out to try to make it clear.
1. A commons is any resource that does not have a particular owner but that is shared by all members of a community. It is a resource held in common. Examples of such resources are "free range" in which any member of the community can graze cattle; the air we breath, and ocean fisheries.
2. The tragedy arises because everyone who uses such commonly held resources will try to maximize their own advantage. Thus, cattle ranchers will put as many cattle as they can on the common range. When everyone does that the range will be overgrazed and cease to be useful. After a time, no one will be able to graze any cattle on the range. The air as a "commons" is affected a bit differently. If everyone who has an industrial plant or a car takes the view that the small amount of pollution they add to the air has a negligible effect, the total effect of everyone's pollution is catastrophic. We all wind up breathing dirty air and getting sick from it. In the case of ocean fisheries, no one fishing boat "owns" the fish. So all the fishing boats seek to catch as many fish as they can. The result will be that fisheries are overfished and will collapse. This really happens, and every major ocean fishery in the world is in serious decline as a result. The cod fishery off the coast of New England collapsed completely. The great whales were harvested nearly into extinction.
3. The only way to prevent such overuse of commonly held resources is through law and regulation. It can imposed by governments or it can be agreed upon by those who use the resource. In the case of cattle on free range, the cattle raisers have to agree on the total number of cattle that can be raised on a particular range and negotiate among themselves regarding who gets to put how many cattle on each plot. In the case of the air, government is the logical choice to see that all who emit pollutants into the air do so at rates that will not leave us with polluted air. And in the case of fisheries, scientists have to discover how large the total harvest can be without destroying the stock and allocate a portion of the catch to each fishing boat.
Such rules must be enforced fairly and stringently. The tragedy results when some or all of the users fail to recognize the need to restrain their individual use of the resource. The fundamental concept is that responsibility entails restraining oneself from grabbing as much as one can.
