Uncommon Tragedy.
Robin Cox
In 1986, the journal Science published an article by American biologist, Garrett Hardin, entitled 'The Tragedy of the Commons'. Its central argument, as Feeny et al put it, has since become 'part of the conventional wisdom in environmental studies, resource science and policy, economics, ecology and political science' ( Human Ecology Vol. 18 No. 1 1990 p.2).
Hardin was concerned with the sustainable use of 'common-property resources'(CPRs). There are two important (and related) characteristics of CPRs. 'Excludability' is the degree to which one is able to control access to any resource. (The earth's atmosphere and oceans represent extreme examples of non-excludable resources.) 'Subtractability' is the degree to which one user, by exploiting a particular resource, adversely affects the ability of other users to do likewise and hence subtracts from their welfare. This underscores the finite nature of such resources and points to the need to regulate their use. Hence CPRs are a 'class of resources for which exclusion is difficult and joint use involves subtractability' (Feeny et al, p.4.) Hardin sets out to demonstrate the implications that different systems of property rights had for the sustainable use of CPRs. As the title of his article suggest, his main concern was with a system in which these resources were held in common.
Hardin gave the example of a rangeland on which a population of herdsmen were able to graze their cattle without restriction. While the benefits of adding a head of cattle to his herd would accrue to the individual herdsman alone, the environmental costs of this decision would be shared by every herdsman. Thus, from the individual's viewpoint, these costs would be largely 'externalised'. That would encourage him as a rational economic actor to increase his herd still further - and thereby become richer - since the benefits of doing so would outweigh the costs this entailed. The problem is that every other herdsman would be inclined to do the same and thus, ultimately, the combined effect of their actions would be to increase the number of cattle on the commons beyond its carrying capacity.
Common ownership of the rangeland will lead ineluctably to a 'tragedy', according to Hardin. 'Tragedy' in this context is rather like how one might describe a Greek play; the herdsmen are all too aware of the disaster unfolding before them yet are locked into a particular logic that prevents them from doing anything about it. For Hardin, this logic is grounded in the common ownership of the rangeland. The point that private ownership of the cattle, and the competitive struggle to increase herd size, might be implicated in this scenario seemingly escaped his notice. Without this would such a tragedy occur?
Economists assume that the solution to this problem has to be imposed from outside (for example, by a state) upon the individuals involved. One approach is to keep the communal ownership property rights but introduce measures such as cattle taxes or quotas to force herdsmen to reduce their stocking rates. Critics say this approach is inherently limited, since state authorities concerned mainly with retaining political power are likely to compromise on taking harsh measures to avert ecological collapse. An alternative approach, favoured by Hardin, is to enclose or privatise the commons. Private ownership, goes the argument, by applying the principle of exclusion, would compel the individual herdsman to bear the full costs of any decision to increase his herd thus inducing him to maintain a sustainable stocking rate on his plot. It would also provide an incentive to upgrade pasture because the benefits would be enjoyed exclusively by the herdsman. Both approaches assume that there is no possibility of an 'endogenous' or internal solution to the 'tragedy of the commons', and on this point the theory is coming under increasing fire.
A new approach emphasising the adaptive capacities of local communities in the face of environmental pressures has lately been gaining ground. A leading exponent of this is Carlisle Ford Runge who presents a cogent critique of Hardin's theory in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (Nov 1981). Runge questions its basic assumptions on both theoretical and empirical grounds:
'First, it does not distinguish between situations of open access (in which the main difficulty is unrestricted entry) and those of common property. This view implies the inevitable over-exploitation of common property, a historically false position. Secondly, it treats the common property externality as if each individual's choices are independent of their expectations of others' choices. Thus, cost functions of each cattle owner are assumed separable in their arguments. Third, and most important, because individuals are assumed to act independently, the property rights paradigm abstracts from the crucial problem of each person's uncertainty about the actions of others' (p.596).
In fact, wherever a commons existed it was usually associated with a complex pattern of institutional rules governing a distinct community of users; unregulated open access regimes are more typical of sparsely populated frontier zones. As John Reader puts it: 'access to the commons was restricted by entitlement; use was regulated to ensure that no individual could purse his own interest to the detriment of others. Far from bringing ruin to all, the true commons functioned to keep its exploitation within sustainable limits.' ( New Scientist 8 September 1988 p.51). There are numerous examples that bear this out, from the traditional Japanese village to Turkish coastal fisheries. Many contemporary examples have been in existence for hundreds of years, and the very persistence of the commons as an institution testifies to its inherent stability.
Within existing pastoral societies mutual assurance is achieved through the institutionalisation of rules that allow herders to adapt their behaviour in the light of the expected behaviour of others. Once these are established, herders have a vested interest in maintaining such rules through the exercise of moral sanctions because of the high opportunity costs involved in finding an alternative. Group size may be an important consideration here insofar as it affects the transmission of information within, and the cohesiveness of, the group concerned.
The gradual demise of the commons in Britain from the 15th century onwards was not the result of its decline into ecological ruin; it was the deliberate result of the state's policy of land enclosure to meet the agricultural capitalists' demand for more land. In the colonial era, conservationist arguments were often used to justify the appropriation of other people's land. Communal tenure was dismissed as 'primitive' and 'unscientific' and conducive to poor economic performance as well as environmental deterioration. These attitudes continued to inform the policies of many post-colonial regimes. As Vink and Kassier point out, there are 'numerous examples of livestock development projects in sub-Saharan Africa which have, implicitly or explicitly, been justified on the basis of the tragedy of the commons hypothesis' ( South African Journal of Economics no.2 1987 p.167). But projects which have sought to substitute private for communal tenure have been characterised by a 'pervading sense of failure'.
The undermining of communal institutions in the Sahel and Southern Africa has led to increased overgrazing (Runge op cit p.596). Land enclosures in drought-prone semi-arid areas pre-empt the application of traditional risk-avoidance grazing strategies involving the movement of cattle to less vulnerable areas (transhumance). Moreover the commercialisation of agriculture accompanying the spread of private tenure tends to make the rancher ever more vulnerable to the vagaries of the market. So while, in theory, private tenure may induce him to maintain sustainable stocking rates by internalising his environmental costs, economic pressures often force him to disregard these costs to ensure short term viability.
The introduction of private tenure does not necessarily result in greater productivity. Much depends on the production potential of the land itself. In a country like Mali where large tracts of communal land still remain, the production of livestock per unit area 'compares favourably with that in similar rainfall regimes in the USA or Australia' (Vink and Kassier op cit p.168). While the capital-intensive model of farming typical of the developed world may be highly productive, it is also extremely costly and often heavily subsidised. Attempts to imitate this model in Third World countries have often proved disastrous. But just occasionally, when political pressures have forced a reversal of this 'big farmer bias', the results have been quite startling. In Zimbabwe, following independence, the Communal Areas - amounting to only 42% of the total area and mainly situated in the more ecologically marginal zone - increased their share of the country's marketed grain and cotton from less than 10% before independence to about 50% in 1985/86. Whatever else this proves, it conclusively demonstrates that communal tenure and the absence of a land market is no obstacle to increased productivity.
The social consequences of land enclosures have almost always proved calamitous. While some may benefit - usually government officials and multinational corporations - the high transaction and enforcement costs (such as stock proof fencing) preclude most from participation in such schemes. The result is large-scale land evictions, increased inequality and rising discontent. The small yeoman farmers evicted by the Enclosure Acts in Britain had little option but to migrate to the towns where there was at least a reasonable prospect of employment. In much of the Third World today, however, the situation is markedly different. Urban employment opportunities are few and far between and are declining further under the impact of structural adjustment policies. Many of those displaced by land enclosures tend to end up in the more ecologically fragile areas which are subsequently degraded by this influx of poor and desperate people.
Despite his advocacy of private tenure, it would be wrong to characterised Hardin as an inflexible apologist for this cause. Indeed , he recognises its limitations particularly where it concerns other kinds of CPRs where - unlike his example of a rangeland - the problem of excludability precludes such an approach. Unlike those enthusiasts of the free market, who naïvely seek to extend the principle of private property beyond even these limits, Hardin recognised very well the adverse consequences this would entail.
As he put it, 'the air and the waters surrounding us cannot be so readily fenced'. That being so, the tragedy of the commons reappears in another form - as pollution - when a 'rational man finds that his share of the costs of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the costs of purifying his wastes before releasing them'. Even where privatisation on a limited scale could be introduced the basic problem would remain: 'The owner of a factory on the bank of a stream - whose property extends to the middle of the stream - often has difficulty seeing why its is not his natural right to muddy the waters flowing past his door'.
For Hardin, the solution to this kind of problem necessarily entailed some infringement on the rights of property owners, and an important role for the state. However the state is far from being immune to the competitive pressures that face industry in general and upon whom it ultimately depends for its tax revenues. Indeed, it is notable that state enterprises have often been among the worst transgressors when it comes to pollution and that some of the most seriously polluted parts or the world have tended to be those governed by state capitalist regimes at one time or another (e.g. Soviet Union, Poland, China).
Hardin's theory of the commons must be regarded as a failed attempt to vindicate the principle of private property in respect of the earth's resources. It has been shown to be both empirically suspect and theoretically unsound. In the counter-arguments it has provoked, we can glimpse the potential of a sustainable alternative to the imposed monopoly on what should be our common heritage.