Yes, the metaphor has fallen out of fashion for a lot of reasons, including that the guy who coined the expression turned out to be a real piece of shit, but the core concept is still a valid one.
No, there are really tangential analogies about how self-interested behavior can have negative consequences, but it is and has always been based around a bunch of numerous myths. Externalities is a better description of this.
Elinor Ostrom investigated management of the commons and the original description of tragedy of the commons was a complete lie. The commons were enclosed so that in this transitional stage of feudal lords could become businessmen that could profit off of using the land rather than taxing a peasant community living off of it. The enclosed commons is an asset to generate profit, where if enough of an increase in profit could be achieved, that could be reinvested, meant that exhausting the land would be an economically rational strategy. Where, if a peasant community is using it to sustain themselves, they have to carefully manage and steward that land so it is still producing for themselves years later, their children, and their grandchildren. The complete opposite of what the “tragedy of the commons” describes.
The idea of a commons as a shared resource that must be maintained through collective action is still a useful metaphor for our global environment. Just because Hardin’s scholarship about medieval commons was bad doesn’t mean our global world is not in itself a commons as the metaphor described it, and a useful thought experiment based on all the scholarship and debate that followed. And everyday people in a comment section who aren’t environmental professionals aren’t going to know the word “externality”. So not that useful outside of a limited audience
Yes, the metaphor has fallen out of fashion for a lot of reasons, including that the guy who coined the expression turned out to be a real piece of shit, but the core concept is still a valid one.
No, there are really tangential analogies about how self-interested behavior can have negative consequences, but it is and has always been based around a bunch of numerous myths. Externalities is a better description of this.
Elinor Ostrom investigated management of the commons and the original description of tragedy of the commons was a complete lie. The commons were enclosed so that in this transitional stage of feudal lords could become businessmen that could profit off of using the land rather than taxing a peasant community living off of it. The enclosed commons is an asset to generate profit, where if enough of an increase in profit could be achieved, that could be reinvested, meant that exhausting the land would be an economically rational strategy. Where, if a peasant community is using it to sustain themselves, they have to carefully manage and steward that land so it is still producing for themselves years later, their children, and their grandchildren. The complete opposite of what the “tragedy of the commons” describes.
The idea of a commons as a shared resource that must be maintained through collective action is still a useful metaphor for our global environment. Just because Hardin’s scholarship about medieval commons was bad doesn’t mean our global world is not in itself a commons as the metaphor described it, and a useful thought experiment based on all the scholarship and debate that followed. And everyday people in a comment section who aren’t environmental professionals aren’t going to know the word “externality”. So not that useful outside of a limited audience