The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a
situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting
independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to
the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource
through their collective action. The concept and name originate in an
essay written in 1833 by the Victorian economist William Forster Lloyd, who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land (then colloquially called "the commons") in the British Isles.[1] The concept became widely known over a century later due to an article written by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968.[2] In this context, commons is taken to mean any shared and unregulated resource such as atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, or even an office refrigerator.
It has been argued that the very term 'tragedy of the commons' is a misnomer per se,
since 'the commons' originally referred to a resource owned by a
community, and no individual outside the community had any access to the
resource. However, the term is presently used when describing a problem
where all individuals have equal and open access to a resource.
Hence, 'tragedy of open access regimes' or simply 'the open access
problem' are more apt terms.[3]:171
The tragedy of the commons is often cited in connection with sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the debate over global warming. It has also been used in analyzing behavior in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, game theory, politics, taxation and sociology.
Although commons have been known to collapse due to overuse (such as
in over-fishing), abundant examples exist where communities cooperate or
regulate to exploit common resources prudently without collapse.
