The Myth of the Tragedy
Why the 'Tragedy of the Commons' narrative gets history backwards.
The Origin of a Misconception
Garrett Hardin's 1968 Science paper “The Tragedy of the Commons” became one of the most cited articles in environmental discourse. Yet its actual arguments are widely misunderstood. Hardin's primary focus was population control, not resource management. His opening thesis declared: “The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”
“Picture a pasture open to all”—Hardin described an open-access regime with no rules, boundaries, or governance. His herders added cattle without limit because nothing constrained them. But this scenario bears no resemblance to actual historical commons.
The Fundamental Error
Academic critics identified Hardin's conflation of “open access” with “common property” as his fundamental error. As economist Susan Jane Buck Cox documented in her 1985 study:
“What existed in fact was not a 'tragedy of the commons' but rather a triumph: that for hundreds of years—and perhaps thousands—land was managed successfully by communities.”
— Susan Jane Buck Cox, “No Tragedy on the Commons” (1985)
English commons were “not available to the general public but rather only to certain individuals who inherited or were granted the right to use it.” Communities established stints—numerical limits on livestock each commoner could graze—enforced through manorial courts.
Hardin's Own Correction
Hardin himself acknowledged the error. In 1994, he wrote:
“The title of my 1968 paper should have been 'The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons.'”
— Garrett Hardin, 1994
This revision received far less attention than the original essay, which had already been appropriated to justify privatization policies by the World Bank, IMF, and development agencies worldwide.
The Historical Reality
The historical record tells a different story entirely:
- •Swiss alpine commons have operated continuously for over 700 years
- •The Valencia Water Tribunal has governed irrigation since approximately 960 CE—over 1,000 years
- •Japanese iriai forest commons numbered 59,209 community-based organizations managing customary forests as of 1990
- •The Balinese subak system has coordinated rice cultivation through water temples since the 9th century CE
Destruction, Not Failure
What history reveals is not commons failure but commons destruction. Between 1604 and 1914, Parliament passed over 5,200 enclosure acts covering approximately 6.8-7 million acres—21% of England's total land area. The process was controlled by the landowning class, with commoners actively resisting.
Major uprisings included Kett's Rebellion (1549), the Midland Revolt (1607), and the Swing Riots (1830). As E.P. Thompson wrote: “Enclosure was a plain enough case of class robbery, played according to fair rules of property and law laid down by a parliament of property-owners and lawyers.”
Why This Matters Today
The “tragedy” metaphor continues justifying privatization policies that the historical and empirical record does not support. Understanding what actually happened to commons—and why many continue thriving—provides essential evidence for how we govern shared resources in the digital age, from data to AI systems to land.