![]() ![]() 64 Though tuna became extinct in the Black Sea, primarily due to overfishing and other environmental pressures, strictly enforced catch quotas helped avert the tragedy in the Atlantic. Between the 1970s and the early 2000s, the Atlantic population of bluefins declined by an estimated 80 percent due to overfishing, and scientists warned that the species faced extinction unless the tragedy of the commons was averted. In the paradox of the tragedy of the commons, those who seek to hoard resources ultimately have less even for themselves.īluefin tuna, highly valued for its use in sushi, carries a high price, and so commercial fisheries have strong incentives to catch as many of them as they can. If everyone had shared, there may well have been enough to meet everyone’s long-term needs. No one can access a resource that has been depleted. But if everyone has the incentive to take as much as they can, pretty soon those resources will be depleted. If everyone took only what they needed, some renewable resources could become replenished. Individuals have this incentive because they can sell this scarce resource (rhino horns, tuna fish) or because they benefit today without consideration of future consequences. If anyone has access to the commons-whether that resource is the rhino grazing in Africa, the tuna swimming in the northern Atlantic, or the atmosphere-and that resource is scarce, then every individual has an incentive not only to take what they need but also to take as much as they want. In each of these cases, the same principle dominates. (credit: “Tuna fish” by Motaz Altahir/Flickr, Public Domain) If anyone can withdraw water from a river, that river is a commons likewise, if anyone can emit air pollution, the atmosphere is a commons.įigure 6.12 Commercial fishing of tuna and other species can lead to a tragedy of the commons. Whenever there is a resource that anyone within a group can tap, or exploit, that resource is a “commons.” Regarding fish and fishing, the oceans have been a commons. 62 The climate is changing because humans are in effect using up the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases. 61 Many types of fish-including tuna, cod, and halibut, among others-are being pulled out of the ocean at commercially unsustainable levels. ![]() In southern Africa in the 20th century, overhunting nearly led to the extinction of the black rhino. Finally, the prisoner’s dilemma, a situation in which individuals act strategically in ways that ultimately harm themselves, demonstrates why it can be challenging to get allies to work together. The problem of free riding, wherein individuals not participating in a group activity nonetheless benefit from the activity, makes it difficult to change the status quo. The tragedy of the commons, which results in the depletion of a resource available to all, poses particular threats to global health and welfare. Collective action problems fall into three main categories: the tragedy of the commons, free riding, and the prisoner’s dilemma. Voilà! One person gives the other an apple, the other gives an orange, and they both are better off even though neither acted with the interest of the other person in mind.Ĭollective action logic comes to the opposite conclusion, one in which individuals acting in their own self-interest can have incentives that lead them to act in ways that harm not only the broader public but also themselves. They each have self-interested incentives to trade that which they care for less for that which they desire more. One individual really loves oranges the other, apples. Classical economic theory holds that individuals will act to benefit themselves and that in doing so they will also benefit others through the “invisible hand.” 59 Remember the logrolling example in Chapter 2? Two individuals each have an apple and an orange. In classical economic theory, collective action problems are not seen as a natural condition.
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