Talk:Tragedy of the commons

Lead is a tragedy in itself

It seems to me that the lead is not a summary of the content, as required by WP:LEAD, but almost an article itself. What made me invite comment was this text:

While it may appear economically rational to an individual to over-consume in this context as doing so bears no immediate personal cost, such common land became barren and even permanently ruined where sufficient numbers of herders engaged in such activity. Although provided as a hypothetical example, according to critical scholars the commons’ destruction came about from landholders of the commons who claimed and enclosed these lands, preventing common use.

which, citing NPOV, Truants changed today to read

While it may appear economically rational to an individual to over-consume in this context as doing so bears no immediate personal cost, such common land became barren and even permanently ruined where sufficient numbers of herders engaged in such activity. Provided as a hypothetical example, some have claimed that real-world common pastureland did not befall this fate.

But here's the problem: "critical scholar" is Hardin, who in the next paragraph we say meant "the tragedy of the unmanaged commons", so the specific text I'm questioning is a straw man. Or just waffle.

So what I'm really saying is that the lead needs to be heavily edits to about half its current size. Anyone? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:13, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree. The lede should be short; it is not the place for subsidiary detail, which can well be dealt with in thr body of the article. I propose:

The tragedy of the commons is a metaphoric label for a concept that is widely discussed in economics, ecology and other sciences. According to the concept, if a plurality of independent individuals should enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource e.g. a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up by destroying its value altogether. To exercise voluntary restraint is not a rational choice for any one individual - if he does, the others will merely supplant him - yet the predictable result is a tragedy for all.

The metaphor is the title of a 1968 essay by ecologist Garrett Hardin. As another example he cited a watercourse which all are free to pollute. But the principal concern of his essay was overpopulation of the planet. To prevent the inevitable tragedy (he argued) it was necessary to reject the principle (supposedly enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) according to which every family has a right to choose the number of its offspring, and to replace it by "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon".

The concept itself did not originate with Hardin, but extends back to classical antiquity, being discussed by Aristotle. Some scholars have argued that over-exploitation of the common resource is by no means inevitable, since the individuals concerned may be able to achieve mutual restraint by consensus. Others have contended that the metaphor is inapposite because its exemplar - unfettered access to common land - did not exist historically, the right to exploit common land being controlled by law.

Ttocserp 22:47, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

References

Label, and the thing it denotes.

While the edit by user Novern Linguae means to get to the heart of the matter at once, which is usually desirable, in this case it really is quite important not to telescope two quite different entities. The Tragedy of the Commons is not, and never was, a concept: it is just one modern label (arguably, even a glib label) for a concept (or, more accurately) a range of concepts, imperfectly defined, that have been debated since Aristotle. The lead section got into a mess in the past -- see above, Lead is a tragedy in itself -- for failure to stress this philosophical distinction. Ttocserp 11:08, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I think before I made my edit, the Google Knowledge Panel was saying The tragedy of the commons is a metaphoric label for a concept that is widely discussed in economics, ecology and other sciences, without saying what the concept is. That's one of my motivations for the change. I'm not particularly invested in that edit though. Up to y'all. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)