Tragedy of the commons

Garrett Hardin
”The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”

The Tragedy of the Commons is one of system archetypes. It is an economic theory describing a system with shared resource where the actors act independently according to their self-interest. Draining of the resource can cause their actions to behave contrary to the common good. The Tragedy of the Commons became well known after an article by ecologist Garrett Hardin was published in 1968.

Introduction

You live in a smaller city where you own some land. As a landowner, you have the rights to use the water pumped up from wells on your land. Whenever you are in a need of water, you go and get it. As your family grows, you naturally need more water. But it's just few more people and there is enough water in your well. There are many other landowners in your city and each one manages his own water consumption. As your city and its population is growing, water usage rises as well. What you may not realize is the fact, that all the water from different wells throughout the whole city is part of a regional groundwater aquifer, so each landowner is pulling water from the same pool. After continual long-term growth of the water consumption, the city’s water supply reached levels that left the aquifer vulnerable to saltwater intrusion from the nearby ocean. Now the city is facing potential water shortages and possible destruction of the renewable water resource the city depended on.

Problem Definition

System Archetypes

System Archetypes describe common patterns of behavior that we can find in complex systems. They are part of a larger topic of System Dynamics.

There is a number of different System Archetypes. Yet there are two basic structures and all the other archetypes are different combinations of the two. The two basic structures are [The Balancing Loop] and [The Reinforcing Loop]. The Balancing Loop represents an objective not yet met, referred to as a gap between the current state and a desired state. It is common for balancing loops to have one or more delays. For example, there is usually a delay after a change is introduced and before it starts having a visible effect. The Reinforcing Loop promotes an effect or action. An example can be a savings account in which the interest earned is added to the principal, which itself earns more interest, which adds to the principal, and the cycle repeats.

The Balancing Loop & The Reinforcing Loop

The Balancing Loop

The Reinforcing Loop

As it was already said, The Tragedy of the Commons is one of the System Archetypes. Here are some other System Archetypes examples:

• Limits to Growth
• Accidental Adversaries
• Drifting Goals
• Escalation
• Fixes That Fail
• Growth and Underinvestment
• Shifting the Burden
• Success to Successful

The Tragedy of the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons provides unique insights into the effect that an un-systemic approach to organizational structure can have on overall, long-term performance.

The commons is something or someone that presents a common resource. It can be various natural resources. In an organization, it can be people, material, space, tools, etc. It can be anything, that is simultaneously made available to multiple people (or teams in organization).

Each person or team claims their share of the commons within the context of the goals and objectives that they have set for themselves. They regard the commons as being uniquely available for their own purposes. Although their lack of awareness of the demands others place on the commons are not the result of thoughtless disregard, the effect on the commons is the same.

As each person or team increases their demands and expectations of the commons in the name of their own goals, the commons gets under steadily increasing pressure to perform. In the case of commons such as materials or space, there is no conscious awareness of increased demand, but the concrete, physical limitations have no elasticity, and the satisfaction of people or teams placing demands on the commons erodes.

This archetype identifies the causal connections between individual actions and the collective results (in a closed system). It hypothesizes that if the total usage of a common resource becomes too great for the system to support, the commons will become overloaded or depleted and everyone will experience diminished benefits.

The Tragedy of the Commons

Behavior Over Time

Any time a declining trend is seen in the overall performance of each part of the system even as it increases its demand on common resources, there is a good possibility that a Tragedy of the Commons is taking place. This is often accompanied by puzzlement, as each party placing demands on the system cannot understand why their demands are not being met, which typically results in the party increasing its demands yet further. This may continue until the commons collapses.

The Tragedy of the Commons: Behavior Over Time

Consequences in Organization

There can be several consequences as aggregate performance of the commons falls. Here are possible consequences of the problem in an organization:

• Individual or team performance declines as the erosion of the commons affects their ability to meet individual goals and objectives.
• Aggregate organizational performance erodes as the interaction and interdependency of multiple individual and/or team performance begins to reflect the declining performance of the individuals or teams.
• Organizational goals themselves begin to erode and to reflect the diminished ability of the commons to support the goals and objectives of the individuals and teams that depend on the commons.
• The commons itself deteriorates as a valued and valuable resource to the point where it is regarded as a cause of failure rather than success.