Garrett Hardin

Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) was an American ecologist and writer whose 1968 essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” argued that shared resources can be depleted by individually rational use.

Elinor Ostrom: An American political economist who studied how communities govern shared resources without centralized control or privatization. Her research challenged Hardin’s portrayal of commons users as unable to manage shared resources.
Tragedy of the commons: A situation in which individually advantageous use of a shared, limited resource can collectively deplete it. This is the named dilemma Hardin made famous in his 1968 essay.
Population ethics: The study of moral questions about population size, demographic change, and the interests of present and future people. Hardin used commons reasoning to argue that reproductive choices create collective consequences.
Ostrom's design principles: A set of institutional features associated with durable community governance of common-pool resources. Ostrom documented rules and monitoring arrangements that complicate Hardin’s bleak prediction.
Pasture commons: A shared grazing area used by multiple herders, often invoked to illustrate competition over a limited resource. Hardin’s hypothetical pasture makes the incentive to add animals concrete.
William Forster Lloyd: An English economist whose 1833 lectures used a pasture example to explain overgrazing under common access. Hardin adapted Lloyd’s pasture example as the central image in his essay.
Common-pool resource: A resource that is difficult to exclude users from accessing and whose use reduces what remains for others. Hardin’s pasture illustrates how subtractable resources with open access can invite overuse.
Lifeboat ethics: A metaphorical argument that aid to poorer populations may exceed ecological limits and harm those already secure. Hardin extended his concerns about finite resources into a controversial argument against unrestricted aid.
Open access: A resource-use regime with no effective limits on who may use a resource or how much they may take. Hardin’s pasture assumes open access, a condition often confused with common ownership.
Atmospheric commons: The atmosphere treated as a shared sink for emissions that can accumulate and alter climate. Greenhouse-gas emissions exemplify the dispersed costs and shared capacity in Hardin’s model.

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