Political Science 2137 Lecture Notes - Underconsumption, Garrett Hardin, Common-Pool Resource

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 2137
• Professor: Nancy Vamvakas

Document Summary

Explain why the tragedy of the commons can be interpreted either as an argument for private property or for government intervention. These are four distinctive results of two vastly distinct methods of resource ownership private vs. common-owned. Successful private ownership will bring us capitalism, while its failure will lead to. Tragedy of the anticommons where there are simply too many private owners in the same place, displaying symptoms of underuse and waste. On the other end of the spectrum, successful common ownership of resource will result in comedy of the commons , where increased usage of a resource increases its usefulness (rose, 1986). This is a term coined by garrett hardin, an american ecologist, in 1968. Hardin, free access will almost always lead to overexploitation. The rate of depletion depends on the number of users, the consumptiveness of use, and the robustness of the resource (dietz et al, 2003).