Works
- The Tragedy of the Commons, Science, 1968
In Thinking Tools
Known for
An ecologist whose essay argued that when a resource is open to all, each user gains the full benefit of taking more while the cost is shared by everyone, so the resource is overused. He took the grazing example from William Forster Lloyd.
Caveat: Elinor Ostrom's field studies found many communities that manage common resources well, critics note that the essay does not distinguish common property from open access, and Hardin later said it should have been called The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons.