To be clear, I agree with you like 95% of the way, it’s that last 5% that I still think you are overselling and would like you to be more careful with.
The problem is that Hardin’s argument simply isn’t much of a scientific one in the first place and is instead much more of a logical one. (I was being sloppy when I asked for direct evidence, so sorry about that.) Hardin made the massive assumption that people are wholly self-interested. If people are only trying to maximize their own share of the resources regardless of what it might cost others, then it is impossible to escape the competition that creates for the limited amount of resources that the commons provides. All of the examples and articles you’ve brought up attack that assumption and/or focus on the conclusions Hardin made based on those assumptions, but do nothing to actually disprove the fundamental argument behind the tragedy of the commons.
I see what you are saying but my argument is that in real world systems the vast majority of the time it is in the individual’s self interest to enrich and defend a shared wealth/commons.
The idea that it isn’t is inherently a belief not a finding of science and it has been imposed on us through cultural means for political reasons.
You can create narrow conditions where the self interests of the individual existentially diverge from the interests of the group, I don’t dispute that… rather I think Capitalism is monomanically obsessed with creating these systems artificially and through violence and imposed collapse.
I am fumbling at things Naomi Klein has already more brilliantly expressed.
To be clear, I agree with you like 95% of the way, it’s that last 5% that I still think you are overselling and would like you to be more careful with.
The problem is that Hardin’s argument simply isn’t much of a scientific one in the first place and is instead much more of a logical one. (I was being sloppy when I asked for direct evidence, so sorry about that.) Hardin made the massive assumption that people are wholly self-interested. If people are only trying to maximize their own share of the resources regardless of what it might cost others, then it is impossible to escape the competition that creates for the limited amount of resources that the commons provides. All of the examples and articles you’ve brought up attack that assumption and/or focus on the conclusions Hardin made based on those assumptions, but do nothing to actually disprove the fundamental argument behind the tragedy of the commons.
I see what you are saying but my argument is that in real world systems the vast majority of the time it is in the individual’s self interest to enrich and defend a shared wealth/commons.
The idea that it isn’t is inherently a belief not a finding of science and it has been imposed on us through cultural means for political reasons.
You can create narrow conditions where the self interests of the individual existentially diverge from the interests of the group, I don’t dispute that… rather I think Capitalism is monomanically obsessed with creating these systems artificially and through violence and imposed collapse.
I am fumbling at things Naomi Klein has already more brilliantly expressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine