Tragedy of the Commons

I learned something interesting today. Through the course of an interview for a story I learned about an essay called "The Tragedy of the Commons" by Garrett Hardin. This essay has stirred enough interest as to have its own Web site.

The essay states that "free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately structurally dooms the resource through over-exploitation." Hardin introduces a hypothetical example of a pasture shared by local herders. These herders are assumed to wish to maximize their yeild, and so will increase their herd size whenever possible. This has both positive and negative effects:

-Positive: the herder receives all of the proceeds from each additional animal.
-Negative: the pasture is slightly degraded by each additional animal.

Crucially, the division of these costs and benefits is unequal: the individual herder gains all of the advantage, but the disadvantage is shared among all herders using the pasture. Consequently, for an individual herder weighing these, the rational course of action is to add an extra animal. And another, and another. However, since all herders reach the same rational conclusion, overgrazing and degradation of the pasture is its long-term fate. Nonetheless, the rational response for an individual remains the same at every stage, since the gain is always greater to each herder than the individual share of the distributed cost. The overgrazing cost here is an example of an externality.

Because this sequence of events follows predictably from the behaviour of the individuals concerned, Hardin describes it as a tragedy: "the remorseless working of things" (in the sense described by the philosopher Alfred Whitehead)" (Wikipedia, 2008).

During the course of my study about employee fraud, I have come to realize how backwards our government systems are and how we are asking, in a sense, for this Tragedy to befall us. We offer something to people and the few people who take advantage of the Commons create a poorer situation for the remaining people.

Example 1 - The unemployment system

Because someone quits their job, gets fired, laid off, or whatever, we feel a necessity to pay them during this time they are "seeking" a new job. I say seeking with a hint of cynicism because of how many people take advantage of this privilege.

I will admit at one point for about two weeks I was the benefactor of this system. My only justification for using it was ignorance. Now that I realize what a screwed up, draining system it is on employers I would veer away from ever using it again. As a taxpayer and gainfully employed person, I am paying for someone else to be without work. Most importantly, as a future employer, I am paying for the possibility of firing someone.

When you claim unemployment it not only hits your last employer, but your last three employers. The previous two jobs I had I loved and only left because they were internships. How right is that? They shouldn't be paying for a decision I made two and three years later.

Example 2 - Workers Compensation

Yet again, employers are putting money away in a "just in case" fund to pay for the medical bills of someone who makes a poor decision on the job and gets injured. Or worse yet, they claim it happened at work and didn't. Workers Compensation fraud costs Americans $5 billion a year. And people wonder why our health care is outrageously expensive. People don't care because someone else is "going to pay for it."

Don't get me wrong, if an employer fails to provide a safe work environment, they should pay for it. However, if an employee fails to follow proper safety procedure that is their own fault and as an employer, and taxpayer, I shouldn't have to pay for it.

When I worked at Staker Parson Companies their health insurance system exhibited an "enclosure" of the Commons. The HRA they have instituted doesn't allow for abuse of the insurance. Employees pay for the health care up front, thus giving them the encouragement to "shop" for their health care providers. Discounts are given for "in network" providers, and greater amounts of benefits are paid if you use an "in network" doctor.

When I used to listen to Rob Bishop give his speeches, I laughed thinking he was exaggerating about our broken system for laughs. I remember one time his commenting at the Weber County Republican convention that before coming back to Utah he named a post office (in the hometown of Nancy Pellosi), a park (in the town of one of her aids), and some other ridiculous thing.

Are you serious? Why do we allow ourselves to be incessantly taxed? And all for what? So a few people can take advantage of the Commons and degrade it for the rest of us? This is what happens when we allow the wrong people to hold offices of power, and as a people assume they are taking care of us, so we sit back, sip our drinks and bask in the sunlight. But while you carelessly bask, you will one day wake up to find that everything around you that was once Common and beautiful is now shredded and Enclosed. And you paid for it without ever knowing.