Tragedy of the Commons

The rivalry between brilliant paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh dominated American science during the second half of the 19th century.

Catching live fish using cyanide is easy. Crush a couple of sodium cyanide tablets into a squeegee bottle of water, dive around a coral reef, find a fish you fancy, and squirt the toxic liquid into its face. The mixture stuns the fish without killing it, making it easy to catch in a net, or even by hand.

In this video, we take a look at common goods. Common resources are nonexcludable but rival. For instance, no one can be excluded from fishing for tuna, but they are rival — for every tuna caught, there is one less for everyone else. Nonexcludable but rival resources often lead to what we call a “tragedy of the commons.”

As Prof. Sean Mulholland at Stonehill College explains, the 'tragedy of the commons' occurs when individuals acting independently end up depleting shared resources, such as fisheries or pastureland.