The Ground Rules · Episode 3 of 10 · 20 min
The Commons and Its Tragedy
Garrett Hardin's 1968 tragedy of the commons hardened into common sense, while Elinor Ostrom's decades of field evidence showed it was half the story. Giving both equal weight, the episode finds that Hardin was really describing open access, not a governed commons, so the fight was partly about a word.
Who's who
- Garrett HardinAmerican ecologist whose 1968 commons essay was hugely influential
- Elinor OstromIndiana University political scientist; first woman to win the economics Nobel, 2009
- Vincent OstromCo-founder with Elinor of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis
- Oliver WilliamsonShared the 2009 economics Nobel with Ostrom
Timeline
- December 13, 1968Hardin publishes The Tragedy of the Commons in Science
- 1990Ostrom publishes Governing the Commons, introducing eight design principles
- October 12, 2009Ostrom awarded the economics Nobel for her analysis of the commons
- 2010Systematic review tests Ostrom's design principles against 91 studies; her Nobel lecture stresses polycentric governance
- 2012Ostrom dies
Still debated
Whether the open-access versus commons distinction holds for global resources like the atmosphere and oceans is open. Scholars also ask whether Ostrom's principles are prescriptive or merely correlated with success, and whether Hardin really meant unmanaged use.