The Tragedy of the Social Commons
Anyone wanting to buy a new home in the desert suburbs west of Phoenix might well be surprised by the state government’s report that builders there who need groundwater will have to build somewhere else. There’s just not enough left. Phoenix is not alone. A study by the New York Times found that groundwater is being pumped out of the nation’s aquifers at alarming rates and faster than nature can replenish it.
Danger to the nation’s aquifers is just the latest example of a problem Aristotle noted over two millennia ago: “That which is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care. Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common." In modern parlance, this was called the Tragedy of the Commons in a 1968 essay of the same name by ecologist Garrett Hardin. The basic idea is straightforward. If there is a finite, valuable resource accessible to all the people in a community, it will eventually be depleted if everyone acts just in their own self-interest. Developers just keep building, even knowing there is only so much groundwater for the homes they are constructing, if there are no restraints on doing so. When more and more act that way, you get what Phoenix has gotten.
We’ve experienced this problem before. Overfishing, air pollution, fouled waterways and deforestation come to mind. The only solutions that stop “free riders” who deplete the “commons” are either voluntary restraint or government regulation. Thus, we’ve gotten fish catch limits, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other measures. But even with these, pushback threatens progress in protecting the commons.
Most concerns about depleting the commons have revolved around natural or technological resources (such as traffic congestion). But there is another resource that is valuable and finite, though we have been acting as if it can always and easily be replenished. That “commons” is social trust, the foundation for what is called social capital. Social capital consists of the relationships of people, organizations and institutions in a society that enable it to function efficiently and effectively. In our democratic society, social capital involves such things as a shared identity and the shared ethical values and norms that support cooperative behavior. When trust is depleted, so is social capital. Among the results are anger, polarization, violence and the inability to solve problems.
The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual survey of over 20 nations, is one of many surveys and polls that illustrate how we are depleting the “social commons.” Among its findings for the United States: only 42 percent of Americans trust government; 67 percent say the country is more divided today than in the past; 77 percent say that “the lack of civility and mutual trust is the worst I have ever seen;” and 64 percent report that “the social fabric that once held this country together has grown too weak to serve as a foundation for unity and common purpose.”
Addressing the Tragedy of the Social Commons requires understanding its causes and the nature of a solution. A core issue is ethics, since preventing depletion of the social commons ideally requires moral reasoning and ethical action. Rushworth Kidder, author of How Good People Make Tough Choices, offered a useful continuum. At one end is law and at the other is license. In these terms a society in which laws govern all behavior might prevent depletion of the commons but would be stifling and eliminate individual freedom. On the other hand, a society in which license reigns provides unfettered freedom that leads to the lack of restraint that depletes the social commons. The goal for society is to find the “sweet spot” – where law and license are balanced and trust and the social commons are at healthy levels.
We have not found that sweet spot. While Americans bemoan the lack of trust in each other and society, they don’t grasp that trust is not an infinite, easily renewable resource. They don’t see that political polarization, the influence of wealth on public discourse, the unchecked spread of mis/disinformation and fake news and the proliferation of social media attacks on other Americans – all under the protection of “free speech” – are root causes of depletion of the social commons. They rely on voluntary restraint and the demand that others exercise it, not realizing that the problem demands responsibility among all of us who have been freely accessing the social commons.
Law can help but can never alone restore our social commons to a healthier state, especially as the widespread lack of trust makes sensible and acceptable legislation so hard to achieve. License in our “it’s all about me” society has been ascendant for decades and much too often places the self (individual freedom) over the self-restraint (personal and social responsibility) essential for self-government. The result of the Tragedy of the Social Commons is not inevitable, but if we don’t change, our republic runs the risk of becoming as inhospitable as the desert west of Phoenix.
Photo Credit: Gerd Altmann @pixabay.com
