Question

B. What is meant by ‘The Tragedy of the Commons” and how does it impact the issues of pollution and resource depletion? Make sure you deal with how it serves to create certain types of production.

Answer 1

TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS - This concept is first time given by biologist G. Hardin in 1968. He basicly talk about the problems of common property resources as the "Tragedy of the commons."

According to him The overuse of resources is treated and terms as Tragedy of The Commons.

So the overuse of resources is somehow a negative impact on natural resources. And it creates pollution as well.

IMPACT ON RESOURCE DEPLETION - The tragedy of the commons have great impact on natural resources as it deplete resources. For instance - areas of pasture land that are provided to free land to all who wish to graze cattle. As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. So this utility has negative impact on resouces as additional overgrazing created by one or more animal.

IMPACT ON POLLUTION - It also have great impact on pollution. According to Hardin it is not a question of taking somthing out of commons but of putting something in sewage or chemical into water and fumes into air etc. For instance - every person use car in thir own benefit but it somewhere pollute air very badly and it affect public very badly.

But instead of impact on resource depletion and on pollution, there are some positive impact also. So in certain cases, Tragedy of the commons creates certain types of production as well.

TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS AS IT CREATES CERTAIN TYPE OF PRODUCTION - As explain earlier the negative aspect of grazing land by animals of herdman, there is some positive impact on herdman as increment of one animal. Beacuse herdman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal. So this is kind of increment in income of herdman.

We can take another example of fishing. Fishing creates income as there is no boundation of capturing fishes. So somewhere it also creates imcome for fishers. So at the end tragedy of the commons also serves to creates certain types of production.

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