Question

What is the tragedy of the commons? Give an example that is not in the book. Please include resources with your posting.

Answer 1

Tragedy of commons is a problem associated with common resources. When a resource is rival and non excludable that is everyone can use it but one person's use reduces the availability of that resource for other people it is called a common resource . E.g. if there is community lake and there are fishermen in the community each fisherman would look after his own self interest and try to get as many fishes as possible regardless of the depletion in the number of fishes in the lake. Thus happens the tragedy of commons where everyone uses a common resource but no one tries to preserve it for future use. The lake would soon be left without any fish if the fishermen do not collectively decide to use the resources of the lake judiciously or take some actions to maintain the population of fishes in the lake. Since it's a common resource everyone thinks about utilizing it to the maximum extent but no one thinks of preserving the common resource.