Question

a) Explain in your own words the Tragedy of the Commons.

b) Discuss where you have observed the "Tragedy of the Commons" in your own life, the news, or history.

c) How would you address the issue that you discussed in item "b" with one of the suggestions from Ostrom

Answer 1

Hi,

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Question:

Answer:

a). Answer:

Tragedy of the Commons:

Tragedy of the Commons is an economy theory that states that individuals or group or companies uses more and more resources shared by many to benefit themselves. Its arise because of selfishness attitude that encourage the unsustainable growth and creates tragedy for everyone. World has limited resources but people have unlimited desire and greed. When people get more greedy and forget the social welfare maximizing and prioritize the individualism. Maximizing utilization of resources creat problems that become Tragedy of the Commons and everyone suffer from it.

b). Answer:

I live in village near about of NCR(National Capital Region) that is the biggest industrialized region of India in which more than five cities are included. Few years a ago the government want to expanding to this region and want to build a new Special Economic Zone(SEZ). Government needed more land and infrastructure in this reason so government talked to the farmers to bought their land. Finally government has acquired thousands of acres of land and built a big SEZ. In this zone thousands of manufacturing company opened their units and started manufacturing. Because of this economic activities the real estate industry also developed around this location and thousands of people came to live here.

Because of above mentioned all the economic and social activity started using of more and more local resources and producing more CO2 and wastes. It creat the problem of lower air quality, polluted water, crowd and shortage of local resources like, water, agriculture land etc and more and more villagers got affected and suffered by many dangerous diseases. People oppose and strike and went to court but nothing has happened till now and case is still pending in court and thousands of local people leave this place.

c). Answer:

Thought of Ostrom:

Ostrom was a political scientist at Indiana University, received the Nobel Prize for her research proving the importance of the commons around the world. According to her government should design rules regarding the Tragedy of the Commons and creat a boundary and limitation regarding the utilization of resources. Government should ensure that no one missuses the resources for personal benefits. Should develop a mechanism and proper system to measure the behavior of people and distribution of resources also.  Make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities and if any one break the rule then must should be punished.

What should do to the government:

Here, government should ensure to protect the rights of local people, proper distribution of local resources and optimal use of resources also. Government should take care about the need and demand of local people work for the maximizing of social welfare. Government should provide pure water, new opportunities or jobs , quality health services to people who are living there. Government should also fixed the amount of CO2 emission and waste. Company should also increase the spending on CSR and work for social welfare of the society and other stakeholders. Corporate should also bear their social responsibilities honestly

Thank You