By proving that humans can sustainably manage shared resources, this Nobel Prize–winning economist’s work shines light on a path that just might get us out of this mess.
Farmers have cooperatively managed irrigation canals like this one in Valencia for more than 1,000 years. © Jason Reblando
"Conventional wisdom related to environmental protection holds that we are trapped in what 20th-century ecologist Garrett Hardin famously called 'the tragedy of the commons.' Commons, or common-pool resources, are resources that can be used by anyone but can easily be depleted. Hardin posited that all commons are eventually destroyed. After all, if people can take as much as they want and there is a limited supply, then the resource will soon disappear. Hardin wrote that there are two, and only two, ways to prevent the “tragedy”: privatize the resource or impose government regulations. People, he thought, are just plain unable to control themselves in a commons.
"The 'tragedy of the commons' was not based on evidence, however, and political scientist Elinor Ostrom, who in 2009 was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was skeptical. So she went looking for proof — and what she found shocked everyone.
"Ostrom and her colleagues carefully analyzed thousands of examples of common-pool resources from around the world. They found that, although some communities depleted their resources and destroyed the commons, others were very successful in sustaining shared resources."
Article: In The Face of a Looming Climate Crisis, the Late Elinor Ostrom Gives Me Hope