The “Tragedy of the
Commons” was elaborated by Garrett Hardin and published, for the first time, in
the journal Science in 1968. The article described a dilemma in which multiple
individuals, acting independently according to their self-interest, ultimately
destroy a shared limited resource (commons) even when it is clear that it
is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen.
However, when
economists began to look at ecosystems of commonly managed resources, he
discovered that often they work quite well. At the end, Hardin admitted he
should have called his article “The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons”.
There is another very
interesting perspective. Professor E. Ostrom, (Indiana University) was
awarded with the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with Oliver E.
Williamson) for the results she achieved in analysing how communities managed
Commons (e.g., grazing lands, pastures and similar natural resources to their
advantage.
The problem
formulation was: in a world of depletable resources, where individuals have incentives
for survival (that would undermine the long-term viability of such resources)
how does coordination and cooperation emerge ?
E. Ostrom argued that, with
the right information, productive discussion and trust-based institutions,
communities can come up with win-win ways to manage commons, without being
government-regulated or privatized. In synthesis, theory emphasizes how humans
and ecosystems can interact to provide for long run sustainability and highlights
how diverse arrangements (over resources) can prevent ecosystem collapse.
Models can perfectly applied to future smart cities, as an example of use-case,
or even – more broadly - to the ecosystems created by the Digital Economy subjected
to the Softwarization transition.
The Nobel Prize lecture is
available here.
Among the main recommandations, conclusions: « Must learn
how to deal with complexity rather than rejecting it; polycentric systems can
cope with complexity »
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