Tragedy of the commons

We let resources be exhausted, although that's not good

The tragedy of the commons happens when a group of people let a limited and shared resource be exhausted, although no one is interested in this to happen. 

None of them want the resource to be exhausted, but all of them want to enjoy it, and they guess that, if they don't use it, the others would do so, and the resource would be exhausted anyway, without being able to enjoy it. 

In these circumstances, there's no incentive to keep the common resources, because it will be exhausted anyway, enjoy it or not by us. If it will be exhausted, why don't enjoy it?




Examples

There are classical examples, like grazing, fertile lands o fishing, and more modern examples, like greenhouse gases.

An atmosphere with a convenient rate of greenhouse gases, that keeps a steady climate, is the resource that we have to keep, and the emission of greenhouse gases to satisfy our needs is the use of it. 

The climate change is a case of tragedy of the commons because, even if we know that this is bad for us, we don't want to stop keeping our lifestyle in order to prevent this. There are oficial summits, but no important agreements are emerging from them, bacause no body wants to stop emiting greenhouse gases. 

Other examples

The available wage of the workers to buy products is a shared resource by businessmen, which they can sell their products and obtaining profit with. 

Cutting wages and jobs exhaust this resource, bacause workers have less money to buy things, and sells and profit decrease, although businessmen save labour costs. 

Businessmen assume that, but they prefer saving costs because they guess that the other businessmen will do so, and they just will pay higher wages and the sells will decrease anyway.

In the opposite hand, the resource are available jobs and wages, that are shared by workers. If low cost products are bought, businessmen can't pay high wages.

Anyone can guess that, if one buys low cost products, businessmen are forced to cut costs, among them wages and jobs, but they could prefer to do so because, even if they bought expensive products, wages will decrease anyway because other people will buy cheaper products.