Part 2/8:
Coined by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, the phrase Tragedy of the Commons encapsulates a scenario where individuals exploit shared resources at their own expense, inadvertently leading to collective decline. Hardin's example of ranchers sharing a grazing field highlights the core issue: as each rancher increases their cattle herd for personal profit, the shared grassland becomes overgrazed, diminishing the resource for everyone involved. This grim cycle, he argues, is a hard truth about human nature; individual selfishness often prevails, ultimately resulting in failure for the entire group.
Decades passed with a consensus built around Hardin's perspective, echoing a pessimistic view of human behavior as inherently selfish, yielding little hope for change.