Tragic Kingdom: the tragedy of the commons as applied to breakfast cereal
February 11, 2010
The “tragedy of the commons” is a term used to describe a phenomenon of human behavior that is easiest to describe using metaphor. The phrase’s inventor, Garritt Hardin, realized this when writing his 1968 essay on the topic; the metaphor he uses, that of grazing cattle, is still one of the best. Picture a grassy plot that is a free, common area available as grazing land to several farmers who own cows, with the understanding that they could graze their cows in a collective herd. The plot can only support a certain number of sheep before overgrazing causes the grass to cease growing. One of the farmers decides to add an additional cow to his herd, thinking that the negative consequences caused by overgrazing are absorbed by the entire collective; however, the positive outcome, that of profit from selling an additional cow, belongs to that farmer alone. The other farmers see this; thinking that it’s only fair that they also make an additional profit, they begin adding cows as well, and overgrazing quickly causes the plot of grass to wither and die.
When I was a little kid, my parents made sure my two brothers and I ate very healthy food. The junk food that we saw lining the grocery aisles in enticingly colorful packages was, for the most part, forbidden. However, every so often, they’d allow us to eat something sugary. The Holy Grail of junk food at my house was Trix cereal; the cartoon rabbit and sugar-coated pastel bits of cereal seemed magical in their elusiveness. About once a year, our parents would buy one box (ONE BOX) of Trix, and tell us that once it was gone, it was gone; they would suggest that we eat it slowly so as to savor it and make the box last for some time. Readers can probably see where this is going. My brothers and I would turn into hyenas tearing at a zebra carcass once the box was placed in front of us. We’d sit down at the table, no matter what time of day it was (the concept of breakfast food doesn’t apply to the Almighty Trix), and begin stuffing ourselves with the sugar cereal, eating as quickly as possible, til the box was gone (this usually took about ten to fifteen minutes). The logic behind this was, if one of us decided to wait and eat the cereal at a later time, the box could be commandeered by the sibling(s) who sat down and ate it immediately, therefore leaving none for the other(s). If we all sat down and ate immediately, the sibling who ate more slowly, or ate less, or stopped when they were full, would get less cereal than the others. This idea was unacceptable, so we’d sit in silence, stuffing our mouths and barely chewing, not even savoring the flavor of the glorious, unattainable Trix, for fear that the other siblings would get more, which Just. Wasn’t. Fair.
So we see, when it comes to the tragedy of the commons, once one person starts to exploit it, it’s all over. Pretty soon the cereal’s gone and nobody really got to enjoy it anyways. I can’t propose a surefire solution to the tragedy of the commons, but I can say that had my parents divided up the cereal (we would’ve demanded that they weigh each portion to make sure it was equal) and put our portions into plastic baggies, we probably would’ve taken longer to savor it (provided that we could keep it somewhere that the other siblings couldn’t find and steal from). Does this mean that we as humans need government around to divide up and monitor our cereal/social services/natural resources/public property to make sure no one person gobbles it all up and ruins it for the rest of us? In my opinion, yes. And with that statement, we begin veering off into politics, which is another blog post entirely (for the record, my political beliefs make Michael Moore look like Glenn Beck, so if the Politics Post does happen, read at your own risk).
