'Tragedy of the Commons': A(nother) Critique

Since the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ and privatisation have been common themes running through both last week’s and this week’s readings and classes I’ve decided to address some of the issues surrounding it and provide an personal example where the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ has been used both by the state and then by market advocates to enclose tracts of land belonging to the Maasai in Southern Kenya.

Hardin’s ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ theory has proved to be enormously influential since it publication in 1968. His well known argument states that ‘freedom in a commons brings ruin to all’. His use of ‘tragedy’ implies an 'unfortunate inevitability’ of environmental degradation stemming from open-access resource use. The upshot is that to solve this ‘tragedy’, solutions, either central control or privatisation, must be imposed on users externally. Hardin’s argument has been used both as a justification and rationale for both privatisation and state appropriation of resources. However, in reality ‘the tragedy of the commons’ thesis has been less accurate as a general theory in explaining degradation, with many examples of ‘traditional resource use systems’ showing less degradation than when a resource operates under both centralised state control or within a market (Ostrom et al. 1999). To explain why this might be the case, we need to examine the underlying assumptions behind the ‘tragedy of the commons’ thesis.

Underpinning the ‘tragedy of the commons’ theory are several important assumptions of which the most important are rational choice theory, ‘carrying capacity’ and equilibrium ecology.

Concerning rational choice theory, Hardin (1968) states that “as a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain”. However, in reality people rarely act simply according to rational (economic) self-interest. For example, people rarely have simultaneously sufficient information, cognitive abilities or time to make fully informed rational decision in everyday life. In addition, Bourdieu (1977) shows how people as social agents act according to a practical logic and ‘bodily disposition’ embedded in social/cultural structures and practices or what he terms habitus.

With regards to the assumption of a finite ‘carrying capacity’, Hardin explains that “a pasture open to all… may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land’. Again though, studies have shown that it is not as simple as this. Three major criticisms may be levelled at such a claim. Firstly, the number of people or cattle that can live on a particular piece of land for example depends on culture, social rules, systems and practices, particular technologies and consumption habits, as well as the biophysical environment. Secondly, external influences, such as fluctuations in global commodity chains can affect local communities and the manner in which they deal the ‘real necessity of production’. Lastly, the assumption of a ‘carrying capacity’ also rests on the assumption that ecosystems are always in equilibrium and that there is a ‘perfect’ state to which an ecosystem will always return. Yet this has assumption has come under attack of late and McCabe (2004) provides an example of an ecosystem in disequilibrium, which I will discuss further below.

It is important to challenge these assumption highlighted because to often the ‘tragedy of the commons’ has been used as an argument for privatisation (and state control) and has often led to the marginalisation of disempowered communities through a process of appropriation and accumulation (Harvey 2005; Bakker 2011). An example that I have recently seen is the current privatisation of group ranches of the Maasai in Southern Kenya.

Group ranches are large tracts of land that are owned communally by different Maasai communities. They were developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s as means to overcome the problem of the ‘tragedy of the commons’, before which the arid and semi-arid rangelands (ASAL) where the Maasai grazed their cattle were effectively open-access. However, the claim that environmental degradation would be caused by over-grazing proved to be false as ASAL are very well suited to pastoralism (the herding of livestock) and McCabe shows that Kenyan pastoralists in ASAL regions have adapted to live within disequilibrium ecosystems employing techniques such as frequent and highly variable migration, opportunistic herding strategies, and dramatic fluctuations of livestock numbers depending on the current environment, but also social and cultural factors (McCabe 2004). Since then, often under pressure form the World Bank and IMF, many group ranches have undergone privatisation. However, while privatisation has brought a perceived increase in security among a portion of communities that have undergone privatisation as well as providing equity for microloans, there have also been many problems.

Many Maasai, particularly from the older generation, had no concept of private property and there are many stories of men (only men can own land) selling there land very cheaply and using that money to buy cattle (cattle is a sign of wealth amongst the Maasai). However, buy selling their land they have become extremely vulnerable, especially in the face of increasing drought frequency and intensity predicted as a result of climate change. Thus privatisation has led a large rise in inequality within the communities as both ‘outsiders’ (usually people Nairobi, but also multinational agricultural companies) as well as local elites have been able to buy very large plots of land and often require landless pastoralists to pay a fee to graze their cattle on their land. A rather striking example of this type accumulation by dispossession occurred during a severe drought in 2008, when many of the poorer families (with one of whom I stayed) were forced to sell there land (and livestock) at extremely deflated prices to a few rich locals and ‘outsiders’. Another issue concerns the allocation of land upon privatisation. Firstly, the privatised plots of land proved far too small for a pastoral livelihood, and secondly many of the people with less political and social clout received sub-standard parcels of land. As a consequence, in a few communities although land ownership has been privatised, land use is still communal.

In sum, while the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ has remained influential, it is underlined by flawed assumptions and needs to be viewed with caution and certainly on a case by case basis. The example of Maasai pastoralists in Kenya is a case in point.

Bakker, K. (2011). ‘Commons versus commodities: political ecologies of water privatisation’ in Global Political Ecology.

Bourdieu, P (1977). An Outline of a Theory of Practice.

Hardin, G (1968). ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Science, vol. 168, pp. 1243-1248.

Harvey, D (2005), A Brief History of Neoliberalism.

McCabe T. (2004), Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies.

Ostrom et al. (1999), ‘Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges’, Science, vol. 284, pp. 278-282.