Similar "Tragedies of the Commons" take place all over the world —
in the world's fisheries, in farmlands in developing countries, in the
Brazilian rain forests, and with acid rain and greenhouse-effect gases.
At one time, the grass on the Boston Common could hardly be seen
for the profusion of woolly backs of sheep. In all these situations, the
logic of local decision making leads inexorably to collective disaster.
Hardin first coined the term to describe situations where two
conditions are met: (1) there exists a "commons," a resource shared
among a group of people, and (2) individual decision makers, free to
dictate their own actions, achieve short-term gains from exploiting
the resource but do not pay, and are often unaware of, the cost of that
exploitation—except in the long run.
The generic form of this archetype is: