encourages them to add still more cattle. But, the sum total of all the
individuals acting in their self-interest (the diagram shows two reinforcing
loops for two individuals—in reality there may be hundreds or
thousands of individual local decision makers) add up to a "total
activity" with a life of its own. Eventually (the delay may be several
years), the unsustainable "gain per individual activity" (profit per zebu)
begins to decline, and the benefit to each individual begins to reverse.
By the time they realize the import of that common error, it's too late
to save the whole, and all the individuals fall with it. It's not enough
for one individual to see the problem; the problem cannot be solved
until most decision makers act together for the good of the whole.
Don't think that the Tragedy of the Commons structure is limited
to ecological disasters. Tragedies of the Commons occur frequently in
businesses where "localness" is valued. It happens, for example, when
several locally autonomous divisions share a common support group—
a research team, a sales force, or a secretarial pool. Each division
head worries that his section won't receive adequate attention from
the shared department. Thus, one division head advises his staff to
make more of their requests high priority. Other divisions see this
division pushing for more support and decide to try the same strategy.
Before long, most of the requests coming in are "high priority" and
the staff starts to discount them. Or, worse yet, the support staff tries
to accomplish everything asked of them, so they accept all the extra
requests, become overburdened with juggling priorities, and their work
quality rapidly deteriorates until they're no longer useful to anyone.
Corporations have many depletable "commons" to share: financial
capital, productive capital, technology, community reputation, good
will of customers, good will and support of suppliers, and morale and
competence of employees to^name just a few. When a company
decentralizes, local divisions conipete with each other for those limited
resources.
Tragedy of the Commons structures are most insidious when the
coupling from individual action to collective consequence is weak in the
short run, yet strong in the long run. When this happens, the
"commons" usually go unrecognized. Local managers see their actions
as independent, they don't realize how they may be jeopardizing their
and others' future. They fail to see how their individual "activity" will
eventually reduce everyone's "gain per activity."
The "commons" can be as simple, and subtle, as the limited time