RAMZY BAROUD highlights how Israel’s ambassador sought to shut down UN officials documenting sexual violence and abuses against Palestinians
Latest editorial
Elinor Ostrom and the tragedy of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’
A great economist’s work shows that we can in fact share the world’s resources in ways that are not only fair but sustainable, explains NICK MATTHEWS
LANDMARK: Elinor Ostrom was the first woman to win a Nobel prize in economics
[Holger Motzkau 2010 / Creative Commons]
The left has become too reliant on persuasion and too detached from the workplaces and communities it seeks to represent, argues NICK TROY
The US-Israeli conflict with Iran has had far-reaching consequences, including a boost to Pakistan’s regional standing, argues ROGER McKENZIE
The recent heatwaves revealed how ill-prepared Britain remains for a hotter future – and how unequal the ability to cope with it has become, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The drive to strengthen European defence is reshaping relations between France, Germany, Italy and Britain, says NICK WRIGHT
The UN blames gangs for Haiti’s turmoil, while ignoring decades of foreign intervention and support for an unelected government that lie at the heart of the country’s continuing crisis, says RUBEN BRETT
FULL marks to Full Marx, for their demolition of the “Tragedy of the Commons” thesis in these pages on Monday. As the authors point out, in the original essay, published in 1968 by University of California professor Garrett Hardin in the journal Science, he sees all humans as selfish herders: we worry that our neighbours’ cattle will graze the best grass.
So, we send more of our cows out to consume that grass first. We take it first, before someone else steals our share. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation that Hardin described as the “tragedy of the commons.”
It may seem ridiculous now but Hardin, a white supremacist, presented no evidence for this assertion. Yet is difficult to underestimate the impact this idea has had on the environment, the economy and our society.
Similar stories
Channel 4’s Dirty Business shows why private companies cannot be trusted with vital services like water, says PAUL DONOVAN
The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library
One of the major criticisms of China’s breakneck development in recent decades has been the impact on nature — returning after 15 years away, BEN CHACKO assessed whether the government’s recent turn to environmentalism has yielded results
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society