Liberty Is the Recognition of Want
Dave Snowden,
Cognitive Edge,
Dec 15, 2008
Saturday was the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Tragedy of the Commons, "how a group of herders sharing a common grazing area can destroy it by acting in their personal self interest" (and December 10 was the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - how ironic). It has always strck me that the title of the article has always carried more weight than the content - the very same situation could have been described as "the tragedy of free enterprise" or "the tragedy of self interest" since it describes, not communal ownership, but individual greed. It is this individual greed that wrecks the commons, be it the environment or the financial system (or the internet, if we let it). Isn't it time we addressed greed directly, as a society, instead of jumping from crisis to crisis in its wake?
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