The Lifeboat Just Got Lighter

Gloomy, zero-sum ecologist-cum-philosopher Garrett Hardin, whose essay Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor single-handedly turned me into a socialist when I was nine years old, died along with his wife in what appears to have been a mutual-suicide pact this weekend in Santa Barbara. He was 88, she was 81; both were in poor health and members of the Hemlock Society, according to the Los Angeles Times obit. His life's work was haunted by what have mostly turned out to be exaggerated fears of over-population and resource depletion. His best-known essay was the 1968 classic, The Tragedy of the Commons. (Link via Colby Cosh.)

Comments

[Marcus]

I think it's sad when the loss of a brilliant man such as Garrett Hardin is swept under the media's rug, and a no talent hack actor(John Ritter)'s life will be celebrated for weeks to come. Don't get me wrong, it's sad when anyone dies. But I really think the world lost a great, intuitive, creative thinker in Garrett Hardin. Some of his predictions regarding population growth may not have turned out to be dead on the mark, but I think his theories still ring true today. Props to Matt for noticing the importance of this event.

[Don]

"Also, the headlines of the time (this is 1977) were talking about how we were paying farmers not to farm, even while African children were starving to death."

Of course, paying farmers not to farm originated with the quasi-fascist New Deal, it isn't an aspect of free markets at all. During the Great Depression, the government came in and bought off some quantity of tomatos from my dad--and ordered that he plow up the remainder, he couldn't even give them away. My dad told the neighbors that he couldn't sell them, couldn't give than away, but if people stole them there was nothing he could do . . .

[Warren]

I was introduce to 'The Tragedy of the Commons' in what was called 'senior seminar' (required for graduation despite the fact my degree was in engineering) but should more aptly be referred to as 'collectivist indoctrination'. I was just dumbfounded. This bozo assigns us TTOTC to read and then proclaims that the solution is to do away with property altogether, thus making everything 'the commons'. Un. Fucking. Real.

[ron]

why is it that "senior seminar" required at most colleges seems to be code for "massive load of leftist shit"

[Anonymous]

Hey, no need to slander John Ritter there. He was a gifted comic actor ("Three's Company" was abolutely retarded, writing-wise, but he made it somewhat funny) and not a bad dramatic actor ("Sling Blade" etc.)

[Scott]

Was I the only one who found it amusing that this ZPGer and his wife were survived by FOUR children?

As I pointed out in a post elsewhere...seems like the rules he favored were for other people...

[Russ]

Scott,

Shouldn't you consider Hardin's numerous offspring as supporting evidence of his "TOTC" theory? Wouldn't it have been inconsistant of him to do the opposite of what his theory predicted?

[nm156]

So an elderly, somewhat discredited essayist decided to shuffle off this mortal coil. Pardon me if I do not mourn too much.

[Fred Unger]

Matt,

Thanks for posting that news and especially for the link to "Lifeboat Ethics" Like you, Hardin influenced me at a young age and now I cannot fathom how I could have conceived anything positive in such a morally bankrupt view of the world. It is helpful to contrast Hardin's life work with that of someone who did some good for humanity, Norman Borlaug: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jan/borlaug/borlaug.htm

[Anonymous]

He certainly wasn't too far off India's current population, tho.

Thank goodness for genetically engineered food!

[Kevin Carson]

Alaskan,

"The Tragedy of the Commons" is an inaccurate portrayal of what the commons were, historically. They weren't government property; they were the joint, private property of a village. And there were strict regulations on pasturage or wood-cutting by individual families. The enclosure of commons, historically, was the forcible theft of these private properties from the peasants who jointly owned them and their transformation into the stolen loot of the feudal landlord class.

The "commons" model of ownership--of fisheries by fishermen's associations, for example--is exactly the kind of private property we NEED to prevent the despoilation of natural resources nobody currently owns.

An excellent argument along these lines can be found in Carlton Hobbs' "Common Property in Free Market Anarchism: A Missing Link" http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=362

[Mark A.]

anon@10:05,

Indeed. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with his basic premise or his logic. Where he errs is in his ancillary premise, i.e., discounting the dramatic effect technology can have --and is having --on greatly expanding the carrying capacity of the planet.

[Mark A.]

oops!

Obviously, I should have said, "...where he ERRED..."

[Alaskan]

"The Tragedy of the Commons" is a definitive work in economic thought and points out why private property rights/ownership are preferable. It should be on any libertarian's "must read" list.