This is for paid subscribers: just a reminder that I will be pausing the substack for a couple of months from the end of September. Payments will automatically go on hold, so if you’re a paid subscriber, you will not spend anything during this period.
With the tragedy of the commons, everyone individually gains from damaging or exploiting a shared resource but, as a group, everyone loses. In order to counter the problem, societies develop mechanisms such as public shaming, internalised guilt or a deliberately cultivated attachment to the community, most commonly in the form of nationalism. Anti-littering campaigns have used all these emotional pulls to encourage people to make personal sacrifices for the good of wider society. Because human beings are unusually susceptible to memetic influence, these tend to work.
One modern variation of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ might be Rob Henderson’s concept of luxury beliefs, whereby everyone individually benefits from proclaiming their support for ideas which have a corrosive effect on society. In this case the resource being damaged is social capital, the long-established sense of trust that others are doing what is right for the wider community.
‘Abolish the police’ is the quintessential example Henderson often cites, an idea that is literally lethal when put into practice but which raises the social status of the people who support it. From an individual’s point of view, they would maximally benefit if only a small number of people soiled the commons with this destructive meme, therefore giving them prestige without consequences; if everyone does it, and politicians respond accordingly, their lives get significantly worse - or in some cases, end.
