In his essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin envisioned only two ways to save the commons: statism and privatism. Either a coercive government would have to stop humans from mindlessly destroying the planet, or private property owners, operating in a free market, would have to do the job. In the next two chapters I’ll show why neither of these approaches suffices.

In considering the potential of governmental remedies, let’s clarify what we mean. We’re not talking about tyranny; we’re talking about legitimate forms of government activity such as regulation, taxation, and public ownership. Can these traditional methods effectively preserve common wealth for our children? ... read the whole chapter