The Tragedies of Resource Overuse and Resource Underuse: Systemic Insights on the Tragedies of the Commons and Anti-commons

摘要

This paper overviews a range of resource-related problems that have been given metaphorical identity as tragedies of the commons, and tragedies of anti-commons. Using the representational tools of qualitative systems dynamics used by Senge (2006) to describe and identify the common systemic structure for the tragedy of the commons, the paper similarly describes the systemic structure for the tragedy of the anti-commons. In doing so, it originates a conceptualization of the anti-commons tragedy as a systems archetype. The paper briefly outlines how the systems representation may help identify leverage points where intervention strategies as levers may best address the tragedies.