The Tragedy Of Our Commons

or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Start Eating Mangoes

In relating the story of the mangoes, there was one glaring omission in the tale: the reason for people to eat unripened mangoes and get self-inflicted diarrhea.

If you haven't read it go back and take a look first. We here have all tried to wrap our heads around it and have come up with little in terms of motivation or desire to eat this hard, bitter fruit. Several people I talked to even compared the kids to drug addicts—for instance let's say a habitual meth user—whose practice is particularly destructive. Others bristled at the idea of comparing the kids eating unripened mangoes to hardened meth user, so we searched for another explanation.

The explanation I like is referred to as the Tragedy of the commons. It comes from early 19th century economics, and the parable states the following: Imagine there is a community where each member of the community raise his or her own cows. The cows all graze together in a large commons (a tract without an owner). Eventually, one of the herders decided that his situation would improve if he had more heads cattle to herd, and thus more milk/meat/income and he sets about increasing his herd. Say for example instead of having fifteen heads he now has twenty.

A second herdsman, seeing that his situation too may be improved also decides to increase his herd as well. Say that he goes from five to twenty. Eventually more herdsmen, seeing that their individual wealth may also be improved, set about buying more cattle and put the cattle out to graze in the commons.

Eventually, the herdsmen see that the cattle are consuming the food in the tract at an increasing rate. However, seeing that his individual wealth would be reduced by decreasing the size of his heard, he opts instead to continue with the present level (or even increasing the number) of cattle. Eventually, instead of the commons providing sustenance for, say, ten years, it only provides the cattle for two years, after which the farmers are without recourse and the cattle die.

It is tragic in the classical sense that the decisions of the herdsmen directly lead to their demise and ability to make a living. The idea is that each herdsmen made what was individually a logical decision to improve his economics, but that collectively the sum of their decisions was illogical and destructive to the whole of the farmers because the commons was depleted of grass sooner rather than later. This dilemma is also often referred to the shared resource problem, or the finite resource problem, among many other derivations of the same name. The idea is that there is a finite, shared natural resource (the commons) and if each takes the group into account the resource will survive, but each making an individual (and rational) decision to increase his personal holdings will invite the completion of the resource.

In the real world, the herdsmen would innovate and move to a different tract of land, or find a different source of food. An example is to think about how many whale farmers you know. You don't know any?. That's because there are no whale farmers

This doesn't count.

In the 18th and early 19th century there was an insatiable appetite for whale oil the world over. Companies and nations hunted as many whales as possible to feed the demand, however, hundreds and thousands that were also hunting and killing as many whales as possible. Whales practically disappeared. 

But when they almost went extinct, people innovated and developed substitutes for whale oil. That guy who invested in whale farms lost everything because the only people hunting whales these days are the Japanese.

And everyone knows the Japanese do not want to be fed, they want to hunt.

And how's that for an introduction?! If you're not already bored after more than six-hundred words, we're getting to the payoff pretty soon here.

So I began to think of the kids eating mangoes like this, as people competing to utilize a shared resource. But unfortunately for this explanation, the Tragedy of the Commons is very clear in stating that individuals make a decision which is in their best interest, but when everybody makes the decision, it is detrimental to the whole of the community. How is getting diarrhea from eating unripe mangoes in anybody's best interest?

But behaviorally, there is much more depth to this story. Think of it like this: How many of you grew up in a home with a cookie jar (I see the light bulbs going off in your head). Mom makes cookies, and when you were too short to reach the cookie jar (or granola if you're from a weird healthy household) she would dutifully dispense the cookies snack-appropriate intervals. You would notice that if you grew up with siblings, you would normally all receive the same amount of cookies. [Ed. Note: Mom loved me more and I got more cookies. Sorry to break it to you, brothers.]

However, when you were tall enough to reach the cookie jar, you found it in your best interest to eat a cookie whenever you darn well pleased. And you did as you pleased even though with your siblings doing the same thing it meant that the cookie jar would be emptied in a matter days—or in our household, a matter of hours—leaving the family without cookies.

How many of you, seeing the cookie jar with only two cookies left in it, would not race and cram those cookies in you mouth faster than you can say “diabetes”? All of you would, unless you're a saint, but we'll talk about saints later. In that moment you were individually putting your goals ahead of the families and you just depleted your shared resource. I would sarcastically congratulate you, but then I would remember you are pleased with yourself for eating the last two cookies.

Digging deeper, however, what you your fear is not that the cookie jar will eventually run out, but your fear is that your sibling* will eat half the cookie jar in the middle of the night and you will be left with nothing. Your desire to eat cookies is two-fold. 1) You wish to fill your tummy, and 2) you wish to prevent your brothers from eating a larger share of cookies, so you eat them first, thereby preventing him from doing the same to you.

*For those of you not understanding the cookie metaphor—say you grew up in a house full of health-conscious sisters—you can substitute sharing of shoes or clothes or shampoo or something. If that still doesn't hit home, imagine using all the gas in the family sedan. Who hasn't had their sibling return from his/her joyride as you wait to use the car only to find it has no gas. And if your parents were rich and the gas tank never hit the E, I'm out of examples. You're on your own.

Now lets bring our discourse back home. Remember, our motivation was to talk about my kids eating mangoes from the trees before they ripen, at great risk to their own health.

It is clearly in nobody's self-interest to get diarrhea. It is also not in the greater interest of the group to over indulge in mangoes. However, it is in the selfish interests of the each kid to insure the somebody else is not eating all the mangoes when she is not getting any. That is selfishness. That is sin.

You see, for me, I see this as a behavioral problem (duh) and not only as an economics problem. I see it as the inability of the kids to make a wise decision that will benefit both themselves and everybody around them. Adam Smith, widely considered the first economist, has said making a moral judgment relies on the ability of the first person to put himself in the position of the second person and, from that perspective, make a decision that is beneficial to both of them. But here's the rub: Adam Smith didn't say that first. Jesus did.

As is often the case, the mangoes did just fine staying put on the trees, but then one person decided to start eating mangoes and slowly the dominoes cascaded and a huge portion of the kids are now eating mangoes and giving themselves diarrhea. You may argue that they are only kids unable to make a clear judgment decision regarding mangoes. I argue that this orphanage is full of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year old boys and girls that have been complaining of diarrhea for over a month, not because they want the mangoes for themselves, but because they are afraid of the mangoes ripening and another person eating more mangoes than herself.

The depletion of our mangoes is because the kids are more concerned with preventing their neighbor from eating ripened mangoes than they are concerned with loving their neighbor as themselves!

As some of the kids have bluntly told me, they continue frustrated because they know that if they change, and are the only person to change, the situation is not improved and individually they are worse off. The only way to improve is if everybody can multilaterally make the decision to lay off the mangoes. But if not everybody does, those that do are going to “lose”. While this situation is fairly anecdotal, it does fit in to the larger lack of altruism that is a hallmark of the culture at large.

The situation with the mangoes is hard to understand because it goes against conventional wisdom—kids intentionally over-indulging in mangoes and getting crazy diarrhea. But I would also posit that the phrase “conventional wisdom” is itself a misnomer because it wisdom was conventional, it would be cheaply gained it would not be valued as true wisdom.

So if you can't quite it out, know that we are right there with you. And if you've got a better explanation other than than selfishness and sin, please contribute, because after seventeen-hundred words I've got no more ideas on this end.