Garrett Hardin

Tragedy of the Commons; commons-as-system framework.

Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) was a professor of human ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His 1968 essay in Science, 'The Tragedy of the Commons', became a cornerstone of systems thinking, environmental policy, and game theory. The essay articulated why unregulated shared resources tend toward overuse and collapse absent coercive governance or privatisation.