The term "Tragedy of the Commons" is a phrase which is used to
describe why, according to some, commonly owned resources will
be destructively overused. The term was first coined by Garret
Hardin in December 1968. ["The Tragedy of the Commons", Science,
Vol. 162, No. 3859, pp. 1243-1248] It quickly became popular
with those arguing against any form of collective ownership or
socialism and would be the basis for many arguments for
privatisation. Unsurprisingly, given its popularity with
defenders of capitalism and neo-classical economists, Hardin's
argument was a pure thought experiment with absolutely no
empirical evidence to support it. He suggested a scenario in
which commonly owned pasture was open to all local herdsmen to
feed their cattle on. Hardin complemented this assumption with
the standard ones of neo-classical economics, arguing that each
herdsman would try to keep as many cattle as possible on the
commons to maximise their income. This would result in
overgrazing and environmental destruction as