The Immigration Dilemma: Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons

by Garrett Hardin

A collection of essays on immigration and related topics by Dr. Garrett Hardin, eminent biologist whose seminal works on environmental ethics have inspired thousands in the environmental movement. The collection includes his famous essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons".

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Garrett James Hardin was a leading and controversial ecologist from Dallas, Texas, who was most well known for his 1968 paper, The Tragedy of the Commons. He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Ecology, which states "You cannot do only one thing", and used the familiar phrase "Nice guys finish last" to sum up the "selfish gene" concept of life and evolution.

Reviews

[Jean-françois Virey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, but like most of Hardin's later publications, it contains a lot of recycled material, not to mention the article "Cultural Carrying Capacity", which is available for free online. Moreover, Hardin deemed fit not to include the bibliographical references of the original versions, as he explains p133, so "interested readers" will just have to get a copy of those original sources anyway.

Here are the reprinted chapters I have identified:
Chapter 3, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968) is included in virtually every single book of Hardin's and has been anthologised multiple times.
Chapters 5, "Living on a Lifeboat" (1974), and 7, "Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept" (1975) are both in "Stalking the Wild Taboo."
And chapter 9, "Discriminating Altruisms" (1982) is from "Living Within Limits".

Together, these five chapters make up 104 of the 133 pages of the book, the remaining seven chapters being much shorter.

[Reuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-argued book about the negative consequences of uncontrolled immigration.

[Corey Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book messed with my head big-time, but it's because it said so many off-putting unjust things...that all made sense. crap. we screwed.