The scenario, which eventually became known as the tragedy of the commons,36 considers a town that maintains common grazing land for cattle and sheep, as was typical in Great Britain in the nineteenth century. Lloyd pointed out an interesting tension: it’s in the individual interest of each herder to graze his animals as much as possible on the commons, and yet when all herders act in their best interest, they’ll inevitably overgraze the commons, rendering it useless to everyone. Similar scenarios of individual interest leading to collective hardship turn out to be common in many different
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