The Tragedy of the Commons

Key Points

• To evaluate whether technological innovations alone can resolve unchecked human population growth and the overexploitation of finite shared resources.
• Theoretical modeling of collective resource utilization and individual rational self-interest.
• Conceptual evaluation of technological versus social and ethical interventions in resource governance.
• Technical solutions cannot resolve systemic population growth or avert resource collapse in an open commons.
• Sustainable management of shared environmental resources requires mutual coercion and a fundamental extension of human morality.