Wikipedia article"Even today Hardin's essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" is a source of controversy. Some of this stems from disagreement about whether individuals will always behave in the selfish fashion posited by Hardin (see discussion below).
More significantly, controversy has been fueled by the "application" of Hardin's ideas to real situations. In particular, some authorities have read Hardin's work as specifically advocating the privatisation of commonly owned resources. Consequently, resources that have traditionally been managed communally by local organisations have been enclosed or privatised. Ostensibly this serves to "protect" such resources, but it ignores the pre-existing management, often appropriating resources and alienating indigenous (and frequently poor) populations. In effect, private or state use repeatedly resulted in worse outcomes than compared to the previous commons management. As Hardin's essay focuses on resources that are fundamentally unmanaged, rather than communally managed, this application of his ideas is misplaced. Ironically, given his original hypothetical example, this misunderstanding of Hardin's ideas is often applied to grazing lands.
More generally, Hardin made it very clear that usage of public property could be controlled in a number of different ways to stop or limit over-usage. As has been pointed out by Natalie Wanis, Hardin's advocacy of clearly defined property rights has frequently been misread as an argument for privatization, or private property, per se. "
The tragedy of the commons does apply to unmanaged public resources. It does NOT apply to state-controlled public resources.
Example:
Public land used for grazing will be subject to the tragedy as all cattle owners try to use it up as quickly as possible so that the others won't.
But if the same public land were state-controlled and rented out to (not owned by) the cattle owners (each will pay the market rent for the part he wants to use), the tragedy does not apply.
The tragedy of the commons teaches us that communism (i.e. anarcho-socialism, I am using the word in its original sense here) doesn't work, but it is a VERY string argument for socialism (i.e. state-sponsored socialism).
In fact renting out the land to cattle owners rather than let each claim as property as much of the unowned land as they can before other people arrive will use the land more efficiently than an ownership system will. Since all the cattle owners have rent to pay, they must use the land they rent, otherwise they are wasting money. But a land owner (alodial title with no mortgage) can leave his land lie unused, waiting for the price to rise (land becomes scarce since supply is constant but demand goes up as the population grows). Economic inefficiency translates into profit for the land owner.
Hence the tragedy of the commons shows us that communism (see above) doesn't work, that socialism does work and that capitalism is inefficient.
If there is a price to pay for using the land, people will use the land efficiently. If there is no price to pay for all, people will overuse it (communism). If there is no price to pay for some, people will underuse it (capitalism).
Not the point Draginol wanted to make, I suppose.
(Note that this is a philosophical point. The tax system is not grazing land. Draginol's point applies to taxes and the tragedy of the commons gedanken experiment can be used to prove it. But the tragedy of the commons does NOT in general show that socialism doesn't work, quite the opposite is true.)
