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______________________________________Garrett Hardin, Ph.D., is professor emeritus ofhuman ecology at the University of California,Santa Barbara. His latest book, Living WithinLimits (Oxford University Press, 1993) receivedthe Phi Beta Kappa Science Award for that year.The Social Contract Press is pleased to bereprinting several of Dr. Hardin’s books includingthe now-completed Stalking the Wild Taboo andMandatory Motherhood.

The Feast of MalthusLiving within limitsby Garrett Hardin

For a few decades after the publication ofMalthus’s celebrated essay in 1798,population was much discussed in England;

then at about the middle of the 19th century itbecame overshadowed by more narrowly economicproblems. In the 20th century Malthus has, so tospeak, been buried every year by his commentators—only to be dug up again the following year.Exactly why Malthus is so often repudiated is notclear because the funeral orations typically amountto little more than one brutal word: Discredited!

Reviewing many criticisms I have come to theconclusion that a single paragraph in Malthusaccounts for much of the rejectors' passion. Theoffending passage occurs only in the second editionof his essay. Had Malthus retained this paragraphand justified it adequately in subsequent editions Ithink we would have been spared nearly twohundred years of unproductive brawling. As I see it,Malthus walked right past the heart of thepopulation problem. In presenting my conclusionsI shall follow the advice of the physicist GeorgeUhlenbeck (1900-1988), who said: "First tell uswhat the problem is; then state your conclusions atonce. Only thereafter should you go into details…"1

The problem is simply this: can the necessity ofpopulation control be reconciled with the apparentdemands of individualism, as that complex concepthas developed since John Locke? I conclude thatthere is a fatal contradiction between these twonecessities; and that the survival of civilization willrequire us to modify significantly the powers we

now grant to individual "rights." This socialrevolution will be painful, but it cannot, I think, besuccessfully evaded.

Here is the offending paragraph of Malthus:

A man who is born into a world alreadypossessed, if he cannot get subsistence fromhis parents on whom he has a just demand,and if the society do not want his labour, hasno claim of right to the smallest portion offood, and, in fact, has no business to bewhere he is. At nature’s mighty feast there isno vacant cover for him. She tells him to begone, and will quickly execute her ownorders, if he does not work upon thecompassion of some of her guests. If theseguests get up and make room for him, otherintruders immediately appear demanding thesame favour. The report of a provision for allthat come, fills the hall with numerousclaimants. The order and harmony of thefeast is disturbed, the plenty that beforereigned is changed into scarcity; and thehappiness of the guests is destroyed by thespectacle of misery and dependence in everypart of the hall, and by the clamorousimportunity of those, who are justly enragedat not finding the provision which they hadbeen taught to expect. The guests learn toolate their error, in counter-acting those strictorders to all intruders, issued by the greatmistress of the feast, who, wishing that allguests should have plenty, and knowing shecould not provide for unlimited numbers,humanely refused to admit fresh comerswhen her table was already full.2

Reading this passage thoughtfully one is notsurprised to learn that its author became, in JamesBonar's phrase, "the best-abused man of the age."The "Feast" led critics to deduce that Malthus (asBonar put it) "defended small-pox, slavery, andchild-murder"3 (because they kept the populationfrom growing too large) while he "denounced soup-kitchens, early marriage, and parish allowances"

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“Throughout this era

invective was the preferred

weapon of the literati.”

(because they encouraged population growth).The shocking Feast was spread before the

public in 1803, in the second edition of the Essay.Malthus could hardly have chosen a worse time: asort of “compassion revolution” was then well underway. During the 19th century the English-speakingworld made great progress in the humanetreatment of animals, in getting rid of slavery, incurtailing child labor, and in (reluctantly) giving amodicum of freedom to women. Bonar has said that"for thirty years it rained refutations of Malthus."Before Malthus died in 1834, four more editions ofthe Essay had been published, the last in 1826; butin none of them did the Feast appear for a secondtime.

Malthus was hurt by thereactions to his movingmetaphor. In 1807, in a letter toa friend in Parliament, theauthor complained: "To thosewho know me personally, I feelthat I have no occasion todefend my character from theimputation of hardness of heart…"4 The mostpassionate of the refutations came from the literarycommunity. One of its leaders, William Hazlett,called the Feast a pleasing allegory, saying of theauthor:

He frolics with his subject in the gaiety of hisheart, and his tongue grows wanton in praiseof famine. But … I cannot admit the assertionthat “at nature's mighty feast there is novacant cover for the poor man.” There areplenty of vacant covers but that the guests atthe head of the table have seized upon allthose at the lower end, before the table wasfull.5

Thus was the population argument maneuveredinto the area of distribution, an enduring concern ofunrelenting liberals for some two centuries.

Throughout this era invective was the preferredweapon of the literati. In 1820, the poet Shelleyidentified the author of the Essay as "a priest ofcourse, for his doctrines are those of a eunuch andof a tyrant."6 One could reasonably expect a manas wealthy and as well-connected as Shelley toknow that a priest of the English church (whichMalthus was) was not sworn to celibacy: in fact,Malthus married in 1804, just a year after publishingthe offending paragraph. As for the "eunuch" and

"tyrant" in Shelley’s diatribe, they simply popped outof the poet's pen — not out of any known facts.

Worse was yet to come. Long after Malthusdied, Karl Marx repeated Shelley's canard byasserting that the essayist "had taken the monasticvow of celibacy"; Marx was unaware of Malthus'sthree children. An error even more difficult tounderstand was that of the 20th century editor ofthe Essay in the Everyman edition, who assertedthat Malthus practiced the principles of populationcontrol by begetting eleven girls.7 An obsession withthe rigors of scholarship has not characterizedMalthus's critics.

A real "fun way" to combatunwelcome conclusions is toinvoke an argumentum adhominem. Marx referred toMalthus as "superficial," "aprofessional plagiarist," "thea g e n t o f t h e l a n d e daristocracy," "a paid advocate",and "the principal enemy of the

people."8 I think that a single overarching viewaccounts for these and many other invectives putforward by Marxists and liberals during the pastcentury and a half: this is the tightly held denial oflimits in the supply of terrestrial resources. FriedrichEngels, Marx's collaborator and financial supporter,asserted baldly that "The productivity of the landcan be infinitely increased by the application ofcapital, labour and science."9 At about the sametime a rather different voice, that of the AmericanHenry George, boldly proclaimed:

I assert that in any given state of civilization agreater number of people can be betterprovided for than a smaller. I assert that theinjustice of society, not the niggardliness ofnature, is the cause of the want and miserywhich current theory attributes tooverpopulation.10

The underlying attitude of anti-Malthusians ispre-Darwinian: it baldly assumes that the laws ofnature which govern all other species of plants andanimals were negated for man by the God ofGenesis. Man is saved by the formula, "X willprovide", where "X" may be God, Providence, orScience. As is apparent in the second sentence ofGeorge's assertion, this pleasantly acceptablethought is greatly empowered by coupling it with

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“The image of brethren is

borrowed from the picture

of charity. No one has a

million or a billion

brethren.”

another: Injustice is the primary enemy. It isdoubtful if any major reform of the past two hundredyears has succeeded without a calculated referenceto injustice. (For Darwinians, extinction is moredisturbing than simple injustice.)

By Henry George’s day,Science was a powerful god,so the author goes on toexplain how he thought thisnew god had obliterated thedangers of overpopulation:

I assert that the newmouths which anincreasing populationcalls into existencerequire no more foodthan the old ones, while

the hands they bring with them can in the naturalorder of things produce more. I assert that, otherthings being equal, the greater the population, thegreater the comfort which an equitable distributionwould give to each individual. I assert that in astate of equality the natural increase of populationwould constantly tend to make every individualricher instead of poorer.

A skeptical Darwinian might well respond, "Ah,now I see why it is that the lemmings jump off thecliff: they can’t tolerate the luxury produced by theiroverpopulation!" Anti-Georgians can sarcasticallyoffer the following advice to every one of the fiftymillion species of animals and plants:"Overpopulation is GOOD for you!"

Though not considered great, George was aneconomist of sorts. Sadly, his message is stillrepeated in our own time by many poorly trainedeconomists. These odd-men-out make a good livingby marketing this nonsense. Few things arepleasanter to committed capitalists than beingassured that more people are always and foreverbetter. Grow! Grow! Grow!

The belittling of the seriousness of over-population is not restricted to the quack-economistsof our time: it is even found among a few of theleaders of the profession. To cite a single instance:Theodore W. Schultz, as late as 1945, boldlyasserted that "The nightmare of overpopulation thatoppressed Malthus and his contemporaries nolonger troubles our minds."11 Following HenryGeorge, growthmen even cite a principle to explaintheir anti-Darwinian stance: economies of scale. A

factory can turn out a million Rolls-Royces at lessper unit cost than a single Ford. Too manyeconomists act as if they think "Bigger is alwaysbetter."

Scientists know better. At some level ofproduction, the balance shifts todiseconomies of scale. But ifyou search the indexes of alarge sample of elementaryeconomics texts you will findthat "economies of scale" arediscussed in most of them,while "diseconomies of scale"are seldom ment ioned.Darwinians are astonished: inan anti-Darwinian world,elephants could be taller than

the World Trade Center, while — well, the readercan easily continue with this fantasy. But, in reality,there is no anti-Darwinian world: wherever there isgrowth, diseconomies of scale ultimately rule.

Many of the paradigms that guide us comefrom the Bible. Genesis 1:28 says: "Be fruitful andmultiply" — without giving any hint of limits ordiseconomies of scale. Yet in ancient days scarcitywas a possibility that none dared forget. In our timemost people accept as gospel society's ability tocure a shortage by increasing the supply. Not so,said the Preacher of Ecclesiastes (5:11): "Whengoods increase, they are increased that eat them."What was true in the 2nd century B.C. is still true:an increase in foodstuffs makes overpopulationworse, not better. We recognize this truth in herdsof cattle grazing in nature; but we act as if our ownspecies lives by some other law of nature.

In the 3rd century A.D. the church leaderTertullian firmly grasped this nettle of reality. Hesaid: "The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars,and earthquakes have come to be regarded as ablessing to overcrowded nations, since they serveto prune away the luxuriant growth of the humanrace."12 The figure of speech "prune away" comesnaturally to an agricultural people, who cultivate fruittrees the growth of which needs to be controlled toachieve the best production. More generally it maybe said that, to survive and persist, every speciesneeds its "enemies" to keep its numbers down. Thistruth was enlarged upon by Joseph Townsend,twelve years in advance of Malthus' essay.13

Traditionally, we regard a predator as the enemy of

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“Too many economists act as if they

think ‘bigger is always better.’

Scientists know better.”

a single prey animal; but the predators of apopulation are not, in the final analysis, enemies ofthe species. Without some sort of external controla species can eat itself out of house and home.14

One might expect this truth to be generallyrecognized among laymen, but the zoologist W. T.Edmonson tells of a sociologist friend whofound difficulty in believing that themultiplication of Daphnia (water-fleas) isinhibited by lack of food.15 Familiar withthe correlation of human poverty withlarge family size in the "Third World," thesociologist expected starved water-fleas tobe more fertile than well-fed ones. He didnot realize that the behavior of human populationsis anomalous and requires special explanation. Heregarded the reproductive behavior of Daphnia asa surprising exception to what he thought was ageneral rule of biology. Small wonder thatMalthusianism is so often rejected!

Many implicit assumptions are involved inMalthus’s Feast. Among these are the following:

a. The system of private property is ethically right,from which it follows that—

b. Need does not create an unqualified right;and—

c. Justice does not demand an equal distributionof goods; also—

d. Though society may tolerate a beggar'ssuccessfully working "upon the compassionof some of [nature's] guests. [and] … Theorder and harmony of the feast is disturbed,the plenty that before reigned is changed intoscarcity; and happiness of the guests thatbefore reigned is changed into scarcity…"And finally—

e. Malthus implicitly makes a significant distinctionbetween charity and philanthropy.

"Charity," derived from the Latin caritas, love,has a strong implication of a one-on-onerelationship (as in the love of a wife for a man)."Philanthropy," by contrast, asserts a love (phil-)focused on mankind (anthropos), which is a veryplural concept. Most people feel that the one-to-many love in philanthropy cannot be as intense asthe one-to-one relationship in charity. We note thatthe promoters of philanthropic enterprises tend tomuddle the distinction by referring to their work as

"charity." A philanthropic act is aimed at bettering alarge population — perhaps the whole species —sometimes even at the expense of someindividuals. The justification of philanthropy is foundin the totality of its consequences (when comparedwith the consequences of the known alternative

actions). Adam Smith, before he changed his principal

interest from ethics to economics, treated what wewould now call "charity" under the rubric of"beneficence." He wrote: "Beneficence — is theornament which embellishes, not the foundationwhich supports the building [of ethics]."16 In otherwords, charity is, as it were, a retail form of ethicalbehavior while philanthropy, focusing on largerpopulations, is a kind of wholesale ethics. Smithillustrates this distinction at some length (of whichthe following passage is a much shortened version):

Let us suppose that the great empire ofChina, with all its myriads of inhabitants, wassuddenly swallowed up by an earthquake,and let us consider how a man of humanitywould be affected upon receiving intelligenceof this dreadful calamity … provided he neversaw [the victims], he will snore with the mostprofound security over the ruin of a hundredmillions of his brethren … would a man ofhumanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of ahundred millions of his brethren, provided hehad never seen them? Human nature startleswith horror at the thought.17

The image of brethren is borrowed from thepicture of charity. No one has a million or a billiongenuine brethren. To use this term as Smith did isto try to introduce a family attitude into our reactionsto an unimaginable multitude of non-relatives. Itwon’t work.

By his ambivalence Malthus spoiled themetaphorical utility of the "feast" for sevengenerations; the problem was finally revived with adifferent metaphor, the image of a "lifeboat."18 Thesame ethical problem is treated in the area of

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“[With] complete freedom in reproduction,

conscientious people will be eliminated…”

military medicine under the title of "triage."19 The "conservation of a favorable self-image"

seems to be a rule of psychology. A self-image ofgreat kindliness is devoutly to be desired, so theterms "feast," "lifeboat," and "triage" have beengiven the cold shoulder, despite the fact that allthree offer us recipes for the conservation of goodsin a limited physical world subject to limitlessdemands.

This brings us back to the wisdom of Koheleth,the Preacher, who asserted that it was generalknowledge in his time (3rd century, B.C.) that:"When goods increase those who eat of themincrease."20 After another two thousand years theinescapable implication of the Preacher’s wisdomwas given: "We can’t cure a shortage by increasingthe supply." Why can’t we? Because every"shortage" of supply is equally a "longage" ofdemand.21

Since we inhabit a limited world — (no other is

practically available to our species) — the standardcommercial competition favors individuals whorefuse to reduce the longage of their demands.Unquestioning faith in the free enterprise systemfavors those who refuse to acknowledge essentialshortages. As a result the dominant kind ofcompetition favors the long-term suicide of thedemanders. Ecologically oriented citizens (theintellectual descendants of the common man inTertullian's day) are (for the present at least) at acompetitive disadvantage.

Can this sociological malfunction be corrected?Initially, Malthus saw no escape from the ultimatetragedy of overpopulation; but Godwin andCondorcet pointed out that births could becontrolled artificially. This proposal shockedMalthus, who suggested — not very enthusiastically— that reproduction could be minimized byextensively resorting to voluntary abstinence inmarriage. This path clearly requires a super-potentconscience.

Following the Malthusian path, an individual

may have to restrict his (her) fertility in the interestsof the community as a whole. Charitable impulses— concern for the feelings of the partner (not tomention the nation) —must yield to a philanthropicdesire to make life better for psychologically distant"others" — one's own posterity as well as strangerson distant shores. To put the matter bluntly, realpopulation control requires that the individualisticrights asserted by the descendants of Locke andSmith must be significantly curtailed.

Malthus did not see this clearly; and in our daythe promoters of "Planned Parenthood" haveperpetuated the confusion. Their literature impliesthat birth control will inevitably produce populationcontrol, though their official goal is only to make itpossible for each woman to have the number ofchildren she wants, when she wants them.

Though birth control (read, "plannedparenthood") may help in preparing apsychologically favorable environment for stronger

measures, the intellectual descendants ofLocke must insist that: birth control is NOTpopulation control.

A childishly simple resort to numbersvalidates this conclusion. In present-dayNorth American culture, 2.1 children percouple would produce a stable populationsize — but how can we ask any woman to

produce exactly 2.1 babies? More to the point,there is no biological mechanism to ensure thatindividual women will produce the number ofchildren needed to achieve population stability inthe entire group.

Conscience, like other individualcharacteristics, varies. One woman may besatisfied with one child, while another craves four.Intended or not, with no community control ofreproduction, a competition in breeding will develop.In all other species of animals there is a geneticcomponent to fertility; but anyone who suggeststhat genes also influence fertility in the humananimal kindles the ire of genophobes — individualswho are intellectually repelled by the idea of geneticdifferences in humans. Fortunately, in the disputeover population control, it is not necessary to raisethe genetic issue. It is enough to assume that theremay be a sort of cultural heredity — that the adviceand examples set by parents have some influenceon the behavior of their children.22 (Understandably,of course, parents usually crave more than merely

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"some".) With either genetic heredity or culturalheredity, a variant of Gresham’s Law23 is set in play:since high fertility tends to diminish the monetarywealth of a family, then (focusing only oneconomics) we must say that, over time, withuninhibited fertility, low living standards drive outhigh.24 In a welfare-free social order this might notmatter, because the extra childhood mortalityassociated with too numerous a family might correctfor the parents’ error; but with generous socialwelfare the children of an unwisely fertile couplemay be saved to breed in the next generation. Oneof the major consequences of this fact has beensuccinctly stated by the economist Milton Friedman:"You can’t have free immigration and a welfarestate."25 To invite the overly fertile into a prosperouscountry to share in welfare riches is to pursue apolicy of national suicide. (And, if generalized forthe entire world, a policy of species suicide.)

Individualism rightly enjoys such high prestigethat the reader may resent any suggestion thatindividual desires must sometimes be curbed forthe good of the community. But think of bank-robbing. If the individual could get away with it hemight well adopt this occupation; but if everyonerobs, everyone pays for the robbing — and theindividual is thwarted after all. Consciences vary. Ina community in which there is complete freedom inreproduction, conscientious people will beeliminated: this is a particular example of the"competitive exclusion principle."26

When predators, disease and other populationcontrols external to a species become muchenfeebled, individual freedom must be infringedupon. The community must then take over thefunction formerly performed by external forces.Community interest takes precedence overindividual desires. Coercion is essential, but in ademocracy it should be only a coercion by lawswhich are agreed to by the majority. The necessaryformulaic statement of democratic individualism isthis: mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon.27

The introduction of coercion into a discussioninevitably arouses existing antipathies to the word.The mind of the auditor is immediately flooded withimages of violently coercive measures. Therecollection of the horrors perpetrated by Hitler andStalin freeze the mind into non-productive channels.We forget that a sweet "Pretty please!" from adimpled girl can also be an effective coercion. More

generally (as has long been recognized), coercionoccurs in two different forms: the carrot and the stick.The possibility of achieving the necessary populationcontrol in a growing population afflicted bydiseconomies of scale depends on our ingenuity indiscovering effective carrots.

Society has already had considerableexperience in devising acceptable (though notentirely pleasant) controls over access to privilegeswhenever demand outpaces supply. Is the demandfor unspoiled wilderness too great for the populationsize? Effective demand can be reduced byconverting community property into salable privateproperty, which is then sold by auction. Ortemporary permits for entrance can be sold atsufficiently high prices. Or "first come, first served"can be declared the policy: this will favor peoplewho are richer in time (for queuing up) over thosewho are merely rich in money.

Many other "gimmicks" can be used forallocating resources in a world overwhelmed bydemand. To find the gimmicks that work wellenough for population control we must first beconvinced that the need exists. In the immediatefuture we must undo a great deal of mal-educationalready entrenched in our society by media-masterswho appear to be under the direction of the minorityof economists who do not quite understood thepotency of exponential growth and the ultimateinescapability of diseconomies of scale. The taskahead is monumentally daunting.

As we have seen in discussing Malthus'sFeast, the words "charity" and "philanthropy" can beusefully distinguished. The first refers to anindividualistic goal; the second focuses on acommunity, sometimes on the entire species. Tosave humanity from eating itself to extinction wemust abandon the dominant religion of the pastthree centuries — Lockean individualism — anddedicate ourselves to a new — and also very old —commitment to community. This change in overallideals will require many changes in particulars. Asconcerns the problems here discussed we mustrecognize that—

One: Birth control is an individualistic goal,achievable by each individual (or couple) alone.

Two: Population control is a philanthropic goal,not achievable by charitable actions alone.

A social revolution is called for, and the factthat it may reasonably be interpreted as a counter-

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revolution inspired by earlier ideals does not makethe achievement of it any easier. It is difficult forpotent activators to foresee the details of anyrevolution-to-come. What we need are experiments— many experiments. Dreams of "One World" arenot acceptable substitutes for actual experiments.Since most social experiments fail we need manyexperiments. This means that our species mustcontinue to be subdivided into many nations. Theoverall attitude should be one of encouraging manylocally designed experiments, coupled with auniversal and almost religious observance of a strictpolicy of "Keep your (national) nose out of my(national) business!" That means we mustdiscourage loose talk of "universal human rights,"28

for we can be sure that every partial success in thelocal control of a population will be achieved byadopting measures that are condemned by somenations somewhere.

We can learn from each others' mistakes.There is no better way. TSC

[Dr. Hardin’s e-mail address is: hardin@silcom.com.]

NOTES1 Abraham Pais: A Tale of Two Continents. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. (p. 36)2 T. R. Malthus: An Essay on the Principle ofPopulation, 2nd ed. London: J. Johnson, 1803. (BookIV, Chap. VI, p. 531.)3 James Bonar: Malthus and His Work. London:Macmillan, 1885. (pp. 1-2.)4 Thomas Robert Malthus: A Letter to SamuelWhitbread, Esq., M.P., 2nd ed. London: J. Johnson.(Reprint, New York: Kelley, 1970.)5 William Hazlett: A Reply to the Essay on Population.London: Longman, et al, 1807. (Reprint, New York:Kelley, 1967.)6 Percy B. Shelley: "A philosophical view of reform." InThe Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.London: Gordian, 1829. (vol. 7, p. 32)7 William Petersen: Malthus. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1979. (p. 22)8 J. Dupaquier et al, eds.: Malthus Past and Present.New York: Academic Press, 1983. (p. 258)9 John Passmore: Man’s Responsibility for Nature. NewYork: Scribner's, 1974. (p. 150)10 Henry George: Progress and Poverty, 1879. Reprint,New York: Schalkenberg, 1962. (pp. 141-142)11 Theodore W. Schultze: Food For the World. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1945. (p. 310)

12 From De Anima.13 Joseph Townsend: A Dissertation on the Poor Laws,by a Well-Wisher to Mankind. London: 1886. Reprint,Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. 14 This is one of the problems associated with the originof life. See Garrett Hardin: "Darwin and the heterotrophhypothesis," Scientific Monthly, 70(3):178-179. 1950.15 W. T. Edmondson: The Uses of Ecology: LakeWashington and Beyond. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1991. (p. 302)16 Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759.(reprint, Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1969.) (p. 167) 17 Ibid, p. 233.18 Garrett Hardin: "Living on a lifeboat." BioScience, 24(10):561-568. 1974. (As an indication of the ambiva-lence of our times it should be noted that this paperwas first rejected by The American Scientist. Theknown reprintings of it in anthologies, etc., amount to15.) 19 Garrett Hardin: Promethean Ethics: Living withDeath, Competition, and Triage. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1980. (pp. 56-71)20 Ecclesiastes 5:11. I have used the wording of the"Goodspeed Bible."21 Garrett Hardin: Living Within Limits. New York:Oxford University Press, 1993. (pp. 309-310)22 Mark Sagoff: "The philosopher as teacher."Metaphilosophy 11:307-325. (p. 315) This is a splendiddisplay of genophobia. The author is also under theimpression that non-human animals instinctively act soas to achieve population control, thus ignoring theinsight of Tertullian some 17 centuries earlier.23 Garrett Hardin: The Ostrich Factor: Myth & MyopiaMeet Myopia. (Chap. 17; in press)24 Garrett Hardin: "The cybernetics of competition"(1963). Reprinted in Hardin: Stalking the Wild Taboo,3rd ed. Petoskey, MI: The Social Contract Press. (pp.195-197)25 Milton Friedman, news item: National Review, 31December 1997. (p. 4)26 Garrett Hardin: Stalking the Wild Taboo, 3rd edition.Petoskey, MI: The Social Contract Press, 1997. (pp.195-197)27 Garrett Hardin: "The tragedy of the commons."Science, 162:1243-1248. 1968.28 Garrett Hardin: Living Within Limits. (pp. 277-278).