Garrett Hardin Tragedy In The Commons Summary

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Ethan Gregory “Tragedy in the Commons” is a comprehensive essay by Garrett Hardin proposing a government limitation on the reproduction within a family. Hardin suggests that by placing restrictions on the size of families, the overuse and depreciation of the economical assets will at minimal effect slow the steady decline of our nation’s ability to “sustain” our way of life. While the growth of the population is directly mentioned in the article, I believe Hardin also wants us to see the way of life we all know cannot be maintained without sacrificing the very freedoms that make up this way of life. This work has a primary focus on the size of families and the act of surrendering the right to have a family of any size that we as “free”…show more content…
The kicker to it all though is we cannot depend on the government to take the stand, but we must make the stand for ourselves. In our society now, we have deemed so many things necessary to our lives that we by no means require. These things are not for me to decide and definitely should be out of the government’s realm of control. It is up to us the body of this nation to decide personally what we are willing to sacrifice the preserve this way of life, the way of life being the freedoms that we all take for granted. Anything that we can do without and produce for ourselves will not only strengthen our country, but will also help our children and grandchildren live out the same pleasures we have been able to enjoy. Dr. Nobles commented in the first week of our class that we as people needed to evaluate what we would be willing to give up in order to sustain the life we have. That’s what sustainability is. It is defined as “capable of being maintained” but to me it seems better defined as giving up unimportant conveniences to maintain what is truly best for the well-being of not only one’s self, but also the greater good of the

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