Individual solutions to shared problems create a modern tragedy of the commons

Abstract

Alone and together, climatic changes, population growth, and economic scarcity create shared problems that can be tackled effectively through cooperation and coordination. Perhaps because cooperation is fragile and easily breaks down, societies also provide individual solutions to shared problems, such as privatized healthcare or retirement planning. But how does the availability of individual solutions affect free-riding and the efficient creation of public goods? We confronted groups of individuals with a shared problem that could be solved either individually or collectively. Across different cost-benefit ratios of individually versus collectively solving the shared problem, individuals display a remarkable tendency toward group-independent, individual solutions. This “individualism” leads to inefficient resource allocations and coordination failure. Introducing peer punishment further results in wasteful punishment feuds between “individualists” and “collectivists.” In the presence of individual solutions to shared problems, groups struggle to balance self-reliance and collective efficiency, leading to a “modern tragedy of the commons.”

Conceptualizing data‐deliberation: The starry sky beetle, environmental system risk, and Habermasian CSR in the digital age

“…Enderle (, p. 621) outlines that the wealth of a society depends on public and private goods, which are strongly interlinked, meaning “that the creation of private goods depends on the availability of public goods, and, in turn, the creation of public goods is dependent on the availability of private goods.” This suggests that private organizations, as well as governmental actors, may be equally interested in upholding this wealth. Correspondingly, public and private actors may be likewise concerned about avoiding “negative public goods” or public bads such as shared problems that manifest as epidemic diseases, air pollution, or economic scarcity (Enderle, ; Gross & De Dreu, ). An expanded understanding of politics and corporations suggests that business firms may contribute to the public good or avoidance of public bads, in the form of positive social and environmental impacts—regardless of a context (Zeyen, Beckmann, & Wolters, ).…”

“…This suggests that private organizations, as well as governmental actors, may be equally interested in upholding this wealth. Correspondingly, public and private actors may be likewise concerned about avoiding "negative public goods" or public bads such as shared problems that manifest as epidemic diseases, air pollution, or economic scarcity (Enderle, 2018;Gross & De Dreu, 2019). An expanded understanding of politics and corporations suggests that business firms may contribute to the public good or avoidance of public bads, in the form of positive social and environmental impacts-regardless of a context (Zeyen, Beckmann, & Wolters, 2016).…”

“…The explicit, as well as implicit costs of the eradication and control, can quickly rise to several million and are borne by the public and companies of an affected area (Bundesamt für Umwelt, 2016). Consequently, the beetle represents a major challenge, in other words, a "public bad" that public and private actors may want to avoid (Enderle, 2018;Gross & De Dreu, 2019).…”

Self-reliance crowds out group cooperation and increases wealth inequality

“…Previous research extensively investigated mechanisms that can solve this problem of free-riding, like punishment 10 , 12 – 14 , partner choice 15 – 17 , or long-term interactions 18 , 19 . Free-riding is not, however, the only challenge for human cooperation 20 – 22 . So far ignored is that cooperation may break down because of self-reliance – having the physical or financial resources to solve shared problems independently of groups and group cooperation.…”

“…For our analysis we extend previous public goods provision and coordination problems 11,22,29,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] and provide a general framework to study cooperation when some group members depend on public goods while others can be self-reliant. To illustrate, imagine a group of people who live at the coast and have to prepare for rising sea levels.…”