what is the tragedy of the commons 
the tragedy of the commons is a theoretical problem in economics that proposes every individual has an incentive to consume a resource but at the expense of every other individual with no way to exclude anyone from consuming generally the resource of interest is easily available to all individuals without barriers i e the commons this hypothetically leads to over consumption and ultimately depletion of the common resource to everybody s detriment 4 basically it highlights the concept of individuals neglecting the well being of society in the pursuit of personal gain its accuracy and application are debated the bottom linethe prisoner s dilemma is a well known parable for the difficulty of solving collective action problems by acting in their own self interests the metaphorical prisoners find themselves with a greater penalty than they would face if they had worked together however when the experiment is repeated over the long term it is possible for the players to devise incentives for cooperation correction june 30 2022 the example of the prisoner s dilemma was edited to demonstrate how following individual interests can lead to the worst possible outcome 