<P> The tragedy of the commons is a term used in social science to describe a situation in a shared - resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self - interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action . The concept and phrase originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist William Forster Lloyd , who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land ( also known as a `` common '' ) in the British Isles . The concept became widely known over a century later due to an article written by the American ecologist and philosopher Garrett Hardin in 1968 . In this modern economic context , commons is taken to mean any shared and unregulated resource such as atmosphere , oceans , rivers , fish stocks , or even an office refrigerator . </P>
<P> The tragedy of the commons is a term used in social science to describe a situation in a shared - resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self - interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action . The concept and phrase originated in an essay written in 1833 by the British economist William Forster Lloyd , who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land ( also known as a `` common '' ) in the British Isles . The concept became widely known over a century later due to an article written by the American ecologist and philosopher Garrett Hardin in 1968 . In this modern economic context , commons is taken to mean any shared and unregulated resource such as atmosphere , oceans , rivers , fish stocks , or even an office refrigerator . </P>
the originator of the tragedy of the commons metaphor was
the originator of the tragedy of the commons metaphor was
British economist William Forster Lloyd
British economist William Forster Lloyd