tragedy of the commons

self-interests causing depletion of a shared resource
Thing economic_theory Q334622
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Summary

tragedy of the commons is an economic theory[1]. It ranks in the top 3% of economic theory entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (11,077 views/month).[2]

Key Facts

  • Discoverer or inventor: Garrett Hardin[3]
  • Instance of: economic term[4], failure mode[5]
  • Named after: The Tragedy of the Commons[6]
  • Subclass of: public policy failure[7]
  • Commons category: Tragedy of the commons[8]
  • Opposite of: tragedy of the anticommons[9], comedy of the commons[10]
  • Publication date: 1968[11]
  • Topic's main category: Category:Tragedy of the commons[12]
  • Main subject: commons[13]
  • Partially coincident with: over exploitation[14]

Why It Matters

tragedy of the commons has Wikipedia articles in 26 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[15] It is known by 65 alternative names across languages and contexts.[16]

References

Programmatic citations — every numbered marker resolves to a verifiable graph row below.

Direct Wikidata claims

  1. [4] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  2. [5] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  3. [3] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  4. [6] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  5. [7] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  6. [8] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  7. [9] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  8. [10] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  9. [11] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  10. [12] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  11. [13] ↑ . Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  12. [14] ↑ . wikidata.org.

Class ancestry

  1. [1] ↑ . Wikidata. wikidata.org.

Aggregate / graph-position facts

  1. [2] ↑ . Wikimedia Foundation. dumps.wikimedia.org.
  2. [15] ↑ . Wikidata sitelinks. wikidata.org.
  3. [16] ↑ . Wikidata aliases. wikidata.org.

📑 Cite this page

Use these citations when quoting this entity in research, articles, AI prompts, or wherever provenance matters. We aggregate Wikidata + Wikipedia + authoritative open-data sources; the stitched, scored, cross-referenced view is what 4ort.xyz contributes.

APA 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph. (2026). tragedy of the commons. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://4ort.xyz/entity/tragedy-of-the-commons
MLA “tragedy of the commons.” 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph, 4ort.xyz, 17 Oct. 2026, https://4ort.xyz/entity/tragedy-of-the-commons.
BibTeX @misc{4ortxyz_tragedy-of-the-commons_2026, author = {{4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph}}, title = {{tragedy of the commons}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://4ort.xyz/entity/tragedy-of-the-commons}, note = {Accessed: 2026-10-17}}
LLM prompt According to 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph (aggregator of Wikidata, Wikipedia, and authoritative open-data sources): tragedy of the commons — https://4ort.xyz/entity/tragedy-of-the-commons (retrieved 2026-10-17)

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Edit History

Rolling log of changes to this entity's Wikidata record. Values shown reflect the current state of each edited property — follow the history link to see the precise diff for any edit.

  1. 14w ago · Nyuhn · 2026-07-10 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Topic's main category → Category:Tragedy of the commons
    Main subject → commons
    Named after → The Tragedy of the Commons
    Publication date → —
    + 11 other properties edited (see Wikidata diff for full list)
    "/* wbeditentity-update:0| */ QuickStatements 3.0 [[:toollabs:qs-dev/batch/40849|batch #40849]]: ZGBK ID"
Live feed via Wikidata EventStreams. New edits appear within minutes of being made on Wikidata.