Question

Darnell, Jacques, and Musashi are crabbers who live next to a ocean that is open to crabbing; in other words, anyone is free to use the ocean for crabbing. Assume that these men are the only three crabbers who crab fish in this ocean and that the ocean is large enough for all three crab fish intensively at the same time. Each year, the crabbers choose independently how many crabs to catch; specifically, they choose whether to crab fish intensively (that is, to place several crab traps in the water for long stretches of time, which hurts the sustainability of the ocean if enough people do it) or to crab fish nonintensively (which does not hurt the sustainability of the ocean). None of them has the ability to control how much the others crab fish, and crabber cares only about his own profitability and not about the state of the ocean. Assume that as long as no more than one crabber crab fishes intensively, there are enough crabs to restock the ocean. However, if two or more crab fish intensively, the ocean will become useless in the future. Of course, crabbing intensively earns a crabber more money and greater profit because he can sell more crabs. The ocean is an example of _________ because the crabs in the ocean are ________________ and ______________.

Answer 1

The ocean is an example of the 'Tragedy of the Commons' with crabs being common resources, leading to potential overharvesting due to lack of individual incentives to sustainably manage the ocean.

Step-by-step explanation:

The ocean in the scenario provided by the student is an example of the Tragedy of the Commons, because the crabs in the ocean are common resources that are non-excludable and rivalrous. This economic problem arises when multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen.

The 'Tragedy of the Commons' was highlighted by ecologist Garret Hardin in 1968. Economists have suggested various regulations to prevent overharvesting such as fishing licenses, harvest limits, and shorter fishing seasons, in addition to the implementation of catch shares or even temporary bans on harvesting when species numbers drop critically low, to ensure sustainability.