It’s important to point out that Nobel prizewinner Elinor Ostrom has largely discredited the view of the ‘tragedy of the commons‘ which was proposed by Garrett Hardin, a racist and eugenicist. Unrestricted access to common land is an anachronism, and in situations where people have had shared access, the evidence seems to point to them doing so in relative harmony.
I’m only including this archetype (Activity 2.27) from the point of view of a thought perspective and for the sake of completeness.
The name ‘the tragedy of the commons’ comes from the original example. Imagine two farmers grazing their cattle on common land – land that belongs to all in common. There are no costs attached to the use of the land, so naturally the herd grows for both A and B. This is represented by the two reinforcing loops at the top and bottom. Each of the growing herds has an impact on the common by eating the grass, eventually (the delay) eating it as fast as it grows. At this point any further herd growth by A or B impacts directly on the other and the gain may well turn negative. With no regulation, A and B are forced into competition and the escalation archetype.
(The Open University, 2020)
So the diagram looks like this:
Again, to be clear, what I’m about to show here I don’t think would be a ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation but rather the result of poor planning and implementation of rules for shared spaces.
Reality is, of course, infinitely more complex with additional groups, and dependencies on actions between groups.
The classic ‘arms race’ is Archetype 5, introduced in Activity 2.26. Most people will think of political situations such as the Cold War or perhaps even Brexit, but it’s applicable elsewhere, too.
In the escalation archetype, person A (or group A) takes action that is interpreted as a threat by the other person B (or group B), and this causes B to react by also taking some action. If this action is interpreted as a threat by A, then A will of course take further action, and so on. This produces what is often called an ‘arms race’.
(The Open University, 2020)
While I don’t think library services have enough resources (sadly) in the UK in 2024 to be entering into an arms race, I’m going to treat this as a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that there is a popular library and popular bookshop in the same town and they both want to attract authors to book signings.
Unlike political arms races, I can’t help but think that the above situation would be pretty awesome, lead to great outcomes, and make quite a cosy (and very British) film.
This fourth archetype is, I think particularly germane to public services (Activity 2.25):
Failure to meet targets or aspirations suggests two options: keep aspiring for the same goal while accepting it may take some time to achieve, or lower the target. In the drifting-goals archetype, the latter option is adopted. It is an uncomfortable fact that sustainable improvement takes time to achieve. Often this time delay is not built into the target setting.
(The Open University, 2020)
I can definitely see this happening in a public services context. With enough time not taken into account between the goal being set and the impact of the actions improving the situation, then goals are likely to be shifted downwards. In fact, I’ve worked in places where the goal is then reimagined (“if they go out visit the toilet and come back in again, shall we count that as two visits?”)
As with all of these, the concern is that the fundamental root cause is not dealt with, hence a slow decline and death.
