a social dilemma which takes place whenever a course of action benefiting singular members of a community within the short term is non-advantageous to the long-term wellbeing of the community. In the initial instance of this dilemma, if each herdsman belonging to a village attempts to maximize his own gain by keeping as many of his cattle as he can on typical grazing land, this will at some point make the land unusable by all, since the grasslands of the pasture is a not a plentiful resource. The tragedy is that total freedom within a culture brings ruin to all within it.
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS: “Since we’ve yet to study the tragedy of the commons, I am going to request that no one write their paper on that topic.”