The Tragedy of the Commoner - Hugh Howey
Skip to content
Tumblr
YouTube
May 31, 2026
15 COMMENTS
The Tragedy of the Commoner
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is one of game theory’s all-time great puzzles. It goes like this: Two men are taken into custody for a crime. The cops have a little evidence, enough to put both men away for a few years, but if they had more to go on, the punishment could be a lot more severe. The two men in the holding cell know the cops won’t have much if they both keep quiet. All the crooks have to do is not turn on each other to both get off with a light sentence.
However, the crooks also know the first one to turn the other in will get a slap on the wrist while the other criminal is put away for good. If they keep quiet while the other one rats them out, it’ll be them in the pen for life. The temptation to be the first to confess is strong. But here’s the kicker: if both men confess, they both get a harsh sentence.
The best scenario for either crook here is to rat the other out while HOPING their partner is an idiot and stays mum. You don’t serve any time at all. But if you both do this, you are screwed. The SAFEST option is to say nothing. But then … if you know your partner isn’t saying anything, you’d be better off turning on them. But you know they know that. And if you both turn, you’re screwed. Unable to talk to each other, your brain will flip-flop on the best course of action. Cooperate with one another? Or betray the other? That’s the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Let’s think about a slightly different scenario: There’s a magical pot placed in front of you. If you put half your annual salary into that pot, it will magically dispense money every time you need to go to the doctor, see a dentist, get in a car crash, call an ambulance, the police, the fire department. When your kids want to go to college, it spits out enough money to cover it all. If you lose your house, it generates enough rent to keep you sheltered. You can never starve, because the pot will cover your meals if you aren’t able to. Free college, free healthcare (with dental and vision!), public transportation, parks, maternal and paternal leave, new roads and bridges, public parks, and much more.
You do the math. It currently sucks up 58% of your yearly income to cover education, childcare, housing, healthcare, transportation, etc. That’s guaranteed every year. Of course, if you or anyone in your family gets cancer, or in an accident, or needs regular prescriptions, your yearly budget could easily exceed your annual income. You might go into crippling debt. Unless you use the pot.
The pot, however, only works if everyone is using it. If people cooperate. If only half of people use it, there’s not enough money for it to work. Then again, what if you can get everyone ELSE to pay into the pot while you secretly avoid doing so? What if it’s an honor system, and nobody is really enforcing the collection. Wouldn’t it be smart to keep as much as possible while still extracting whatever you can from the pot?
The Tragedy of the Commons is another little mind game similar to the scenario above. The "Commons" in this case is usually a plot of land in a village that everyone has access to. If people take a reasonable amount from the commons, while all contribute to it with their energy, time, and resources, then everyone gets enough and the commons remains healthy. However … there’s incentive here to take more from the commons before anyone else does. If you don’t do it, they surely will, right? Only a sucker would take an equal share. And why put in so much work if you can slack a little and everyone else busts their butts? Work less, take more. Those are the twin motivations that guide human behavior and on which most societies crumble.
The tragedy of the commons explains why communes typically fail. It’s easy to say that everyone will contribute what they can while everyone gets what they need, but when Nick is lounging around in the shade eating twice as much as you while you’re grinding away and doing with less — resentments build. There are documentaries about communes that show this play out. And if you’ve ever done a group project at school, you know the routine. Communism is said to be a non-starter because of the tragedy of the commons and human nature. You need the guiding hand of the efficient market to keep people in check. You need competition and supply-and-demand to counter human nature.
But let me tell you how capitalism ends up in the same place. Let’s take two giant retailers as an example: Walmart and Amazon. Pretend for a moment (it won’t take a heap of effort) that Walmart and Amazon own the vast majority of United States retail. In fact, the entire consumer economy in the country is controlled by them, and they are wrestling with each other for ever greater market share. To get more share, they need money to build more distribution centers and delivery fleets. They need...