公共资源的悲剧(Hardin,英汉对照).docVIP

公有资源的悲剧 by Garrett Hardin In 1974 the general public got a graphic illustration of the tragedy of the commons in satellite photos of the earth. Pictures of northern Africa showed an irregular dark patch, 390 square miles in area. Ground-level investigation revealed a fenced area inside of which there was plenty of grass. Outside, the ground cover had been devastated. 1974年，广大公众在一张地球卫星图片中看到了“公有资源的悲剧”的一个图例。北非的图片中有一块不规则的黑色区域，面积为390平方英里。地面调查发现了一个被围起来的区域，里面有丰富的草。在它的外面，地被植物已经被毁坏。 The explanation was simple. The fenced area was private property, subdivided into five portions. Each year the owners moved their animals to a new section. Fallow periods of four years gave the pastures time to recover from the grazing. They did so because the owners had an incentive to take care of their land. But outside the ranch, no one owned the land. It was open to nomads and their herds. Though knowing nothing of Karl Marx, the herdsmen followed his famous advice of 1875: ... to each according to his needs. Their needs were uncontrolled and grew with the increase in the number of animals. But supply was governed by nature, decreasing drastically during the drought of the early seventies. The herds exceeded the natural carrying capacity of their environment, soil was compacted and eroded, and weedy plants, unfit for cattle consumption, replaced good plants. Many cattle died, and so did humans. 原因很简单。围起来的地区是私有财产，被分成五个部分。财产所有者每年把他们的牛羊转移到一个新的部分。四年的休耕期使草场得以恢复。他们这么做的原因是，所有者有保护其土地的动机。但是，在农场的外面，土地是无主的，草场是对所有牧民和他们的牧群敞开的。虽然牧民根本不知道卡尔?马克思，却听从他1875年的教导：“……按需分配。”他们的需要不受控制，随牛羊数量增加。但是，供给受大自然支配。70年代早期的干旱使供给急剧减少，牧群的规模超过了环境的“自然承受能力”，土壤干结并遭到腐蚀，不适合家畜的“杂草”取代了好的植物。很多牛羊死掉，人也是如此。 The rational explanation for such ruin was given more than 150 years ago. In 1832 William Forster Lloyd, a political economist at Oxford University, looking at the recurring devastation of common (i.e., not privately owned) pastures in England, asked: Why are the cattle on a common so puny and stunted? Why is the common itself so bare