Garrett Hardin

Garrett Hardin, "Rewards of Pejoristic Thinking", ed. Garrett Hardin and John Baden, Managing the Commons, San Fransisco, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1977.

Enthusiasts of individual freedom often acknowledge the existence of evil in the world, but they believe that the majority of mankind is basically good and that the majority is decisive in determining what happens. Sometimes this may be true; but there are many social processes that work in such a way the even the smallest minority spoils the results. [129]

Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good. [evolution]

Note that when we are dealing with a monetary system a policy of voluntary compliance fails no matter how small the initial minority of noncooperators. Only a minority of zero would permit a voluntary system to work. Obviously, we would be fools to adopt any political or economic system that functions successfully only if literally everyone is virtuous. [129]

Pejoristic processes are easier to descry. Every pesticide, for example, selects for its own failure. (DDT, for instance, selects for DDT-resistant flies.) The rhythm method of birth control selects for arhythmic women. Voluntary population control selects for philoprogenitive instincts that mock at the system. Free competition among currencies selects for bad money. [131]

Though men have long assumed the general applicability of laissez-faire, they have not hitherto generalized from Gresham's Law to policy. In effect, they have treated this law as a special case. Had its generality been recognized earlier, we might sooner have recognized that in an unmanaged commons, greedy herdsmen drive out considerate one, grasping hunters drive out moderate ones, polluting industries drive out clean, and rapidly reproducing parents displace those who accept the limits to growth. [131]