It's Not ABOUT You; It's UP TO You

The current issue of New York Magazine has an excellent article by Beth Shapouri and Christine Whitney on "eating ethically".

It's a great tool for helping those of us who want to "do the right thing", but aren't always sure what the right thing is -- seafood is good for me, but which one(s) should I buy? I love tuna, but I've heard I shouldn't buy it. Is that true? The article lays out, in great detail, what should be bought, what shouldn't, and why. Where you shouldn't (e.g., Chilean sea bass), it explains not only why (they are long-lived, but grow slowly and reproduce even more slowly, making them vulnerable to overfishing), but also what's a good alternative for those who love the taste (locally-caught wild striped bass), and where in the New York area you can buy that alternative.

The article also got me thinking about the "tragedy of the commons", a phenomenon first observed in the 19th century by William Lloyd, and more recently the subject of an influential article in Science by the late Prof. Garrett Hardin (text of the 1968 article can be found here, and Hardin's contribution to the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics on the subject can be found here). The short definition of the "tragedy" or "problem" is that if it belongs to everybody, it belongs to nobody.

In other words, if I can put my cows out to graze only on my own land, then I have an economic incentive to protect the land, to make sure that there aren't too many cows grazing, so that the land can always recover and keep supporting them (and me). But if I can graze my cows on common land, and so can all my friends and neighbors, then I have no such incentive; in fact, it's in my best interest to put as many cows as possible on the land, because my neighbors will too. And so the land becomes overused, and everyone's cows get thin and weak.

The world's oceans look a lot like those English commons -- they're so big, and the fish stocks they sustain so enormous, that it's easy to say "why should I bother?" If I don't buy Chilean sea bass, no doubt somebody else will, so I might as well enjoy what I enjoy, as long as there are Patagonian toothfish (the earlier, pre-marketing genius, name for Chilean sea bass) to be eaten. Right?

Um, no.

If I were the world's benevolent dictator, I could close the Chilean sea bass market long enough for those stocks to recover, and I probably would do just that (while trying to find another source of income for those people whose livelihoods depended on it). But -- fortunately! -- I'm not the world's benevolent dictator, so I don't have that power.

The fact that the tragedy of the commons is an economic problem doesn't mean that the solution is necessarily economic. The real solution is ethical.

All we can do is control our own behavior. You have the power to resist buying Chilean sea bass for your family, and that's the place to start. Feel free to mention your decision to friends and neighbors, and the movement will spread. If someone says, "But I love Chilean sea bass; I don't want to give it up," mention the reasons and the alternative(s), and then move on. Even if they aren't convinced right away, they will be eventually -- most people really do want to do the right thing. And pretty soon those toothfish will be left alone to do what comes naturally, and build up their numbers again.

It's up to me. It's up to you. It's up to each of us, individually.