Locke and Load

The Tragedy of the Tamales

Earlier in the week the company president brought in a few dozen tamales and left them in the break room, for community consumption. One of our shop employees took a dozen of them home and his entire family ate them for dinner.

In spite of the fact that putting nourishment in front of his children is a father's primary reponsibility, this offends us on some hidden, nearly descriptionless basis. But why? Not because he stole them. The president left them in the kitchen for free. "Community consumption" includes "consumption by him." There was nothing to steal.

And not because he violated the terms of her gift. A gift is a gift, period. There are no terms to a gift.

And not because he deprived another employee of the tamales. The tamales were presented on a first-come, first-served basis, and no one had appeared for work based on the promise of free food. There is no substantive difference to the other employees between one man "legitimately" devouring twelve tamales on his own or "illegitimately" squirreling away twelve tamales for his kids. To those who missed out, they missed out just as much had he taken a baker's dozen or all of them. To those who secured some, the same.

It is difficult to pinpoint one's ideological revulsion to what this employee did since he did not do anything beyond acting in his own self-interest. The company president is the one who acted uneconomically. The president ignored the tragedy of the commons.

The tragedy of the commons is, although only recently minted, a universal and timeless concept that economics can apply to almost any good. Something not privately managed will be publicly mismanaged. Water given away for free (or worse: sold for flat monthly rates, regardless of usage) will be consumed indiscriminately. Roads given away for free will be cluttered to the point of disutility. Antibiotics given away for free will be overconsumed.

Had the president charged, say, a dollar per tamal, those few who wanted to eat would have eaten. Instead, she proclaimed the tamales to be "common," and a few who wanted to eat were able to eat. But instead of sacrificing something valuable for the tamales in an auction, those who found them first were able to exploit them. And this makes us uncomfortable because it values luck above effort, meaning that it violates the very definition of economics, whether we know the definition or not: "the study of how men satisfy unlimited wants using quite-limited resources."

How is the tragedy of the tamales any different than the tragedy of free water? Or the tragedy of free education? Or the tragedy of free health care? Or the tragedy of free roads? I suspect that a great many people who think the tamal taker acted selfishly would disagree that a homeowner acts selfishly when drinking free water. But the premise is exactly the same. A man acting in his own self-interest, or in the interest of his family, is given no incentive to conserve the common good, or to produce more of it.

posted by Immanuel Can't @ 1:16 PM