Engaging Impossibilities and Possibilities

Abstract

"In this chapter, I wish to honor Amartya Sen by illustrating how his advice to engage impossibility results, rather than dismissing or accepting them without any question, has been an important inspiration related to another widely acclaimed impossibility result-that of Garrett Hardin in his influential article in Science on 'The Tragedy of the Commons.' While Hardin was an ecologist rather than an economist, his assumptions regarding individual preferences and behavior are closely aligned with those of many economists-focused on immediate material returns to self. His logic was broadly similar to that of the distinguished economist, H. Scott Gordon, who had earlier argued that: 'The fish in the sea are valueless to the fisherman, because there is no assurance that they will be there for him tomorrow if they are left behind today.'"