this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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The logic goes that the individuals who use their share more efficiently will make more profits and will outcompete those who don't make good use of resources. That's the general principle behind the invisible hand of the free market, it will promote the more profitable solutions precisely to prevent the pitfalls of the tragedy of the commons.
Then the flaw becomes the supposition that profit equals good use of resources. I think it's better to attack that resulting side of the argument than the basis; people would understand your criticism of the market to equate the capitalist mode of production with a more primitive one. That does away with the nuance that capitalism has brought innovations with it that have opened up new productive capacity. Marxism isn't anti-capitalism.
That's impossible when harming the environment is always going to be cheaper and more profitable than being good to it which takes extra effort.
My general point here is that all the supporters of capitalism tend to believe in the tragedy of the commons and even use it as argument against anything being collective, but all capitalism has truly done is expand the tragedy in scale from a field to the planet.
If they believe in this, they categorically must admit that the commons must be taken away from the capitalists. Using their own logic.
The Tragedy of the commons isn't arguing about maximizing profit. It's an argument for the establishment of private property laws to prevent "free riders" from spoiling the commons from overuse, which they think is somehow exclusive to how collective societies work.
Edit: The problem they face is that individuals don't suddenly have perfect willpower and knowledge to conserve resources just because they own something and the measuring of resource use and enforcement of rationing sometimes costs more resources than the resources being depleted which creates even more inefficiencies (policing buses to enforce toll payment rather than taxation funding buses, etc.).