Editing Tragedy of the commons (section)

===Lloyd's pamphlet===
In 1833, the English economist [[William Forster Lloyd]] published "Two Lectures on the Checks to Population",{{sfn|Lloyd|1833}} a pamphlet that included a hypothetical example of over-use of a common resource.<ref>{{Cite ODNB|last=Thompson|first=Noel|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27284|title=Thompson, William (1775–1833), socialist and economist|date=2004-09-23|series=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/27284}}</ref> This was the situation of cattle herders sharing a common parcel of land on which they were each entitled to let their cows graze.

He postulated that if a herder put more than his allotted number of cattle on the common, [[overgrazing]] could result. For each additional animal, a herder could receive additional benefits, while the whole group shared the resulting damage to the commons.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Shields|first=Morgan William|date=2016|title=Enhancing insect diversity in agricultural landscapes while providing multiple additional benefits|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/ice.2016.111463|journal=2016 International Congress of Entomology|publisher=Entomological Society of America|doi=10.1603/ice.2016.111463|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}</ref> If all herders made this individually rational economic decision, the common could be depleted or even destroyed, to the detriment of all.{{sfn|Lloyd|1833}}

Lloyd's pamphlet was written after the [[enclosure]] movement had eliminated the open field system of common property as the standard model for land exploitation in England (though there remained, and still remain, millions of acres of "common land": see 
{{section link|#Commons in historical reality}}). Carl Dahlman and others have asserted that his description was historically inaccurate, pointing to the fact that the system endured for hundreds of years without producing the disastrous effects claimed by Lloyd.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dahlman |first1=Carl Johan |title=The open field system and beyond: a property rights analysis of an economic institution |date=1980 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge; New York |isbn=9780521228817}}</ref>