Is it possible that one theory, devised more than forty years ago, can explain Fairfax County’s million-dollar utility bill?
Popular economics theory the Tragedy of the Commons states that individuals attempt to exploit the resources of a group, but only harm themselves. Everyone adopts the same strategy, and resources are uniformly depleted.
In short form, people will use resources freely when they think there are no direct consequences. This theory explains why people charge their phones at school or use lots of paper towels or don’t clean up after themselves. Many do not see a direct consequence to those “little things.”
The $42 million that Fairfax County spends annually for electricity, oil, gas and water are paid in taxes. And although not every student works to experience the tax burden, it is their families who have to take money away from other things to pay for the school’s utilities.
This appears to be a solveable problem, but it isn’t as easy to fix as it looks. That is why it is called a tragedy: you cannot “fix” human nature.
In the past, when working on class assignments, I’ve used more paper when teachers provide it because I value my own more, like many others.
The only way to stifle the behavior is to conduct a system where there is either nothing to exploit, leading to chaos, or there is no possible way to exploit it.
An abundance of rules or regulations would be ridiculous, because generally, it is also human nature to reject rules that suddenly restrict a behavior that just yesterday seemed so normal to them.
But what can be done? Along with pointing out excessive usage of resources, education on the concept of ethics should be considered.
If people knew that the money allocated for the budget could detract from not only their taxes, but extracurricular activities they love, we might have positive results.