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" A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. "
Garrett Hardin
Support
World
Only
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" The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else. "
Garrett Hardin
Rest
Choice
Decision
" No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means. "
Garrett Hardin
Environmental
Wilderness
Mechanical
" But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere. "
Garrett Hardin
Fire
Good
Lie
" The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. "
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Rational
Before
Cost
" The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort. "
Garrett Hardin
Create
Some
Social
" You cannot do only one thing. "
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You
Thing
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" Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. "
Garrett Hardin
Destination
Men
Freedom
" Incommensurables cannot be compared. "
Garrett Hardin
Cannot
Compared
" However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics; ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious. "
Garrett Hardin
Ecology
Economics
Roots
" But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights. "
Garrett Hardin
Natural
Property
Rights
" To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it. "
Garrett Hardin
Pretend
Agree
Say
" Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed. "
Garrett Hardin
Knowledge
Natural
Education
" Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart. "
Garrett Hardin
Conservatism
Continuity
Ecology
" Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming. "
Garrett Hardin
Why
New
Environmental
" Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution. "
Garrett Hardin
Resources
Pollution
Positive
" Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust? "
Garrett Hardin
Fear
Trust
Morality
" A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality. "
Garrett Hardin
Nothing
Change
Ideas
" An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion. "
Garrett Hardin
Act
Values
Subversion
" The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum. "
Garrett Hardin
Less
Population
Maximum
" Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies. "
Garrett Hardin
Impact
Environmental
Power
" The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected. "
Garrett Hardin
Recommend
Majority
Only
" Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. "
Garrett Hardin
Ruin
Brings
Commons
" In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate. "
Garrett Hardin
Agriculture
Long
Real Estate
" In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease. "
Garrett Hardin
Must
Means
Goods
" Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable. "
Garrett Hardin
Behavior
Because
Frontier
" Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum. "
Garrett Hardin
Growth
Evidence
Population
" It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience. "
Garrett Hardin
Run
Think
Mistake