Quarantine isn’t a piece of cake — it’s a bowl of cereal
If quarantine has taught me one thing, it’s that the grocery bill for the appetite of three quarantined men is ungodly.
Lucky Charms cereal is without a doubt the most consumed product in my household during lockdown (yes, even surpassing toilet paper). As I write this, my brother is en route to buy my father his birthday present: a box of Lucky Charms, a peace offering perhaps. My brother has, with little amusement and high frequency, opened the cupboard to enjoy a late-night bowl of charms only to discover an empty box. My father, myself and our voracious appetites are the chief of sinners in this. My brother insisted that the Lucky Charms be divided into three containers labeled with each of our names. Eating cereal out of another’s container is to this day considered a terrible grievance, the consequences of which may approach disownment.
What my brother didn’t realize was how relevant our silly cereal fiasco was to the current global pandemic. Losing his chance to enjoy those delectable charms, he insisted on privatizing the cereal in order to protect his claim. That, in a nutshell, is the tragedy of the commons, and it is essential for Americans in understanding government intervention during COVID-19.
In the tragedy of the commons, communities take so much advantage of a shared resource that there ultimately remains no substantial amount left for anyone. Imagine if I lived with 100 family members who all shared the same food, instead of four. The mad breakfast rush would leave not only the cereal boxes empty, but also 100 stomachs.
Take pollution as another prime example of this tragedy. Innumerable actors greedily consume our oceanic resources, killing sea life via pollutants and creating increasingly dangerous conditions for the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, the benefit of mistreating a shared resource for some personal gain
The lockdowns occurring internationally are attempts to safeguard the shared resource of public health and health systems. There are only so many hospital beds. There are only so many nurses.
far outweighs the cost imposed that actions bears on society. And so, the vicious cycle continues. Ecologist Garret Harden, author of the pioneering essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” writes that “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”
Philosopher John Locke said in his second treatise of government that man is in the state of liberty, but not in the state of “license.” Man’s right to life and liberty does not give him the ability to infringe upon his neighbor’s rights. This boundary between one person’s liberty and another’s injustice comes to a head in the commons. The commons is considered by economists to be “rival” in nature: one person’s use results in another person’s loss (think cereal). How then do we regulate it? How do we encourage liberty but simultaneously restrict it from becoming license? To do so we need a commons regulator, a referee of sorts.
The government, whether we like it or not, dominates this industry. The government protects endangered animal species from overhunting by protective legislation. It prevents highways from uncompensated overuse by toll booths. It imposes fines on people who litter in public parks. It rations communal food during times of war. And now, it protects our shared hospitals from overcrowding.
Most of us barely think of the tragedy of the commons, but the reality is the idea of government, and its act of restricting civil liberties during this crisis, don’t make much sense without it. The lockdowns occurring internationally are attempts to safeguard the shared resource of public health and health systems. There are only so many hospital beds. There are only so many nurses. In March, Professor Lawrence O. Gostin of Georgetown University Law Center wrote, “Scarcity of health resources ... will likely cause more deaths of persons with a variety of urgent health needs than of patients diagnosed with COVID-19.” In other words, the crisis of COVID has been less about coronavirus victims and more about consequences of straining the U.S. health system. When it seems we are at risk of overusing the resources we all need to take part in, the government steps in to regulate and allocate. The truth is, we need it to, because free markets alone do not always efficiently nor ethically distribute resources in times of emergencies.
Those Lucky Charms boxes are sending us an important message. The cereal shortage in my house offers a key insight into understanding the scarcity of public health resources. When the hunger for shared property sets in, there is rarely enough to go around, and commons regulators must arbitrate. As state quarantines are beginning to be lifted, we must remember they were and are governmental attempts to solve the tragedy of the commons. How much power does the government have to protect our shared resources? It’s unclear. The boundary between liberty and license is blurry.
So far, courts have ruled favorably toward statewide quarantines and governmental measures to “flatten the curve.” But protests across the country demonstrate many Americans believe the states and the federal government overstepped their bounds. Did they? We won’t know unless we understand the coronavirus crisis as a crisis of the commons.