Living within Limits

Overpopulation, a problem Garrett Hardin considers neglected, is at the center of his case for accepting that the earth's resources are limited. Hardin, a biologist and ecological philosopher, rejects the old faith in limitless growth, insisting that the planet and each region of it has a limited carrying capacity. He likens the world to a lifeboat that can hold only so many people, and argues that goodwill and voluntary restraint will not be enough. Building on his essay The Tragedy of the Commons, where villagers overgraze a shared pasture because the costs are shared while the profits stay private, he extends the logic to global ecology, arguing that rich nations should close their borders to immigrants from poor ones.

Charlie Munger called Hardin a real thinker and the book a summary of the major lessons of his lifetime, and advised reading it twice, as he had done himself.