"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"
About this Quote
Hardin isn’t pleading for nature; he’s indicting power. The sentence is built like a calm lab report, but the target is unmistakably political: when ecology starts generating “practical recommendations,” it stops being a neutral science and becomes a threat to profit. “Threaten the vested interests of commerce” is doing double duty. It frames environmental policy not as an abstract moral debate but as an economic assault on entrenched players who have already sunk capital into a status quo. If you’ve invested in the machine, you’ll defend the machine.
The subtext lives in his cool understatement. “It is hardly surprising” pretends to shrug, but it’s a prosecutor’s move: he’s normalizing corruption as predictable behavior under capitalism, not an occasional scandal. He also specifies the mechanism of retaliation: not merely lobbying against regulation, but suppressing environmental impact studies themselves. That’s a pointed escalation. Hardin implies the fight isn’t only over outcomes (what policies get adopted) but over knowledge (what facts are allowed to surface). Control the studies, control the story; control the story, control the policy.
Context matters: Hardin wrote in the era when modern environmental governance was consolidating - NEPA, the rise of Environmental Impact Statements, the post-Silent Spring public awakening, and the backlash from industry and allied politicians. His broader project often stressed limits, incentives, and the tragedy of shared resources; here he’s mapping the tragedy onto information. The quote works because it makes suppression feel structurally inevitable, not merely unethical, and forces the reader to see “science” as a contested terrain once it starts costing money.
The subtext lives in his cool understatement. “It is hardly surprising” pretends to shrug, but it’s a prosecutor’s move: he’s normalizing corruption as predictable behavior under capitalism, not an occasional scandal. He also specifies the mechanism of retaliation: not merely lobbying against regulation, but suppressing environmental impact studies themselves. That’s a pointed escalation. Hardin implies the fight isn’t only over outcomes (what policies get adopted) but over knowledge (what facts are allowed to surface). Control the studies, control the story; control the story, control the policy.
Context matters: Hardin wrote in the era when modern environmental governance was consolidating - NEPA, the rise of Environmental Impact Statements, the post-Silent Spring public awakening, and the backlash from industry and allied politicians. His broader project often stressed limits, incentives, and the tragedy of shared resources; here he’s mapping the tragedy onto information. The quote works because it makes suppression feel structurally inevitable, not merely unethical, and forces the reader to see “science” as a contested terrain once it starts costing money.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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