The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable

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.

Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.

The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.

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.

You can never do merely one thing. The law applies to any action that changes something in a complex system. The point is that an action taken to alleviate a problem will trigger several effects, some of which may offset or even negate the one intended.