Translating Hardin

Although Hardin's fable is imperfect, it aptly illustrates his contention that capitalism in a free market economy is by definition unsustainable, and results in the complete exploitation of finite resources until crises occur. The question as to whether a principle that was originally posited for a system of material exchange is applicable to an environment of symbols in which intellectual content and symbolic identity are the resources of trade. One attribute of cyberspace is the illusion of its infinitude. As the settlers of antebellum America saw the West as a vast resource for settlement and capitalization, so contemporary society sees its own Manifest Destiny in the realm of the Internet.