Hardin's essay has been widely criticized. Public policy experts have argued that Hardin's account of the breakdown of common grazing land was inaccurate, and that such commons were effectively managed to prevent overgrazing. Referring to Hardin's crucial passage on page 1244,17 Partha Dasgupta, for example, comments that ‘it is difficult to find a passage of comparable length and fame that contains so many errors as the one quoted’.
More significantly, criticism has been fueled by the "application" of Hardin's ideas to current policy issues. In particular, some authorities have read Hardin's work as specifically advocating the privatization of commonly owned resources. Consequently, resources that have traditionally been managed communally by local organizations have been enclosed or privatized. Ostensibly, this serves to "protect" such resources, but it ignores the pre-existing management, often appropriating resources and alienating indigenous (and frequently poor) populations. In effect, private or state use may result in worse outcomes than the previous management of commons.
Some of this controversy stems from disagreement over whether individuals will always behave in the selfish fashion posited by Hardin. Others have argued that even self-interested individuals will often find ways to cooperate, because collective restraint serves both the collective and individual interests. Hardin's piece has also been criticised as promoting the interests of Western economic ideology. G. N. Appell, an anthropologist, states: "Hardin's claim has been embraced as a sacred text by scholars and professionals in the practice of designing futures for others and imposing their own economic and environmental rationality on other social systems of which they have incomplete understanding and knowledge.