The Tragedy of the Commons

The recurring reports of the most insidious man-made virus, widely known as Corruption, across mainstream and social media remind one of Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons. 

No matter how moral and respectable a nation may be, how spiritual and holy its people claim to be, and how generous and philanthropic the rich and powerful are, I believe, there exists no place on Earth that has escaped the clutch of this artificial virus. The most common symptoms of this viral infection include bribery, nepotism, favouritism, misuse of power, embezzlement of public funds, rigged contracts, political patronage, and exploitation of public office for private gain. 

When its infection spreads silently and relentlessly, it weakens the health of our institutions, erodes the fabric of public trust, and leaves societies exposed to inequality, inefficiency, and decay.

 

Tragedy of the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons refers to a situation where something that is shared by everyone (e.g., land, water, or public fund) is overused or exhausted because individuals act in self-interest for a short-term gain. 

The key message of this phenomenon is that when individual selfishness rules over collective good, it is everyone that eventually suffers (hence tragedy). It is a moral and social issue that reflects how human greed, corruption, and neglect can destroy what we all depend on together. 

In today’s world, this analogy can be used to understand the health of our public systems, institutions, and national wealth. For example, when individuals or groups take more than their fair share or use what belongs to everyone for their own gain, it is the society that suffers at the end. 

Modern Examples 

Misuse of public funds. 

When officials or influential individuals (e.g., politicians) use public money and natural resources for personal enrichment through corrupt practices, they shrink or deplete the nation’s shared wealth and resources. While the powerful grow richer through such practices, it is only the poor and innocent who suffer, losing access to basic services such as health care, education, and infrastructure. 

Exploitation of public institutions. 

Another example is when people in authority use their connections to secure jobs, contracts, or privileges for friends and relatives. When a few individuals engage in such self-centred practices, it is the public trust and merit-based systems that are victimised and eventually forced to collapse. When such practices keep happening, institutions lose their credibility and efficiency.

Consequences 

The scar left by this viral infection can be deep and long-lasting. The shared resources that should serve everyone will become exhausted. 

The gap (inequality) between haves and have-nots will widen. This means, while a small number of people gain wealth and power, it will be the majority that would be left with fewer opportunities and weaker systems of support.

Public trust and confidence will collapse and decay, and people will start losing faith in anything that requires collective action. By then, institution of any kind will lose their purpose and efficiency. 

If left unchecked, the most non-curable consequence in the society would be its long-term instability. As inequality and mistrust grow, societies face protests, unrest, and even violence, social phenomena that are not very new to every nation these days. 

As Hardin cautioned, when the commons are left unguarded against human greed, collective ruin becomes inevitable. Unless societies develop moral antibodies through integrity, transparency, or shared responsibility, the tragedy of the commons will continue to unfold as everyday drama within our society.

 

The Inconvenient Truth?

 

 

Astronaut Garan’s perspective is a striking metaphor, yet it does not leave me enchanted. Not because I dislike the astronaut or his opinion, but some truths such as this are already known to us. These facts are clearly visible and tangible, even as we stand here on Earth. Obviously, I can easily understand problems faced on earth, without even travelling to any part of the space. 

My question is, 

Do we really need to leave Earth to see what’s broken? 

While his message is thoughtful considering his perspectives from outer space, at its heart, it only echoes the same pressing discomfort that urgently calls to confront our misplaced priorities. 

 

The Lies We Live

As stated earlier, I do not feel a need for one to travel to another orbit, only to realise that Earth is whole. Also, it is well known to us that earth is the only planet that is suitable to call our home. Sadly, we witness our planet increasingly getting compartmentalised and living fractured lives. Using Garan’s lines, there are no borders from space. But, ironically, man-made borders have become the sources of tensions and conflicts on earth. 

The greatest threats to humanity today are not natural disasters, but heinous man-made catastrophes. Who creates wars, inequality, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis? These are not miscarriage of nature, but purposeful consequences impregnated by human greed and ego.

Wars displace millions, annihilate infrastructure, and leave behind strings of trauma that survives for generations. Famine is not always born of drought, but these days, it turns to be another illegitimate offspring of conflict and political manipulation. Economic sanctions are always conceived in the womb of corruptions, abhorrence, and dominance to strangulate civilian populations.

At the heart of it all lies immutable DNA of hypocrisy. Nations that declare the loudest to uphold world peace manufacture proxy wars, aggravate arms races, and engineer regime changes. Institutions borne to uphold peace are suffocating and struggling to challenge on actions launched by superpowers. Climate agreements designed to combat climate change are handcuffed by national interests. Each change in leadership reshuffles global priorities, unleashing tsunamis that erodes global progress, and flood the world with erosion of instability and inconsistency.  

The real inconvenient truth is all about changing our mindset and not the climate change or natural disasters. We know what must change, but we resist because it threatens our ego, our comfort, our profit, and our power. We are, indeed, living a lie.

At times, thinking of these, I wish those who exploit the world with their power, ego, and money find another place to live and never return 😠. 

Familiar Face, Unfamiliar Business

September 2020 

I received a message from one of my close high school friends:

“I had found something big. I want you to join me in this opportunity.” 

He spoke with lots of enthusiasm about the prospects including exclusive conferences, travel, flexible work, and financial freedom. He then evidenced the claim with his travel photos standing in front of sleek cars, posh hotels, and grandeur meeting halls with individuals he claimed to be successful business operators. 

“What goods or services am I supposed to deal with?”, I asked. 

“Nothing. All I had to do was to bring more people into the line of that business. It can be friends, relatives, or even someone whom I do not know.”

This left me questioning and feeling uneasy. 

What kind of business generates revenue not for selling or promoting any product or service, but simply for recruiting new members into its chain? 

And, as soon as he said, “Your income will multiply with addition of new members”, this did not sit right with me. His words felt like recycled promises that I have heard it several times before.  

I asked, “Is this legal?” 

He laughed it off. 

“Of course. Nowadays, everyone including senior bureaucrats, law makers, and now even some politicians are promoting it”

But something in me resisted. It was not just doubt, it was discomfort. The idea of pulling people in to favour me gain income or success felt wrong to me.

I declined him politely. 

 

The Truth

Years passed and I forgot about the conversation until recently the headlines in the national newspaper caught my eye.

A major online business scam, popularly known as pyramid scheme has been exposed. Also referred to as Ponzi scheme or Chain referral schemes, the numbers have staggered with millions lost, hundreds of victims, families torn apart, and many lives miserably changed forever.

And there it was. The name of the very company my friend had spoken about. 

My heart sank. I could not believe the time when one of my best friends proudly invited me into this business.

I quickly opened the Facebook Messenger and found our old thread of communication. Without indicating what I read from the mainstream and social media, I wrote:

“Hi Malik (business tycoon). 

How is your online business going these days?”

He read my message the same day but has responded it only on the next day. 

“Oh, I stopped. The authorities did not allow it anymore” 

Drenched with shock and surprise, I stared at the screen. He even did not have a trace of guilt. Not even a sign of regret. He wrote to me just like an inconvenience where his genuine business was forced to close early. 

Then, I asked directly. 

“But you said it was legitimate. How many people have you pulled into it? How many have you hurt?”

“I do not know. People still call me asking for their money back. But I am not responsible. I got what I wanted. I have no loss”

And that was the moment something inside me broke even more terribly. 

Not because my friend had fooled others, but because he could speak so lightly about misconduct. I was dumbfounded how a good and educated human being I knew had stopped seeing people as people (particularly our own fellow Bhutanese) and started using them as commodity to earn money income for him by networking with someone whom he does not even know. I was overwhelmed with disbelief, heartbroken that a dear friend, someone I had trusted for years since my high school, was willing to place a price tag on our bond and ready to sacrifice the purity of our relationship just to make some money for himself. 

 

My Reflections

Thinking of his casual chat, a chain of questions began to swirl in my mind like a relentless river. 

Why do educated people, who have access to knowledge, resources, and moral thinking, fall for garbage business ideas like this?

What has the education we obtained through our schools and our parents got to do if it is not meant to shape our character and guide us toward ethical choices? 

What reward does one get in deceiving and exploiting our own people who are naturally so innocent, so full of trust and faith, that they seldom stop to question the truth of what they are told?

As teacher who taught thousands of students over a decade across different schools, I have always imparted that the value of our education is supposed to signify depth of thought, a foundation of responsibility, understanding of good versus evil, and of course, realising the consequences our actions on the world around us. Yet here my friend was, busy selling people’s trust for a quick fix and personal gains by consciously ignoring the impact it had on the very people who believed in him.

It was painful to witness my friend sacrificing morals for money all due to his greed. His education and knowledge have fallen prey to such schemes not because he was ignorant, but because he was impatient. Perhaps, the promise of quick success, and fortune without struggle seduced this educated fellow. 

What a shame it is! 

The more I reflected, the more the truth became glaringly obvious. When money becomes the only priority, our humane (precisely Buddhist) ideals such as lay Judrey and Tha- Damtsig die. The ability to see others as equals, to feel their pain, to consider their well-being, these are the first sacrifices made in the pursuit of wealth. Relationships these days are no longer about connection, it is about transactions. 

And in that shift, people become targets. Friends become stepping stones. Families are no longer the support system, but the next generation of potential victims. We stop being human with each other. We become mere players in a game of gain, where the stakes are higher than ever before, and the damage we do is invisible until it is too late.

But why cheat our own family, friends, or relatives who know well and trust us the most? What motivates us to fraud the people, knowingly pull them into a trap, and invite them into a cycle of loss just for purpose of self-serving gain or boosting the rubbish business idea of someone whom we even do not know?

It was these questions that stung me the hardest.

On the other side, I was not surprised because the world has increasingly become so wrong because we are made to believe that success is accumulation of wealth, power, or status. In pursuit of such things, we exchange our ethics for the illusion of success, convincing ourselves that the ends always justify the means. But in the cold light of truth, the means are what haunt us, long after the money is gone.

The pyramid schemes  are nothing different. They are not just scams. They are mirrors that reflect the dark side of our human nature, showing us how far we are willing to go to chase success (e.g., money), regardless of the cost and built on false promises. 

Regular Irregularities

Personal Experience 

November 15, 2016: I reported to Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School (YHSS) as a Visiting Examiner for the Class 12 Physics practical board examination. My official duty lasted 3 days. On the first day, I assessed 123 physics project entries. The practical examinations were conducted over the following 2 days.

To prevent the leakage of examination questions, schools across the country were required to begin and end practical examinations on the same dates. Due to the unusually large student population at YHSS, the first group of candidates began their examination at 5:30 AM on a cold winter morning. This early start was necessary to ensure uniform completion with other schools. The first day concluded at around 7:30 PM, and I do not clearly recall the time I returned home.

Although the modalities of administering the practical exams seems to have been revised recently, at the time I served as visiting examiner, all Class 12 science students were examined using the same set of practical questions. This means, students who completed the examination early were required to remain confined in a designated room until all others had finished. We were tasked with supervising them cautiously and even required to escort students to the restroom to prevent any communication that could result in the disclosure of examination questions.

After completing the invigilation duty, I claimed my Travel and Daily Allowances (TADA) for 5 days. This included three days of examination duty, one day for travel to the examination centre, and one day for the return journey. This claim followed the standard practice applied to other civil servants performing any official duties.

Two months later, I was informed that I had claimed an excess amount of Nu. 500. According to the BCSEA, revised financial regulations entitled an examiner to only a half-day allowance for return travel if the distance to the working station was less than 70 kilometres. I was instructed to refund Nu. 500 from the entitled daily allowance of Nu. 1000. BCSEA’s order also implied that the officially recognised distance between Wangdue (my workplace) and Thimphu (the examination centre) which is officially 70 kilometres, had been retrospectively shortened. 

A list of individuals accused of similar overclaims was forwarded to the respective District Education Office. My name was publicly announced by the school administration on the school WeChat platform. At the same time, unverified warnings circulated that administrative action might follow if the amount was not refunded promptly.

I did not respond immediately. In my 12 years of service, I had never been associated with any allegation of financial misconduct. But this time, being asked to refund the entitled amount left me unsettled. I revisited the official distance between Wangdue and Thimphu. It was clearly recorded as 70 kilometres.

Nevertheless, I refunded the amount on the same day. I chose not to contest the issue. Public accusations, even when financially insignificant, have always affected me deeply. Experiences of being wrongly blamed in the past have left lasting psychological impressions.

Above all, when matters involve public funds, I believe citizens have a moral obligation to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Even though I was convinced that I had not claimed more than what I was legally entitled to, I reimbursed Nu. 500 as instructed. This personal incident, though modest in scale, sharpened my awareness of how financial irregularities are interpreted, pursued, and publicised.

It is from this experience, combined with repeated reports of far more serious financial irregularities, that I turn to examine the findings of the Royal Audit Authority and the broader culture of financial accountability in our public institutions.

Image courtesy: Click LINK

What are Financial Irregularities (FI)? 

Whether we realise it or not, we hear about financial irregularities regularly through mainstream media and the annual reports of the Royal Audit Authority. Almost every year, the media carries brief accounts of such cases drawn from these reports. As the supreme audit institution of the Kingdom, the Royal Audit Authority publishes its findings annually, almost as a ritualised exercise (annual lochoe) that appears unfailingly in the national calendar. 

Surprisingly, these reports rarely provoke sustained public debate or decisive institutional response. Lawmakers, regulators, and responsible agencies, who possess both the authority and the mandate to act, often remain silent or passive. Oversight mechanisms rarely translate audit observations into structural reform or meaningful accountability. 

I feel even those self-claimed public figures and social media personalities also contribute to this indifference by choosing silence, despite their influence. However, the deeper concern lies with institutions entrusted with governance and enforcement. As a result, financial irregularities in our context have ceased to be treated as serious breaches. They have instead become a normalised event, routined occurrences, repeated year after year, and accepted as regular irregularities. 

Regardless of their definitions, I believe that whether it is embezzlement, fraud, falsifying documents/records, mismanagement of funds/assets, falsification of accounts, or noncompliance with laws and regulations, including acts of corruption such as bribery and bid rigging, all such practices constitute financial irregularities when they involve public or organisational funds and violate legal, regulatory, or ethical standards. In essence, these acts represent different forms of corruption, as they all undermine the lawful, transparent, and responsible use of public resources.

 

Why does FI occur?   

Money is the root of all evil they say. The obsessive desire that individuals have for money is what makes it the source of all evil. More significantly, the fact that money is deployed as a universal tool to do everything in this world only serves to compound the situation by making money the root of all evil.

But what can be done without having money these days? At the international level, money is heavily employed as a means for a nation to dictate and demonstrate dominance, authority, and global super-power. At the government level, politics function only when there is abundant money. At the individual level, we engage with money for absolutely everything. 

But do these reasons stated above cause FI? Maybe or may not. 

Whenever I hear of FI, the following things spring into my mind:

Human Greed

Humans have unquenchable desires and longings. With such greed, we have that tendency not to think twice about engaging in criminal activity and breaking the law to get filthy rich and have it all for ourselves, even at the expense of the national coffer.

Opportunity to Access

Wetake advantage of the opportunity to do anything when they have access to public funds. They can fiddle with the calculations, bribe someone, embezzle money, or engage in corrupt practices.

Inefficient System

The fact that we always hear about FI signals the ineffectiveness of our check and balance system. It is not surprising that we frequently witness the same individuals and institutions indulging in FI because of the fragile system. These people are already informed of the system’s vulnerabilities, which are neither remedied nor considered to be addressed despite frequent FI incidents. 

Toothless Laws?

We often lack robust legal action against FI culprits. Most of the time, perpetrators are given administrative action as punitive sanctions. Administrative action means transferring the wrongdoers to a new place (so-called remote posting). New places are locations with all the contemporary amenities in place. Because they receive the same monthly income with less work and responsibility, lawbreakers who are relocated to remote areas are often contented, comfortable and convenient. 

 

Who is involved in FI?

Nobody needs a subtitle to decipher this question. Based on the evidence of mainstream media reports, FI is connected to those in positions of authority, have access to public funds, and deal with money at work. 

 

Why is FI a Big Concern for Bhutan?  

Although we emphasise on Gross National Happiness (GNH) over Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GDP is still an important constituent of GNH. Our economy is still at an embryonic stage, which requires abundant efforts to keep it emerging and evolving. When there is FI, our emerging economy will be corrupted and will be diseased to function efficiently.

We are a donor-recipient nation where most of the developmental activities are completed through bilateral aid or loaned capital. We should not be complacent to witness this gamble of financial illegitimacy contaminate and hurt our delicate economy.  

At the societal level, the recurrent incidences of FI will deteriorate the noble foundations of harmony, and tha-damtsig (commitment/trust to the relationship). If FI is not nibbed in the bud, it risks the potential in creating an unequal and illegal wealth distribution, causing disharmony and distrust in society. That’s where we will keep seeing more people having plenty of money to support three to four generations of their families, while others even lack a basic roof to keep them safe from the heat and cold. That’s how the bridge between haves and have-nots will only get widened. 

Curbing FI

I am not an economist or financial expert. But I certainly feel that for a very small nation like ours, we can fix everything. Although FI cannot be eliminated, there are mechanisms to mitigate it. 

Annually RMA publishes the findings regarding the FI. It is now time that they remedy the identified vulnerabilities in our system. When regular FI are reported annually like an Olympics event, at times, we can only sense that we are already in auto-pilot mode. FI has been the elephant in the room. Some people and organisations have already earned a permanent seat in this financial Olympic event due to their ritualistic engagement.

Curbing FI is a collective responsibility. It is time to hold people accountable if they are engaged in any FI-related practices. It is time to introduce zero tolerance into action. It is time to revamp our system and make it more robust, transparent, and dynamic.

At the individual level, it is time that we school our attitude. For instance, I reimbursed the money despite being aware that I had not claimed any more money than what was legally entitled. I refunded the cash immediately, even though I understood the cashier was to blame in the first place. I am mindful that working with ethics, professionalism, high morals, and integrity are key ingredients to any human behaviour.