Highway rush hours also display classic symptoms of the commons tragedy. Recent discussions have turned to more esoteric examples of commons. Computer processing capacity may be a commons for network users. Users will demand processor energy because the cost to them is negligible, but too many individual requests will overload the system. The national budget is a commons of sorts, where individual interest groups vie for greater benefits, even if it's over-allocated and we are running a deficit.
Opportunistic politicians view government as an engine of plunder.
They see elections as struggles for the levers that control the flow. Innovative technologies and entrepreurial ingenuity create new resources and make previously marginal ones profitable. In avert to the tragedy, management institutions must evolve around the newborn resources. One particularly complex, abstract, and problematic commons involves biological-evolutionary resources. Consider the human capacity to resist disease.