The differences will be accentuated, generation by generation. The argument here has been stated in the context of the population problems, but it applies equally well to any instance in which society appeals to an individual exploiting a commons to restrain himself for the general good - by means of his conscience. Sooner or later he sense that he has received two contradictory communications. Everyone, then, is caught in a double bind. Many have argued for propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility into the nation's breeders.
Responsibility is a verbal counterfeit for a substantial quid pro quo.
It is an attempt to get something for nothing. The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion of some sort. To many, the word coercion implies arbitrary decisions of distant and irresponsible bureaucrats. But the only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected. An alternative to the commons need not be perfectly just to be preferable.