Why did communism fail? Tragedy of the Commons

Although many have attempted to justify the fall of communism, only social psychology can give a concrete explanation to it. According to Social Psychologists, when people own everything in common then no one feels responsible for taking care of things. This can be understood in terms of the commons dilemma. The commons dilemma states that resources that are owned collectively are more likely to be depleted or destroyed then when they are owned by individuals. The essence of communism was that everyone would own everything in common; the outcome was that no one wanted to maintain the "common" because no one would actually own "it".

If you want to learn more about the tragedy of the commons, click here to read this current article that claims that the overuse of common resources such as Wikipedia, can have many negative consequences. Since it is not owned by anyone, people can do whatever with it, such as putting inaccurate information that can mislead its readers.