alt Hacker NewsI think you might be thinking about Elinor Ostrom and she didn't show that his assumptions and claims were wrong exactly. She expanded on the work to clarify the difference between managed vs unmanaged commons. Showing that successful commons are managed in some way with established rules and limits around the usage. The term still has use especially if it is used to clarify the need for management of common resources to avoid the tragedy.
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PaulDavisThe1st • today at 8:19 PM
My understanding of Ostrom's work was to show that basically almost all commons were managed, and that when they were not, that was the result of selfish actors deliberately seeking to dismantle the management structures to further their own individual interests.
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which is also basically the same point made by Hobbes about the state of nature
Hobbes, Rousseau were effectively both trying to solve the "tragedy of the commons" problem with political collaboration. Hobbes is widely misunderstood by (romantic, naive, libertarian) fools to have said that absent a powerful soverign, life is "nasty brutish and short". What he more accurately said is that, "an unmanaged commons is nasty bruitsh and short" -- to use that kind of language
Rousseau, to the same romantic strain is widely misunderstood to have said that 'the unmanaged commons' is a delight. Instead, he basically said politically community isnt that required anyway, and if you're in trouble, just run away.
In either case, the tragedy of the commons issue is well known in other guises throughout the history of philosophy