By allowing all of the people in the water onto the boat, then all of the resources that the wealthy people on the boat have will be lost and there would be a survival rate of zero. Hardin states in the beginning of his essay that right now, earth is being treated more as a spaceship than a lifeboat because all of the resources and money is being shared and passed around. The main worry of Hardin's essay is overpopulation to the point of complete loss of all resources and that the poor are the ones causing all of the resources to disappear because they are growing in population at outstanding rates. There is one thing in his essay that Hardin does not necessarily address and that is overconsumption by the upper-class. The lifeboat is almost full, but it's not completely full. Why does Hardin want the wealthy to keep the extra space to themselves? This is the problem that Durning addresses in his essay, Asking How Much Is Enough. He states that "consumption has become the central pillar of life in industrial lands, and is even embedded in social values" where he begins to point fingers at the United States and Japan (405). Hardin seems to have forgotten to mention the middle-class and seems to only focus on two social classes when there are three present. Durning states that "American children have more pocket moneythan the half-billion poorest people alive" (404). The middle class is well off and Hardin fails to mention that the middle class is also a part of the overconsumption problem. Durning states that Hardin fails to realize that it is not just the poorer nations fault, but all social classes are equally responsible for the loss of resources at the drastic rate is it disappearing. Durning is not the only writer who believes that Hardin's boat does not float.
Joseph K. Skinner sheds some more light on Hardin's false claims in his essay, "Big Mac and the Tropical Forests".