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Reclaiming the Commons
NeuroManson writes "What do fresh air, medicine, culture, copyright, and government have in common? Perhaps not exactly what you think. Up until recently, I considered the term "commons" as an archaic term from Victorian or Elizabethan times. However, apparently it still exists both as a concept and a philosophy. Despite its almost ancient connotations, it's an eye opener regarding how concepts centuries old hold true even today, but much like freedom, require eternal vigilance to protect, and covers everything from the air you breath through the GNU, HDTV, and copyright issues. Read on." Bollier's article and the responses are superb intellectual reading. If you don't have time today, bookmark it, come back later.
I just looked at this 'rebuttal'. Essentially, Palmer's quibble is that The American People are equated with various non-profit, mutual groups such as community garden managers and Alcoholics Anonymous, and that commons if anything is really a spectrum from individual benevolent ownership (e.g. Linux trademark) to global sharing (copyright of Alice in Wonderland).
So what? The point of the original article is that previously shared and non-profit assets are being privatized and protected. Any rebuttal must show how encroachment isn't happening to be considered conclusive, or even relevant.
Oh if Slashdot were the only "problem". (Actually Slashdot has brought the great technical advantage of moderation -- something needed when the Internet gates were opened to the plebes in the mid-90's. But that's not to say UseNet couldn't have added a moderation protocol.) Now, everyone has a personal blog (even me, now, sad to say). Even those that allow others' comments, such as mine, don't attract them because of lower viewership/memberhip and because there is less assurance to potential posters that the site will be up the next day.
So essentially, we have a bunch of private little independent monologues going on, plus some dialog on a few big private sites like Slashdot and kuro5hin, but no public dialog in an Internet Commons like UseNet.
(Why do I blog? Because no one is on UseNet, because I don't want a private company copyrighting what I write, and because big sites reasonably don't want to post every last thing I want to post.)
Unfortunately, it is about as narrow minded a rebuttal as I have seen. Rather than address the original article on its merits, he chooses to attack and condescend. Palmer chooses to take a very narrow definition of "Commons", probably because that is the only way he can defend his ideas. Once I saw that he worked for the Cato Institude, things made sense.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
What's missing from Bollier's essay is the explanation of _why_ there is the push to wrap all commons in enclosure. It is implied that greed and selfishness are the motivating factors, but I suggest these two are not motivators but are instead the actions taken on behalf of a lower-level motivator; specifically, the human need to be and to be recognized as successful.
This leads to the question, "What values are used to determine success?" A corporate CEO who can look another CEO in the face and say, "My business made more money than yours did last quarter" is considered a success in our society even if the _true_ costs of his success are not reflected in the money he gathered via his business. This type of "success" is only possible when the measurement of success is made _only_ in currency.
The true, core problem is this: We've developed a economic system that only recognizes wealth when it can be measured in currency. The big problem with this is that the worth, or the value, of many things cannot be acurately measured in currency. In other words, wealth and currency are not the same thing. Traditionally, currency has been a symbolic function of wealth but we've seen the reversal of this; now currency is considered the wealth and what cannot be "currency valued" is considered worthless until such time as it can be valued in terms of currency.
When the _costs_ of doing business are measured only in currency, you see a similar warping of the concept of wealth. Who pays the cost of dirty air when car and truck manufacturers make the dirtiest engines they can get away with? Well, there is no cost to making dirty engines which foul the air because there is no currency valuation for dirty vs. clean air; clean air has no value in the market place because it has no currency value. Apply this same scenario to water, food, communications mediums, etc. and you start to see the scale of the damage done simply because certain things of tremendous value are not quickly and easily measured in terms of how many dollars they can fetch in the marketplace.
Another obvious problem with measuring wealth only in currency is that the intangibles which are part of the original wealth are usually stripped away, leaving only the husk of the original thing which is being currency-valued. Concepts are quick to be disgarded -- freedom, creativity, etc. -- simply because they cannot be given a currency value. So not only is the original wealth stripped away by the process of currency-valuation, but much of the fundamental wealth of the original thing -- the associated concepts -- is tossed out like so much distracting, annoying trash. Furthermore, in the process of currency-valuation of the original wealth, the process of marketing applies the concept of "least common denominator" and finally, in effect, renders what once was a item of wealth into the least valuable thing it can possibly be while still having currency value.
The argument used by the politicians and bureaucrats who give away the "commons" areas to business for commercial exploitation is this: the commons has no value until such time as it is being converted into currency (that is, profits for business.) If you don't believe it, go do some quick research and reading and you'll be quickly enlightened as to the supposed rational "reasoning" of our government when it comes to the public trust and anything which may be construed to be a "commons."
So we see the commercialization of _everything_ because that is the only way we as a society have come to measure wealth; in terms of our currency. I can't wait until I'm charged for the priviledge of breathing dirty, diesel-fume-reeking air, eating pesticide-poisoned food, drinking polluted water from the tap, seeing and hearing nothing but crap from commercialized media -- just so some ignorant asshole CEO can say aloud in his country club, "My business made more money than yours did last quarter."
Oh, wait, we're almost there! Any enterprising CEOs out there want to start charging us money for the act of breathing? Well, lucky us -- they just haven't yet figured out how to do that yet.
May the heirs of humanity be so fortunate.
*grumble*
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!