Giving narratives a framework for a better world

"At the very least, there is some possibility, even hope, that we could have a world in which much more of intellectual and inventive production is free. "'Free' as in 'free speech,'" Richard Stallman says, not "'free' as in 'free beer.'" But we could hope that much of it would be both free of centralized control and low cost or no cost. When the marginal cost of production is zero, the marginal cost of transmission and storage approaches zero, the process of creation is additive, and much of the labor doesn't charge – well, the world looks a little different. This is at least a possible future, or part of a possible future, and one that we should not foreclose without thinking twice."
Jeremy Rifkin, in Zero Marginal Cost Society [pg 220]


The Second Enclosure Movement - James Boyle - Conference on the Public Domain

"When you give a monopoly to someone it is an incentive for governmental corruption. You are setting up a continuing system os incentives designed to ensure the corruption of your government."
[26:17]

James Boyle: The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain:

Abstract:

"We are in the middle of a second enclosure movement. It sounds grandiloquent to call it "the enclosure of the intangible commons of the mind," but in a very real sense that is just what it is. True, the new state-created property rights may be "intellectual" rather than "real," but once again things that were formerly thought of as either common property or uncommodifiable are being covered with new, or newly extended, property rights. In this article, I try to develop the vocabulary and the analytic tools necessary to turn the tide of enclosure. I offer an historical sketch of various types of skepticism about intellectual property, from the antimonopolist criticisms of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, through the emergence of affirmative arguments for the public domain, to the use of the language of the commons to defend the possibility of distributed methods of non-proprietary production. In many ways, it turns out, concepts of the public domain show the same variation in assumptions, and the same analytic differences, as the concept of property itself. I conclude by arguing that, for a number of reasons, the appropriate model for the change in thinking which I argue for comes from the history of the environmental movement. The invention of the concept of "the environment" pulls together a string of otherwise disconnected issues, offers analytical insight into the blindness implicit in prior ways of thinking, and leads to perception of common interest where none was seen before. Like the environment, the public domain must be "invented" before it is saved. Like the environment, like "nature," the public domain turns out to be a concept that is considerably more slippery than many of us realize. And, like the environment, the public domain nevertheless turns out to be useful, perhaps even necessary."
here


The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose


The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine


The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law


The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back

[Seventeenth century protest against English enclosures]

---


Thomas More (one of the only political theorists who are also a saint!):

"your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I heard say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up, and swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities."
Here

Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media

"We grew up to be consumers of Media. Now Media is consuming us. The things we read watch us read them. The things we listen to, listen to us listen to them."


re:publica 2012 - Eben Moglen - Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media


Anarchism Triumphant: "This paper shows why free software, far from being a marginal participant in the commercial software market, is the vital first step in the withering away of the intellectual property system." - here

The Porto Alegre Treaty

We proclaim these truths to be universal and indivisible;

That the intrinsic value of the Earth’s gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, precedes its utility and commercial value, and therefore must be respected and safeguarded by all political, commercial and social institutions,

That the Earth’s gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, exists in nature and, therefore, must not be claimed as intellectual property even if purified and synthesized in the laboratory,

That the global gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a shared legacy and, therefore, a collective responsibility,

And,

Whereas, our increasing knowledge of biology confers a special obligation to serve as a steward on behalf of the preservation and well being of our species as well as all of our other fellow creatures,

Therefore, the nations of the world declare the Earth’s gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, to be a global commons, to be protected and nurtured by all peoples and further declare that genes and the products they code for, in their natural, purified or synthesized form as well as chromosomes, cells, tissue, organs and organisms, including cloned, transgenic and chimeric organisms, will not be allowed to be claimed as commercially negotiable genetic information or intellectual property by governments, commercial enterprises, other institutions or individuals.

The Parties to the treaty - to include signatory nation states and Indigenous Peoples - further agree to administer the gene pool as a trust. The signatories acknowledge the sovereign right and responsibility of every nation and homeland to oversee the biological resources within their borders and determine how they are managed and shared. However, because the gene pool, in all of its biological forms and manifestations, is a global commons, it cannot be sold by any institution or individual as genetic information. Nor can any institution or individual, in turn, lay claim to the genetic information as intellectual property.

Aqui.

On sharing

"Most economists would be nonplussed because their discipline is so wedded to the idea that human nature is purely self-interested and that each individual seeks to optimize his or her autonomy. The very idea of freely choosing to pursue the collective interest is anathema to many market-oriented economists. They might be well served by boning up on findings of evolutionary biologists and neurocognitive scientists. A spate of studies and discoveries over the past 20 years is shattering the long-held belief that human beings are, at their core, utilitarian-seeking loners prowling the marketplace for opportunities to exploit their fellow human beings and enrich themselves.

We are learning that our species is the most social of beings, boasting a very large and extremely complex neocortex. The worst punishment that can be imposed on a human being is ostracism. Cognitive scientists tell us that our neural circuitry is soft wired for experiencing empathic distress and that evolutionary survival has depended far more on our collective sociability than our self-directed proclivities. Far from being an anomaly, the Commons approach to marshaling economic activity appears to be much better suited to our biological instincts than the stark picture of an anonymous marketplace where an invisible hand mechanically rewards selfish behavior in a zero-sum game."
Jeremy Rifkin, in Zero Marginal Cost Society [pg197]

Managing the collaborative commons

"Ostrom, although every bit the economist, was not shy about taking on the role of an anthropologist. She studied commons management schemes from the Swiss Alps to Japanese villages to discover the underlying principles that made them effective governing models. At the very onset of her work, she took care to explain that many of the commons institutions she cataloged had, in her words, "survived droughts, floods, wars, pestilence, and major economical and political changes" over long sweeps of history, making it crystal clear that the commons has proven itself to be a formidable governing institution and worthy of reconsideration in light of the environmental, economic, and social challenges and opportunities facing humanity in an increasingly connected global world."
Jeremy Rifkin, Zero Marginal Cost Society [of 191/192]

The Collaborative Commons / towards 'the end of History' (?)

"...there lies outside purely private property and government-controlled 'public property' a distinct class of 'inherently public property' which is fully controlled by neither government nor private agents.  [this is] property collectively 'owned' and 'managed' by society at large, with claims independent of and indeed superior to the claims of any purported governmental manager."

Carol Rose, quoted by Jeremy Rifkin in The Zero Marginal Cost Society [pg 189/190]