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A Brief History of Commons Destruction
And how people, from Thomas Paine to Bob Dole, have stood up for what’s ours
In the beginning, almost everything was the commons. Humans roamed through it, hunting and gathering to meet their needs. Like other species, we had territories, but these were communal to the tribe, not private to the person. 
Agriculture arose about ten thousand years ago, and along with it came permanent settlements and private property. Rulers granted ownership of land to loyal families. Often, military leaders distributed conquered land to their soldiers. Despite the growth of private property, much land remained part of the commons. In Roman times, bodies of water, shorelines, wildlife, and air were explicitly classified as res communes, resources available to all. During the Middle Ages, kings and feudal lords often claimed title to rivers, forests, and wild animals, only to have such claims periodically rebuked.
In the seventeenth century, English philosopher John Locke sought to find a balance between the commons and private property. He believed that God gave the earth to “mankind in common,” but that some private property is justified because it spurs humans to work. The trick was to get the right balance. People should be able to acquire private property, but only up to a limit. That limit is set by two considerations: first, it should be no more than they can make productive through their labor, and second, it has to leave “enough and as good in common” for others. This was consistent with English common law at the time, which held, for example, that landowners could draw water from a stream or river for their own use but couldn’t diminish the supply available to others.
Despite Locke’s quest for balance, the great majority of the English commons was later enclosed, which is to say privatized. Local gentry, backed by Parliament, fenced off village lands and converted them to private holdings. Impoverished peasants then drifted to cities and became industrial workers.
One observer of this transformation was Thomas Paine, the pamphleteer who spoke so eloquently for American independence. Seeing how enclosure of the commons benefited a few and disinherited many others, Paine proposed a remedy—not a reversal— for enclosure, which he considered necessary for economic progress: compensation for loss of the commons.
Like Locke, Paine believed nature was a gift of God to all. “There are two kinds of property,” he wrote. “Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the universe—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property—the invention of men.” In the latter, he reasoned, equality is impossible, but in the former, “all individuals have legitimate birthrights.” Since these birthrights were being diminished by enclosure, there ought to be a compensation for that loss. Paine proposed a “national fund” that would do two things:
[Pay] to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property: And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.
A century and a half later, the United States created a national fund to do part of what Paine recommended. We call it Social Security. We’ve yet to adopt the other part, but its basic principle—that enclosure of a commons requires compensation—is as sound in our time as it was in Paine’s.
The Fate of the Commons in America
In the years since European settlement, America developed its own relationship with the commons, which in our case included the vast lands we took from native people and Mexico. Some Americans, exemplified by Thomas Jefferson, saw our commons as the soil from which we could build a nation of prosperous small farmers and proprietors. This philosophy led to passage of laws such as the Land Ordinance of 1785, the Homestead Act, the Morrill Land Grant College Act, and the Reclamation Act, which allocated family-size plots to settlers and financed schools to educate them. Many Americans, exemplified by Teddy Roosevelt, also cherished these lands for their wilderness and beauty, which led to the establishment of national parks, wildlife preserves, and wilderness areas. At the same time, others in America viewed our common wealth as the means to their personal fortune and lobbied or bribed government officials to give away priceless lands to railroads, mining and timber interests, and speculators.
If an accounting could be made of all the private appropriations of commons through the years—not just land but other valuable resources—it would total trillions of dollars. The plot is almost always the same: when a certain commons acquires commercial value, someone tries to grab it. In the old days, that meant politically connected individuals; nowadays, it means politically powerful corporations.
In 1995, for example, Congress decided it was time for Americans to shift from analog to digital television. This required a new set of broadcast frequencies, and Congress obligingly gave them—free of charge—to the same media companies to which it had previously given analog frequencies free of charge, despite the fact that the airwaves belong to all of us. Republican Senate leader Bob Dole opposed the giveaway. “It makes no sense,” he said, “that Congress would create a giant corporate welfare program. . . . The bottom line is that the [broadcasting] spectrum is just as much a national resource as our national forests. That means it belongs to every American equally.” But, just as before, the media companies got their free airwaves anyway.
What’s astonishing about these takings isn’t that they occur, but how unaware of them the average citizen is. As former secretary of the interior Walter Hickel said, “If you steal $10 from a man’s wallet, you’re likely to get into a fight, but if you steal billions from the commons, co-owned by him and his descendants, he may not even notice.”
Enclosure, in which property rights are taken or given away by government, is half the reason our commons is in such a steep decline today; the other half is a form of trespass called externalizing—that is, corporations shifting their costs onto the commons. Pollution is the classic example of this.
With one hand, corporations take valuable stuff from the commons and privatize it. With the other hand, they dump bad stuff into the commons and pay nothing. The result is profits for corporations but a steady loss for everyone else, to whom the commons belong.
Capitalism Enters the Fray
Humans were ravaging nature long before capitalism was a gleam in Adam Smith’s eye. Modern capitalism, however, has exponentially enlarged the scale of that ravaging.
A century ago, land, resources, and places to dump wastes were abundant; capital itself was the limiting factor. That’s why rules and practices were developed that prioritized capital above all else.
In the twenty-first century, however, this is no longer the case. As economist Joshua Farley has noted, “If we want more timber, the scarce factor isn’t sawmills, it’s trees.” The world today is awash with capital, most of it devoted to speculation. By contrast, healthy ecosystems are increasingly scarce. If anything deserves priority today, it’s nature’s capital, yet capitalism rolls on, driven by the profit-maximizing demands of financial capital.
As a businessman and investor, I believe we can evolve to a new stage of capitalism, envisioned centuries ago by Locke and Paine, in which corporations and the commons work in balance. But we have no time to waste.
Adapted from Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons © 2006 Peter Barnes, published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Printed in All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons by Jay Walljasper, © 2010 Jay Walljasper, published by The New Press, reprinted here with permission.
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47 Comments so far
Show All"As a businessman and investor, I believe we can evolve to a new stage of capitalism"
capitalist B capitalist S
It is impossible to take a writer to heart when statements like the above are used.
The planet is the commons for all life forms. Capitalism is an antagonist to Life.
And he should get his facts straight; agriculture started 100,000 years ago. Tools tell the tale.
"... agriculture started 100,000 years ago."
Are you sure?
A figure between 8k - 12k years ago is the most commonly-accepted figure, with outside estimates at 20k years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture
Settled agriculture is estimated as you say, but there are theories, based on evidence of stone tools found in archaeological sites, of prior, ancient agriculture. Possibly dating to 100K years ago, but its all really speculative.
Consider nomadic hunter gatherers, who also plant seeds/cultivate Food Forests, by encouraging certain fruit baring trees to be favored over less useful ones. Also consider under planting in these Food Forests, a variety of useful herbs/spices, found in other regions that would be great to have in your local gathering grounds.
Just because they weren't villagers doesn't mean people weren't cultivating.
Look up Permaculture and Food Forests for evidence of ancient Palm/Date/Fig/Olive forest types found in many an African Oasis.
Hymenaea courbaril, I interrupted the lecture and asked the same question when an anthropology prof made the same statement. The writers of history like to simplify, and so, use Mesopotamia as the basis for agriculture's beginning.
I planted the seed on purpose.
Good call, good question.
Kudos to eli_bunyan for propogating the tree of knowledge.
Buck
And yet, the "city" called Catalhyok (sp?) in Eastern Turkey which was developed about 9,000 years ago and was inhabited for about 1,000 years seems to provide the oldest example of (unequivocal) heavy-duty agriculture.
It was a strange city by our standards, having no streets. Dwellings were built against others, something like a Pueblo, and entry was through a hole in the roof. Some of the images in frescos on the walls that remain resemble the Pleistocene cave paintings found in France.
Nothing is known about the culture, but the inhabitants definitely were not hunter-gathers.
Çatalhöyük is a very interesting historical site. It is most definitely a city, but is very unlike contemporary cities like Jericho which had battlements (walls of Jericho) to protect it; Çatalhöyük did not (possibly because they didn't have enemies?). Also, unlike Jericho which had a clear hierarchy of spaces delineating who was important and not, there is a democracy about the spatial layout suggesting an egalitarian society. Also "[w]hen we look at what they eat and drink and at their social statues, we see that men and women had the same social status. There was a balance of power."*
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk#Religion
Çatalhöyük was discussed at length in Riane Eisler's book the "Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future", where she argues that what preceded patriarchy (and class societies) was not matriarchy, but a society where women and men were seen as equals - a "partnership society." In other words, Çatalhöyük was an example of a communal society, or, communism.
This article on the "commons" wants it both ways. Capitalism produces hierarchic and class divided societies. It produces class-ism, sexism and racism. It privatizes the commons, that's part of capitalism's DNA. The author wants a capitalism that doesn't act like capitalism. Similar to Paul Hawken's "Natural Capitalism", his "Capitalism 3.0" is just another liberal self-delusion. If you don't want the evils of capitalism, get rid of it. The financial crisis starting in 2008, the end of the neo-liberal myth and Barack Obama's presidency should be more than enough evidence that reform under capitalism doesn't work.
if you go abroad, one thing that strikes you most should be how much 'common space' there is, compared to how privatized everything is here, including the shore lines that are fenced in for private use only.
Try walking around in the Salinas Valley of Steinbeck fame...fences. Private property has existed for generations in America, but it is much more secure now. Secure, and with a greater feeling of entitlement.
The myth of the tragedy of the commons has been completely disproven. It was originally started as propaganda so land barrens and venture capitalists could seize it up for "greater productivity", less "waste and destruction". Its a very politically useful myth.
The author of "Tragedy of the Commons", Hardin, also wrote a biology text discussing the need to "control breeding" of "genetically defective" people. He supplied no examples of recorded destruction of the commons, but mearly relied on his own assumptions that everyone works in anti-social self interest. Despite humans being extremely social, and abundant evidence that the commons worked for centuries.
What the last 50 years since the publication in Science of Hardin's thoughts really show, is that pro-capitalist theory has become ingrained in our collective consciousness. That people are inherently lazy and need incentive to work and better themselves. And that communally space will not be sufficiently governed by communities, and individuals will trash it with disregard for the consequences.
Its evident to me that the brainwashing of capitalism will be a hard thing for society to shake.
"Its evident to me that the brainwashing of capitalism will be a hard thing for society to shake." Yes.
Shake a tree and only some of the nuts will fall.
Topple it and all the nuts end up on equal ground.
Diseased trees topple from infirmity.
The Nobel Prize in Economics in 2010 went to Elinor Ostrum, who, among other things studied cultures that utilized communal use of resources, such as fields for grazing. The sort of thing that Hardin theorized about, with no evidence for his conclusions. Ostrum showed that when rules are in place, cultures that use communal ideas can survive for extended periods of time - centuries.
Nice posts "eli_bunyan,"
I was introduced to the Hardin's "Tragedy of the commons" myth as an undergraduate and also remember him speaking tangentially about controlling the population growth. The disconcerting part was that the zombie-like undergrads were soaking it up like it was the gospel-truth, and were ready to go proselytize the world with their righteous liberal education.
The professors invariably all came to the same conclusion that if the corporations or businesses hoped to stay in business, it was in their interest to act ethically and to practice conservation. And it was the dumb and lazy individual with no business ethics who needed to be sanctioned until he fell in line.
Since then, I have never seen an example of such a corporation that managed its resources ethically. In practice corporations extract the resources as quickly as economically feasible, give nothing back to the people of the land but low wages and toxic byproducts without any concern for sustainability of the ecosystem.
Many thanks to all the above posters.
Much food for thought;
a city without streets,
a society without class structure,
"higher" education stuck in a rut.
I've noticed that, too, especially since I've wanted a little free space to walk/run my dog off-leash. The nature parks act like enclosures in that they impose all kinds of restrictions on such a simple pleasure.
Capitalism is soul-killing.
".....yet capitalism rolls on...... "
Marx understood this self-destructive aspect of unregulated capitalism.
I've always had a problem with 'ownership' of the land, water, resources, etc - Mother Nature. Maybe it's the corruption by powerful individuals - allowed to become powerful by the apathy of the community - that leads to an ever-downward spiral.
The whole idea of inheritance of property also makes no sense - what does a dead person need? And why should his chosen 'beneficiaries' be entitled to anything? Dust to dust - the whole idea of anything more is a justification of predatory capitalism, which is manifested as a loss to the wider community - society. It's a lose-lose proposition that flies in the face of 'common sense' - and yet people today accept it as 'normal' or 'natural' - but is it?
this world was my world
this world was your world
until the fucking flags were unfurled
Sounds about right. All flags are WAR flags - that's how units were identified. I hate flags - the Nazis cured us of nationalism - and all its symbols.
Would I had language cut new
To wring my body of voice
and voices
Would that I knew
what we do not:
what we have said
and said again
Soils have gone waste
Iniquity gives court and council
I sit and think of pasts
Pain has come
and men silent
(loosely!) translated from The Complaint of Kakhperre-Sonbu
18th Dynasty, Egypt: About 1200 or 1300 BC.
Here is an example of the corporate creep of creepy corporations. There is a golf tournament up in CT, that is used to raise money for the Jaycees. It started in 1952, and Hartford being the Insurance capital of the world, it was call the "Insurance City Open". In 1967 it was renamed the Greater Hartford Open, (GHO) and remained that way for a good part of my adult life.
From 1973 to 1988 Sammy Davis Jr. lent his name to it, so it became the Sammy Davis Jr. Greater Hartford open. That was fine because face it, Sammy was one cool guy.
Then the corporate creep started. Cannon sponsored it from 1985 - 2002. It then became the Cannon GHO. OK not too bad. It still was the GHO. Then it was sponsored by Buick, and it became the "Buick Open". No more GHO. The corporate name trumped the place name, and replaced it. Now it is the Travelers Championship. The corporate take over of the event is now complete. No more GHO.
One little piece of trivia. The GHO is the second most attended PGA event. You know what the most attended PGA event is? Its the f***ing "Waste Management Phoenix Open". That has quite the ring to it don't you think? It sounds so much better than when it was just the "Phoenix Open" I wonder how long it will be before they drop the Phoenix out of the name and just make it the "Waste Management Open". I can see the TV animated logo for it now. A garbage lid opens, and an emblem that has two crossed golf clubs with a garbage truck in the background flies out of the can, (or maybe just a steaming pile of ____!)
Maybe they can require the golfers to use golf bags that look like trash cans. Actually I don't really care, because I don't golf.
For a non-golfer, that was a pretty cool post : )
I've always thought golf courses should be commons at night.
I've always KNOWN that golf courses are bullshit. When revolution comes to America, I am going to build a house on one.
Now that was an interesting and fun read. Thanks Tom.
Waste Management Phoenix Open. Priceless. I am still laughing.
Someday golf courses will be named after golfers, stadiums will be named after athletes, the buildings at Lincoln Center will be named after composers and musicians and dancers, and hospitals wings will be named after doctors, nurses and researchers. Right now everything is named after companies and wealthy contributors who demand their name on things as payment for returning a bit of their wealth to something worthwhile. I think they should do that through a fair taxation system, and we should decide what gets funded.
Joe
"America developed its own relationship with the commons, which in our case included the vast lands we took from native people and Mexico" Doesn't the author see the flagrant self-contradiction here? That's my beef with the concept of private property. It always hinges on who can bring the most force to bear. No one of us ever created the things we really need, we've got them by the grace of god. It's all commons as far as I'm concerned.
The author starts the history of the commons with the Romans. Yet before that was the christian theology that god gave man dominion over the earth and everything on and in it.
Legal progression of the commons is the continuation of domination of the earth, air and water.It is the story of human domination that continues to this day.The roots of the commons in the USA came from the struggle over domination of property in England. The king owned all but could not control it so delegated control to lords by giving vast tracts of land to them.Any common person could use that land as long as they could access it. Enclosure became the counter point to the commons. All land that could be enclosed could not be used by the commoner. The richer the lord the more land he could enclose and the less the commoner had to graze their animals or to hunt for food.Think Robin Hood.
The commoner if lucky got himself a farm, a piece of property owned by the king and his agent the lord. So rent was paid. The word farm comes from old English and Latin "ferme" and "ferma" meaning firm, constant, reliable, as in payment. Your land, a farm, you got from the lord because you would pay rent.By the way, in middle age England a lord knew he could not collect more than 20% from their farmers. That is one pig in five or one potato in five or the farmer would be at his door with a pitch fork.Because we are mostly not farmers any more we pay property tax to our lord. Do you pay more tax than 20% today?
This is the basis of our understanding of ownership and domination of the commons in the USA.
The base of where this came from is wrong. There is no god to give us domination. We have no right to ownership of any of mother earth. If we have rights to be here and live then all other species have that right as well. In fact, the fish, animals,bugs and birds have an equal right to live as well.We fail to understand that we live with but depend on all ecosystems.Without bees we lack for food. Without plankton we lack for oxygen.
We have reached the point that new concepts around commons is emerging. Our government might think that it owns our air and has the right to permit or sell rights to add poisons to our air in parts per billion but that kills the air. We need this air all of it and in a clean state or we and our children will suffer. So will the plants animals and bees.
I would think our next step is to give rights to natural communities and ecosystems as they have an equal right to live and we depend on all of mother earth's creatures and plants to survive. We have done away with the enslavement of humans in laws if not in fact.We must see the value of all aspects of nature and begin to give it freedom too by making rights for all natural communities and ecosystems part of our law.
"I've always thought golf courses should be commons at night."
They are. You should see all the fucking deer!
-30-
There is one property that is almost never mentioned; labor power. Every single person in the world is born with it. Before class divided society, when the simple tools were operated individually, applying one's labor power was the only means to produce and secure the necessities for life. Today the tool is socially operated but privately owned. Some live solely by owning them; most others live by selling their labor power to the owners of the tools of production for a wage. A huge portion of the population is rendered useless by an over supply of labor power. The portion of the population whose labor power has been rendered useless is steadily increasing.
Donald J Donaker, Coordinator,
Real Union Of Social Science - Google it
First, the author wrote: "Paine proposed a remedy—not a reversal— for enclosure, which he considered necessary for economic progress: compensation for loss of the commons." No exploration of why a reversal wouldn't have been better, or whether a fair monetary "compensation" could ever be made for the loss of the commons, and whether that would prevent the destruction of the no-longer common commons.
Then, he simply asserted that: "... its basic principle—that enclosure of a commons requires compensation—is as sound in our time as it was in Paine’s."
Thus compensation for enclosure is to be seen as a real solution - i.e., commodifying the commons is legitimized, because Peter Barnes says so.
And then you read that "As a businessman and investor, I believe we can evolve to a new stage of capitalism, envisioned centuries ago by Locke and Paine, in which corporations and the commons work in balance." So that's where he's coming from.
And he seems to see no problem with "the vast lands we took from native people and Mexico." So, might is right, and there could never be a real "compensation" for privatization of the commons, just as there could never be any real compensation to the native people of this land - not that he is even proposing such.
If any real "compensation" could be given to anyone, it is by rapidly moving towards restoring nature and ecosystems as much as possible, and sharing all the resources in an egalitarian society, ensuring democratic and rational management. Short of that, we have no hope of escaping the total collapse of ecosystems, all-out resource wars, and finally, our own extinction.
BTW, "the tragedy of the commons" only applies to mismanaged/unmanaged commons, while privatized commons is the other tragedy that the original theorist (and proponents of privatization) didn't consider.
Maggie Zhou
ClimateSOS.org
Good post!
Nature will restore the commons despite man's best efforts to own it. The idea that man owns land is laughable. Man only "claims" to own land. That claim is a short sighted selfish delusion built upon genocide, lies, and rationalizations.
and a signed and notarized piece of paper to make it "legal".
Yeah, I know. The inference was to the ruse of the legal system. Sorry for the oversight.
I don't know much about your tribe, only what you have said. I like it and understand why your people sided with the french. The french traded with the Fox-Sauks (my parts) for over a hundred years and everything was fine. Then the americans showed up.
Saw a sign in Florida,
paint spelling on a sheet of plywood,
"This is not america",
the Miccosukee never signed.
Met a Pottawatomie (my parts again) lady with a bumper sticker,
"america: love it or give it back"
I said,
good idea.
She said,
they wouldn't know what to do with it.
I said,
couldn't be any worse.
You must have misunderstood. She is Pottawatomie.
From my January 31st, 2011 10:06 pm comment:
"There is one property that is almost never mentioned; labor power."
It appears that that human feature will continue to be ignored.
So, the article began with humans freely roaming the commons. What were they doing? Applying their labor power to produce their needs, of course. Is there any commons remaining today to apply labor power on? Like North and South Dakota — no. All the land suitable for applying labor on it is privately owned, with no free access for workers to apply their labor power on. They sell their labor power to the owners of the land for a wage to operate the machines that the owners also own. There is no commons now, it is all owned and devoted to the agriculture industry. Living off the commons is a thing of the past.
The only thing left to provide a wholesome livelihood for all humans, having lost common ownership of the commons, is common ownership of the means of production — productive land, factories and raw materials.
In the United States, the process of change stated above started over 300 years ago. The structure of production has advanced immensely means but our structure of society is still back in the days of our flag with 13 stars in it.
Continue ignoring labor power and how and what to do with it at your peril.
This article on the commons is good and essential in providing food for thought in the matter of the commons for the progressive agenda, but as a entrepreneur I have to say capitalisim is another form of hierarchy, in this case economic which can't survive and adapt. If the writer means using a hybrid of capitalism such as the socialized capitalism of Western Europe of from two decades to four decades ago so associated with Olaf Palme's midle and real third way, that's something else. That's a vialble option and would cut down much of the hierarchy which will be a threat to the commons. This is in sinch with the middle way of Hugo Chavez and the ALBA Latin American states of Venezueala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador as well as what
a British and Scottish businessman below advocates with all employee owned companies. This is a true middle way.
David Erdal who is a Briish businessman and evolutionary psychologiist would endorse something along those lines and defintiely defend the commons, but is pushing all out for all employee owned companies which he started doing way back in the 1980s with Tullis Russell, a family owned paper making company. He has pushed this ever since and such companies have flourished. Do read what he says in his book entitiled Local Heroes: how loch fyne oysters embraced employee ownership and business success showing how a north of the border UK company moved to all employee ownership and survived when it was about to go under with a pile of debt and due to predatory hostile take over attempts by other companies.
This broad middle way of democratic socialism is endorced by no less than Martin Luther King Jr and this came out in a detailed analysis in a recent book on Dr King which shwoed Dr King said this to a friend in a private comment which told this friend he couldn't say to others but was telling him. However in his book entitled The Trmpet of Conscience, Dr King did endorce redistribution of resourses and thus indirctely even then was saying he was a democratic socialitst and this we should all embrace. This is the way to truly defend the commons which must be defended unles we are to go the way of dinosaurs.
This is the way that Erdal with his PH D based on what he did initiallly with pushing all employee owned companies has said will provide all with motivated and productive employees and end the division of all into owners and servants. He's absolutely right. This we must do.
We can survive as modern humans have done for at least ninety millenia, by restoring the adaptive human trait of sharing which Erdal so strongly advocates He calls it the "psychology of sharing" and wrote about in his doctoral studies.
AD
AD February 1st, 2011 12:53 pm said:
"We can survive as modern humans have done for at least ninety millenia, by restoring the adaptive human trait of sharing which Erdal so strongly advocates He calls it the "psychology of sharing" and wrote about in his doctoral studies."
How and when did Americans abandon "psychology of sharing"? Did they replace it with a psycology of not sharing?
If there is a condition of scarcity can how can the needs of the populace be satisficed by sharing? Capitalism, primarily driven by profit, created soceity's capacity to produce an abundance for everyone. Before capitalist and captalism, it was the kings under feudalism, before that it was the slave masters under the social system of slavery (Roman Empire), before that it was classless communual society (according to AD, that was the end of "psychology of sharing"). Also, according to AD, succeeding stages of societies advanced not according to the evolution of the productive tool, but to a psychology of not sharing. Furthermore, not explained is why the people of communual societies suddenly
abandoned "psychology of sharing" and replaced it with a psychology of not sharing.
Donald J Donaker, Coordinator, Real Union Of Social Science - Google it
Thanks to all for so many eye-opening posts on an interesting article. It's like being at a party with a lot of nice, smart people. So rare in the world of journalism.
Joe
readbetweenthe_lines February 1st, 2011 4:37 pm said:
"They replaced the "psychology of sharing" with the EMPATHIC WALL (google it) right around the First Thanksgiving."
The human race adhered to "psychology of sharing" for thousands of years, than woke up one day and abruptly chucked it and began to engage in psychology of non sharing or as you say, "the EMPATHIC WALL." Is that so?
Donald J Donaker, Coordinator, Real Union Of Social Science - Google it
From the article above:
"Like Locke, Paine believed nature was a gift of God to all. “There are two kinds of property,” he wrote. “Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the universe—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property—the invention of men.” In the latter, he reasoned, equality is impossible, but in the former, “all individuals have legitimate birthrights.” Since these birthrights were being diminished by enclosure, there ought to be a compensation for that loss. Paine proposed a “national fund” that would do two things:"
It is well that people have a right to their views and opinions regarding all matters and discourse pertaining to the subject of property. But it is adamantly disingenious to persist in spurning facts relating to the subject. This is in no way begrudging recognition of Thomas Pain's contribution to the American revolution, but his insinuation that there are only, "two kinds of property,” is categorically incorrect. There is another form of property but for the revolutionary situation at the time, Pain's thoughts were amply sufficient. Since our society has greatly evolved from that situation, the omission of the fact that there is another form of property is gravely inadequate for solving the deep crisis our country is in.
From the desk of "Real Union Of Social Science" — an excerpt from an introductory to a series of articles pertaining to "labor power":
What is considered is the human relationship and social aspect of labor power. Every human comes into this world, regardless of race, creed or color, possessing labor power (of course in its undeveloped stage).
While humans have the distinct advantage over all other species by being embodied with labor power — the capacity to produce an abundance — in turn, they are vulnerable to having the tools of production taken away from them by their own kind. When that happens, their source for livelihood is taken away. Their labor power is held hostage to the owners of the tools of production. Unless they can sell their labor power to those owners , they face starvation — forestalled only by the token handouts of soup kitchens, food shelves and the paltry amenities of the welfare state offered by, what is conjured up as a symbol of our benevolent society. In contrast, the natural consumptive tools of all other species can never taken away by their own kind. If a human would attempt to do such against any of them, it would virtually kill them outright.
Only after production is accomplished by applying labor power to the tools of production can humans consume. Of course one can pick an apple from a tree but such instances are not enough for survival. Apple trees do not have apples year around and do not grow everywhere. And so it is with all other food sources that humans can simply pick.
Donald J Donaker, Coordinator, Real Union Of Social Science — Google it
People need to reclaim the commons no two ways about that. We'll do better and survive if we do. It'a about adapting and evolving.
But as to the commons being always, that's the judgment of such anthropologists as L S B Leaky, but that's not as rock solid as the evidence coming from such evolutionary psychologists as David Erdal and Andrew Whiten and others of it at least going back to the beginning of modern humans and at least 100 millenia ago. That's still significant, and shows that before agriculture and the surpluses it brought along with the false sense of entitilement which the few who had those surpluses develeped leading them to see that they should always have more than others. With that comiong in about 10 millenia agao as pointed out here.
But when trying to put that as far back as the first humans as Leaky and some others do, we run into the problem of not knowing if those peopoe were basic foraging or hunting and gathering people or simply scavengers as Erdal and Whiten are concerned they might have been. If this were the case, we would have no way to know if the commons was or wasn't in effect at that time with people being egalitarian, caring, and sharing people living in real and natural extended familties which, we have a right to say capitalism destroyed and replaced with the nuclear family, which is what it was the nuking of the faimily, and the creation of a marketing unit for capitalism to keep it.going and to rip up a crucial part of the social fabric of humanity, thus contributing to its undoing and lack of adaptability and evolutionary capability which as evolutionary psychologists are concerned with. This isn't in the least to say that anthroplogy and other disciplines aren't concerned about the same.
Egalitarinism is as a titlte of a work by Whiten and Erdal call it "an evoltonary product of machiavellian status escalation."
AD
There was no respone to my point that there is a form of property never included in articles, including the above, and discussion on social issues; social science discourse. That is a form of property that everyone is born with: labor power.
What does Common Dreams say for itself:
"To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good."
What relates more to the common good than a feature that is common to everybody: labor power? A feature that has been eviscerated from main stream discourse in our society. That feature has a direct bearing on the subject at hand, "the commons."
By now, the commentators have moved on to other articles and most likely will continue omitting labor power whenever it has relevance to the subject. Will this glaring omission continue for another millennium?
Donald J Donaker, Coordinator, Real Union Of Social Science (Google it)