Author: David Bollier
Teaser: If the Democratic Party is serious about fighting for “the common good,” it should get serious about the commons.
Essay:
As Democrats look toward the fall elections, many sense enormous opportunity in focusing on the astonishing corruption and incompetence of the Bush administration. But they also realize that bashing Bush is not enough; they must stand for something affirmative, too. And so it has come to pass that many Democrats see their future in rallying around an idea of “the common good.” (What a commentary on our times that such a bedrock principle of our political system is now seen as fresh and daring.)
Before the Democrats get too excited about their new mantra, it’s important that voters demand a more precise explanation of what it means. One can too easily imagine the phrase becoming the equivalent of the Clinton/Gore “bridge to the 21st Century” – whatever that was.
Part of the problem is that Republicans nominally believe in the common good, too. They just happen to think that unfettered markets, corporate welfare and cronyism are the best instruments for achieving it. I would guess that even Osama bin Laden believes in the common good. His version just happens to involve a regime of Islamic fundamentalism governance for all.
If Democrats truly wish to develop a serious vision and philosophy about the common good, they should begin to embrace the idea of the commons.
The commons is about ownership and property rights in the many resources that we share as a people. We the people own millions of acres of forests, grasslands and mineral-laden land. We taxpayers finance billions of dollars of cutting-edge drug research at universities. We helped create the Internet. We ?own? the national parks and public libraries. We the people give companies copyrights in their music and films while getting very little in return for those monopoly privileges.
With the rest of humanity, we also share a large stake in preserving the global atmosphere, the humane genome and drinking water. We share common interests in protecting fisheries and deep-sea minerals from over-exploitation. The basic building blocks of physical matter, genes and plants belong to all of us, and not just those who are using nanotechnology and biotechnology to patent them.
None of these commons should be privatized or abused. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening. Our government, the trustee of so many of our shared resources, is colluding in letting private corporations do what they want with the people’s equity assets. They are selling our children’s attention to advertisers in the public schools. They are letting private companies own life forms. They are inviting big-box retailers to destroy open space, species habitat and diversified local economies.
While Republicans may be more shameless in the private plunder of our common wealth, Democrats are also implicated in the giveaways. Both are letting commercial broadcasters use the public airwaves, worth tens of billions of dollars, for free. They are letting mining companies and corporate ranchers use our public lands for a pittance. They are about to allow cable operators and telephone companies to control broadband access to the Internet, which will destroy the open, non-discriminatory access that has produced so much innovation.
These acts are enclosures of the commons – the corporate conversion of nature, public resources and socially managed wealth (e.g., scientific knowledge or online information) into privately owned product. The rationale is that it’s essential for economic growth. In reality, however, much of what passes for growth these days doesn’t create net wealth, but rather diminishes it by diminishing the commons. We are not made richer when Wal-Mart sends jobs abroad and destroys the Main Street economy. We are not made healthier when artificially cheap fast food substitutes for healthier home meals. When Nestle and other bottled water companies take our commons of fresh water, slap a label on it and sell it to us at 2,400% markups, who is being made richer?
As capitalists know, property is power, and at this moment our common assets lack adequate property rights. We the people do not have adequate laws or institutions to manage our own resources properly. No surprise that private corporations can trespass upon the commons almost at will.
If the Democratic Party is serious about championing the “common good,” let them begin by addressing the rampant corporate enclosures of the commons. Let them begin to recognize that the commons is at least as powerful a source of “value-creation” as the market – and that government must therefore take affirmative steps to fortify and extend the commons.
The “common good” may be a catchy marketing hook in these grim times of private greed, but it is not, alas, a political philosophy. The commons, by contrast, can help articulate a new approach to governance and protect our planet and national resources for future generations. The greatest value of the commons as a philosophy, agenda and rhetoric may be in helping us recover the common wealth.
We will soon see if the Democrats are more interested in marketing taglines or serious ideas for political change.