Posted
September 3, 2006

The Language of the Commons

Getting the language right is the first step to protecting and expanding the commons.

This is my first post as guest-blogger for OnTheCommons.org, so I thought I would take a look at how we use language to talk about commons in the first place. It is my belief that blogs should create questions rather than provide answers, so here’s my first shot at provocation.

Recently, I was talking to Larry Lessig about the kind of language we use to talk about our interactions with the commons and with each other, and I realized that we have basically two key ways of describing transactions:

Giving: the provider transfers something to the recipient
bq. Taking: the recipient transfers something from the provider

Ok, so those were obvious. Now the less-obvious ones.

Transcription: the recipient copies something from the provider
bq. Sharing: the sharer (provider) copies something to the recipient

After I commented that sharing did not involved any loss on the part of the sharer, Lessig pointed out that if I share atoms, then there is, in fact, a loss. For example, if I share a file with you there is no loss, but if I share my food, then there is. For some, this is no surprise, as it is just a reiteration of the basic concept in commons theory of “rivalrous” goods, i.e. goods for which one person’s use is another person’s loss.

However, what I would like to suggest here, using the rubric established above, is this:

Rivalrous goods cannot be shared, only taken or given.

Nicholas Negroponte made his now famous distinction between bits and atoms (in Being Digital) years ago, but it is a distinction which I used above to illuminate the difference between a transfer economy and a transcription economy.

Why make such a distinction? Well, many scholars, beginning with Eric Raymond, have characterized the Internet economy as a gift-economy, and yet using the distinction above we see that it, in fact, cannot be. In The Participatory Challenge, Trebor Scholz points out:

In various ways Marcel Mauss, Georges Bataille, and Jean Baudrillard have all argued that societies are grouped around the notion of excess (and acts of generous gift giving) … [but] the ideology behind social software technologies is not purely based on the idea of gift-giving. In the gift economy of the Internet, gift-giving does not relate to loss or the reduction of excess. Sharing a digital file only creates a copy while the giver retains the “original.” What was ours is still ours after we gifted it… . The act of gift giving does not cost… .

But is this really true? Certainly, in a legal environment rife with copyright and lawsuits there can be substantial costs associated with sharing. Similarly, in a community where sharing is expected, there can be substantial costs associated with not sharing. And there are initial acquisition costs, as well as an infinite variety of opportunity costs associated with any decision. More useful, perhaps is to ask, “Where are the costs situated?”

For example, in a transfer economy, above and beyond all of the opportunity costs and initial acquisition costs, when I give something I am losing the actual atoms involved in the transfer. In the transcription economy however, even though I may still suffer opportunity and acquisition costs, the replication of bits costs me nothing. This particular costlessness fosters, over time, a culture of sharing. We end up with a general economic pathway:

  • Giving (early tribal gift-cultures) leads to
  • Taking (atom-based economies) leads to
  • Transcription (downloading from providers) leads to
  • Sharing (providing for the commons).

Herein we note that Giving (which is essentially Other-centered behavior) gives way to Taking (essentially Self-centered behavior) which in turn gives way to Transcription (an attempted continuation of Self-centered behavior) and finally to Sharing (a return to Other-centered behavior as the problem of commons underprovision becomes salient).

And thus we close the loop between the two economies, the norms that are generated by sharing bits online, make their way back into the world of atoms, and increasingly we find communities of individuals, like Freecycle, giving atoms away offline to others in need. In addition we find increasing interest in global commons and transnational activism on their behalf. And finally, people become more interested in providing for the commons, than in hoarding for themselves.

Overconsumption is no longer a signal of success… . Instead of conspicuous consumption…a “conspicuous abstention” is emerging.
bq. _via WorldChanging

The language of the commons is what enables the current political and legal system to continue to confuse, confound, and obfuscate issues concerning sharing culture. Getting the language right is our first step towards being able to accurately describe and therefore accurately resolve commons issues.

Thoughts?