Something important is happening at this website. That’s my sense – and if you’re reading this, I’ll bet it’s yours as well.
As I follow the writings On the Commons, I gain historical insights and pick up ideas about innovative initiatives. Yet, informative as these individual postings are, their value multiplies greatly when seen as threads in a larger narrative.
In this first guest post, I’d like to venture an aggregation of some recurring themes that I see at OTC. Glass of wine in hand and glancing over two years of del.icio.us bookmarks, here’s what I’ve come up with. How would you refine/redefine/recombine them? What others would you think are essential?
Knowledge creation is a social process.
See, for example: Understanding Knowledge as a Commons
Or: Newton, Lord Camden and ‘Common Things’
Technology can foster cooperation by enabling ongoing interactions among identifiable users with some knowledge of past behavior.
See, for example: Identity, Reputation and Social Currency
With the aid of technology, peer-based production (social production) can once again become a significant economic and cultural activity.
See, for example: Michael Bauwens on the Rise of Commons-based Peer Production
“The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.” (Lessig’s refrain)
See, for example: Apple Claims to Own the Word ‘Pod’
Commons should be managed to the benefit of all users, and a powerful management model is that of the private trust.
See, for example: Global Warming’s Big Cash Dividend
Or: Managing the Commons
Or: Ten Tenets: The Law of the Commons of the Natural World
Property rights should serve the common good.
See, for example: Looting, Necessity and the Community of Goods
Cognitive, biological, psychological, and anthropological studies indicate that social trust and cooperation are central to human evolution.
See, for example: Trust and Reciprocity: A Platform for Evolutionary Success
Or: A Renaissance of the Commons [pdf]
We have lost much – spiritually, ethically, socially – by acceding to the premises of homo economicus; we have much to gain by reducing or re-balancing the market influences in our lives.
See, for example: Commons Language: Provide the Words and They Will Speak