The Commons:

Nature - Culture - Community

"They hang the man and flog the woman

That steal the goose from off the common,

But let the greater villain loose

That steals the common from the goose."

—English folk poem, ca. 1750

Humans love to possess things - to say this is mine and you can't have it. We have to do this or someone might just steal it from us. A lock on our doors effectively says this. Some of these things are basic and essential.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Some things, however, are too big, too ubiquitous, too intangible to fit into one person's asset pool.

There are two ways to view this world: all humanity originally owned everything collectively or all humanity originally owned nothing. Either way some of those things eventually became privately owned. Chief Seattle asked, who can own the sky? If not common ownership, at least we all have a common interest in the sky - air quality. In fact, as humans and as citizens of earth, we have a common interest in a great many things.

NATURE:

I would prefer not to live in a city with smog. I would definitely prefer that a plant not open up next to my house and start pumping smoke in the air - the neighbors agree.

I would prefer not to swim in an ocean full of trash. I would prefer that animals not die simply because we are too busy making money.

I would prefer we not pave paradise and put up a parking lot. I would prefer we valued nature as much or more than we value a house full of stuff.

The death of birth - extinction of species

CULTURE and COMMUNITY:

I never paid a dime to have access to the English language. My parents never did either. We inherit language as a cultural element of our society. We all contribute to culture and we all own it equally. The Greeks may assert their ownership of the Akropolis, but it represents a cultural root for all of western society. We all have a shared interest in ancient Greek culture in the way that it shaped our contemporary culture. Lawrence Lessig reminds us that "creativity and innovation always bulids on the past." Culture advances by growing and adjusting the tracks already laid by our ancestors and even our contemporaries. We share ideas freely and in doing so build better ideas. As Thomas Jefferson said, “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”

Science works the same way. It builds off of principles and laws that others have discovered. It picks up where they left off. Why reinvent the wheel? Certainly creativity and ingenuity should be rewarded, but the quicker it can be adapted into the commons the quicker it can be turned into something even better. Copyrights and Patents fence off areas of the commons which prevents cultural and scientific development.

Interestingly, though this quote is often attributed to Sir Isaac Newton, the same basic idea and language was recorded even before his time. Around 1130, Bernard of Chartres said, "We are like dwarfs standing upon the shoulders of giants, and so able to see more and see farther than the ancients."

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