Fanfare for the Commons

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Some are gifts of nature; others are the collective product of human creativity and endeavor. Some, such as the Internet, are new. Others are as ancient as folklore and cooking. But they all 'belong' to all of us. No one has exclusive rights. We inherit them jointly, and they are more basic to our lives than either our economic system or the government. One can imagine life without a Commerce Department or Amazon.com, but not without a shared language and clean water. This implies a large responsibility. We are 'temporary possessors,' wrote statesman Edmund Burke, and we 'should not think it amongst [our] rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance.'

Leave the place as clean as you found it, if not cleaner, as our grandmothers used to say. But today few heed this advice. The value of the commons is beyond reckoning. Yet because there is little acknowledgment of its value in our culture, and no legal framework to protect it, the commons is subject to constant invasion, theft, and abuse. Each day brings news of yet another assault. Noisy jets shatter the tranquility of neighborhoods. A sprawling superstore drains the life out of a downtown. Telecommunications firms claim our airwaves commons for their cell phone business. Corporations claim the names of publicly funded sports arenas and cultural institutions. Drug companies take ownership of university research, so that the goal becomes producing more money instead of advancing the cause of knowledge and healing. Even the world’s water is turning into a commodity for sale as corporations race to capture it for a market in developing nations.

The result is a statistical illusion of progress—an increase in monetary transactions that hides the reality of decline in the calculus of people’s well-being. The plundering of the commons is a major factor in what is misleadingly called 'economic growth.' Growth has become a process of cannibalization. It often does not add a 'good' that wasn’t there before. Instead it takes a good from the commons, diminishes or degrades it, and then sells it back to us in commoditized form. Pollute our lakes and rivers and then sell us swimming pools and bottled water. Destroy the traditional patterns of village and community life, then sell people cars to get around, treadmills for exercise—and pills to calm their nerves.

The destruction of the commons in the name of economic growth also increases inequality because more of life is pushed into the realm that requires money. We are left feeling stressed, worried about the future our kids and grandkids will inhabit—and financially strung out.

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