Fanfare for the Commons

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Of course, many people are already tackling the issues related to the commons, and with some success. What’s missing is a common theme that connects all this important work. For decades people have been fighting separate battles, plugging holes in a thousand dikes. They’ve been fighting pollution of the natural and cultural environments. They’ve been trying to stop the commercializing of the public schools and advertising assaults upon their kids. They’ve been battling traffic, sprawl, noise, the patenting of life—so many battles that it’s hard to keep track.

It is time now to declare that these are really aspects of the same cause. They are not just assertions of a vague 'public interest.' They are not, as conservatives often charge, attempts to violate property rights. They seek rather to protect a property right—a common property right.

We need to declare that atmospheric pollution is not just a health threat. It is a violation of common property rights. Sprawl is not just an inefficient use of land and energy. It depletes the social commons, which rarely thrives in a world of freeways and malls. The commercial invasion of childhood is not just a matter of more obese and hyperactive kids. It involves a larger question of who creates the stories that young people are told, and to what ends.

For decades the libertarian right has been fighting what it calls 'takings' of private property by government. Now it’s time to fight the taking of what belongs to us all.

Adapted from Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures (Summer 2001). Subscriptions: $24/yr. (4 issues) from Box 10818, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110.

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