Chris, I would find it helpful if you would provide a little more information about other entities in social reality [1] that are closely related to the concept you present here. You mentioned Ivan Illich. Where might I find comments of Ivan’s that are pertinent to your reference?
In this piece Ivan tells his story without any references to evidence. But I think it is safe to take the general societal change from ‘common’ to ‘resource’ as historical fact.
Apparently, Ivan ascribes this change to the avarice of evil individuals (the “lords”). Undoubtedly, in many specific instances the change was facilitated by aggressive, self-serving individuals, but it seems to me that more fundamental economic and social forces were at work. Despite Ivan’s rosy view of a common based society, I guess that I would prefer living in our present resource based society, even with all of its short comings and inequities. These problems, I think, can be effective addressed within a resource paradigm.
I’m having trouble following your thoughts. I think I understand (and agree) that ‘defund the police’ is, in it’s extreme, ridiculous, but paradoxical? For me, your imaginary world of commons needs clarification. You say it is a village. For me that conjures up a place of a few hundred to a few thousand people; smaller would be a hamlet, larger would be a town. Given the invariants of how human brains operate, even a village of a few hundred would have a variety of ongoing social problems that would need to be addressed. Presumably in a small village such problems could be addressed as they arose by a voluntary village council. But a village of a few thousand would probably find it advantageous to create some sort of recognized office of public safety, i.e., some sort of police.
Another problem I have with Ivan’s vision of a commons based society is that at scale they have not happened. Some hunter-gatherer bands took all of their substances from ‘the commons,’ [2] but once year-round, settled agriculture took hold my impression is that social hierarchies formed, and with them private ownership and ‘police.’
In your closing, I’m not sure what you mean by “The New Normal.” In response to “What is meant by the current phrase ‘the new normal'?” ChatGPT replied (among other things) that “Ultimately, the ‘new normal’ refers to a shift in the way things are done, which has become the expected and accepted standard.” Certainly, human rights agreements are under attack around the world. In a human society of any significant size, to be operable ‘rights’ must be encoded in laws. The police, are by definition, an agency charged with enforcing laws. So, aren’t police necessary to ensure the continuation of this common?
Are human rights in fact being eroded? In the democracies I’m not sure there is a clear-cut answer. In a democracy there will always be contention over what is a ‘right’, and what us not. Operationally, when push comes to shove, in a democracy this is decided by majority vote. There is constant disagreement and back and forth changes. As long as civility, empathy, and compromise prevail, I think that this is the best that humans can manage.
Notes
[1] For me, Stranger Worlds is a social reality entity. “The Police and Commons” is a sub-entity.
I would not expect anyone to pick up Illich's perspective quickly or from any single essay, although it is certainly not rose-tinted... it is the most damning critique of the last two millennia I've encountered. But it is hard for people to wrap their heads around it... even scholars of Illich, it seems to me, frequently misunderstand him.
If I had to suggest an entry point into his thought it would probably be Tools for Conviviality, although his historical interest in the commons comes later. In general, my suspicion is that you are not in a place (i.e. a world) from which you can read Illich, and that this is a description that applies to most people today, regardless of how well read they might be. Illich writes from another world... and as I say in this piece, it is an alien world.
Regardless, I don't doubt that you are correct that you would prefer to remain inside the world of resources... I think this is true of a great many people. And then there are those who would not wish to remain inside this world, but have no choice because globally, it is the occupying power. As such, it really doesn't matter what people want in this regard. However, I think it is helpful to try and see through and around that world, because the problems we are encountering are - or so I claim - tied to that world, and sometime in the next millennia we are going to need to consider either a new game, or a new way of playing that one.
Anyway, I don't think Illich was arguing from the point of view of reverting to subsistence at all... his position, as a well-travelled individual in the mid-twentieth century with a sense of the way that technocracy was encroaching on and eradicating all other ways of being, was that those who had not already succumbed to it did not have a good reason to do so (the opposite of the doctrine of 'development' in fact). In this regard, it may already be too late as I feel these last outposts of the commons have fallen - although I look to the legal news from India and sometimes think "there is still hope"...
Personally, I find it helpful to understand the conditions of these earlier worlds to help navigate out of the crisis we have made for ourselves. Your mileage, as ever, may vary.
Lastly, 'the New Normal' a common phrase that nonetheless I'm quite sure ChatGPT is neither willing nor permitted to discuss, this being a shibboleth for a certain kind of resistance today - specifically opposition to what I am calling here 'imperial technocracy'. The international evocation of the phrase 'the New Normal' in media across the planet in the last couple of years is a striking symbol of a problem that still remains invisible for a great many people.
As for whether human rights are being eroded - we are now quite beyond that stage, alas, they are gone except as a kind of phantasmal echo, a sort of a performative game, rather like Morris dancing in the UK which is still performed but has none of its pagan meaning. You perhaps blur the meaning of human rights in your notes... Human rights were international agreements made in the first ten years after World War II, while the colloquial discussion of 'rights' is mostly idle chatter. It is here in people's fevered rambling about 'their rights' that there is contention, but it is largely a pointless argument as we are far beyond upholding rights at this point. However this statement of yours:
"Operationally, when push comes to shove, in a democracy this is decided by majority vote."
...is now demonstrably false, and I find the invocation of the majority vote concept highly problematic under the conditions that currently attain. The very purpose of the human rights agreements was to provide a limit for what could be agreed by majority vote. The moment this was violated and exceeded, we gave up democracy and accepted imperial technocracy. When governments decided to collude with information platforms (social media, wikis, search engines) to censor 'disinformation' (defined as anything opposed to the government's chosen views) we passed beyond the ideals of democracy you refer to. I truly wish this were not so.
However, I greatly respect your wish that "civility, empathy, and compromise prevail". These are indeed key to the spirit of democracy. If only we could find any of these now.
Stranger Worlds, The Police and Commons, Response to Feb 15 comment
Hi Chris. As always thanks for your response. I hope you don’t mind if I reply bit-by-bit. Given the way my daily life is presently structured it is difficult for me to do anything else. If you like, you can hold off responding until I’ve posted the last bit. (Or not at all, of course.)
The Illich piece you cite is available on the web. Despite your warnings, I’ll take a look. At a minimum perhaps I’ll get some insight into your world.
PS Since you don’t do Facebook, you might be interested in my most recent post:
Found: A Dialogue Partner
For the last two years I’ve been searching for a place on the web where I could join a dialogue on fundamental questions. [1] Following a suggestion by Pat Monday [Montana Tech colleague] it appears that I have found such a place.
When I asked Pat for names of current real philosophers (as opposed to academics just teaching and commenting) he mentioned that one such was David Chalmers. It turns out that Chalmers has an extensive personal website (conse.net) that has a lengthy list of links. One of these links, under the heading of “Non-philosophers with Philosophy Related Weblogs” was Chris Bateman. Mr. Bateman, it turns out, is an old-time game designer (Discworld Nour – 1999) who is presently associated with the game consulting entity “International Hobo Ltd.” He is also a prolific writer of books and blog entries. From Chalmers link (“Only a Game”) I found his latest blog: “Stranger Worlds And How to Live In Them” at strangerworlds.substack.com.
Chris posts a piece there once a week and requested comments. I recently coughed up $5 for the opportunity to comment. I have since been engaged in several non-trivial exchanges with Chris.
Substack posts are open to all for reading. Currently I’ve posted under “The Axe and the Tree” and “The Police and Commons.” I expect to be making more FB posts about my on-going discussions with Mr. Bateman.
Notes
[1] Stuff happens. Currently, there is no evidence for why our universe suddenly came into existence 13.8 billion years ago (what our currently accepted models say). But apparently human minds are so structured that most of us believe that there is a cause for anything that happens. [2] For me, then, fundamental questions are about the causes and possible futures of situations or conditions that matter. For example: Over the next half-century, can the United States, in the light of its current social, economic, and political situation, survive as a democracy?
[2] Emanual Kant (1781 – Critique of Pure Reason) proposed that the models human construct about what’s out there are influenced by how our brains work as well as by what we can observe.
Thank you so much for this Frank! Much appreciated. A small technical point: I do have a PhD and so am technically 'Dr Bateman', although I prefer 'Chris'. 🙂 Likewise, Kant's first name is Immanuel, not Emanual. Apologies for nitpickery - it's a habit I cannot break!
Reply at your own pace to any and all comments, piecemeal is more than acceptible - I appreciate anyone and everyone who can sustain a convivial discourse, and since I have poor impulse control when it comes to conversations (a secondary factor in my avoiding Facebook...) I appreciate a slower rate of reply as it allows me to pace myself better.
However, also bear in mind that many of the topics we open in one post will be revisited in other forms further down the line. As such, while I welcome any continuation of our discussions, the opportunity to return to the points raised will likely be in play for some time. There is therefore no explicit need to respond to every point, and I would encourage you to leave some ground fallow in order that we plant on it later.
Appreciate corrections. Especially for Kant! Where was your PhD? Carnegie Mellon? I think one of your papers (dissertation?) was there. But apparently not anymore. My PhD was at Chapel Hill with Fred Brooks
Yes, I figured topics would come up again. If you don’t mind, I’ll continue to comment freely as I work through each piece. However, feel free to answer with a forward reference. That way I’ll can keep track of my concerns as they come up, and you can put them off for later. For my part I’ll try to keep my comments focused on your points.
When I first entered Stranger Worlds I read your welcome post but then went directly to “Trust No One”. I just now read the four posts I skipped. I now have a better idea of where you’re coming from. My writing is also motivated by a heavy concern that our civilization is in deep trouble from a slew of crisis of its own making. We’re coming from our conclusions from different perspectives, so I for one expect to learn a lot from our conversation.
I’m finding Illich’s assertions about what is the case in various enterprises to be short on evidence. But when I view this piece as proposing a philosophical framework for analyzing a society, and making policy proposals, it starts to look interesting.
Tools for Conviviality [1] (last few paragraphs of Introduction):
-------
“I here submit the concept of a multidimensional balance of human life which can serve as a framework for evaluating man’s relation to his tools.
“In each of several dimensions of this balance it is possible to identify a natural scale.
“When an enterprise grows beyond a certain point on this scale, it first frustrates the end for which it was originally designed, and then rapidly becomes a threat to society itself.
“These scales must be identified and the parameters of human endeavors within which human life remains viable must be explored.
“Once these limits are recognized, it becomes possible to articulate the triadic relationship between persons, tools, and a new collectivity.
“I have chosen “convivial” as a technical term to designate a modern society of responsibly limited tools.”
------
I’ll be examining the rest of this piece from the perspective specified in the above quotes:
.- Are the dimensions of a proposed “multidimensional balance of human life” clearly described?
.- Do these dimensions serve as an adequate “framework for evaluating man’s relation to his tools”?
.- Is a “natural scale” defined for each of these dimensions?
.- Does he consider how various enterprises preform along his specified dimensions?
.- Does he really show that once an enterprise grows beyond a certain point on his scale it first negates its benefits, and then becomes a “threat to society itself.”?
.- Is it reasonable to claim that the parameters of these dimensions define the space in “which human life remains viable.”?
This question of the commons and of the ownership of land has often wrankled with me although I do not have a sophisticated enough understanding of the issues to argue them. In the world of the commons were there no resources? I mean is my hut part of the commons? Or mine? How do I defend my hut? Is our village part of the commons so that someone from outside our village can also freely/fairly (for whatever value of fair we choose) use it? Or does our village turn into "police" when they feel you are treated their resources as your commons? It seems to me there is no easy divide here.
Matt, I think that perhaps you are confusing ‘resource’ with property. As nearly as I can tell from first hand accounts by modern observers, in Neolithic villages there were two type of ownership, private and communal. A family hut was private; cultivated land was communal. The entities in each category were defined by local culture. No one in the culture was the least bit confused about the distinction.
Outside of one’s own village there might be other villages that were considered ‘kin’ and other that were considered ‘other.’ Others were seen as potential rivals.
Am I? Could be, I'm not sure — for the purposes of what I was writing I think I was talking about property as a resource although clearly trees-as-wood become a resource too. At this point I am not sure what point I was trying to clarify and, helpfully, substack only shows your comment and not my comments. Anyway, thanks for trying to clarify.
I didn’t mean to put you down. I’m also finding Illich’s terminology confusing. Certainly a common physical entity like a pasture is a resource for the community. But according to Chris “commons” refers to non-physical entities as well.
A small clarification: my suggestion that human rights created a commons should be read poetically, and is not grounded in Illich's thought as such.
Is silence non-physical...? Illich specifically writes about silence as a commons, but you might consider this to be physical, depending on how you think about such things. The point being that the appearance of the loudspeaker removed the capacity to be silent from large spaces of the world, and Illich sees this as the appropriation of another commons.
PS: In response to a question elsewhere in these comments: I am a British citizen, my university educations were at British institutions, primarily University of Manchester. However, my wife and kids are dual citizens, and I will be living in the US again from the Spring this year. It is my fifth international move.
Well this is a historic moment - the first time we have had discussions between Fellow Travellers. It seems we are coming along in the world! 🙂
We backproject our understanding of 'resources' onto earlier worlds, because we are now so wed to this conception we cannot escape it. This was what I was foreshadowing in last week's "The Axe and the Tree" in fact.
As Frank says, the commons in traditional societies is distinct from the private space of the family. There are also other private spaces based on other kinds of affiliations. The commons was that which was beyond ownership. However, the kind of world in which the commons make sense is opposed to that in which everything (including people) can be resources - this is precisely what I am trying to highlight in these two pieces (this week's and last week's).
Everything starts out as a commons, although dwelling creates a private space apart from it. However, once you live in the world of resources it's difficult to get back into the mindset of the many worlds of subsistence and the commons - I describe it not unfairly as an "alien world" in this piece. What's more, you can't just go back to it - we dependents of technology can't go back to that world, but we could learn from it and find other ways of moving forward.
The question of disputes is an interesting one - it is thinking in terms of resources and ownership that amplifies the possibility of disputes. Unlike Frank, my impression is not that village communities viewed other villages as rivals per se - the latest anthropology regarding, for instance, Native Americans, doesn't show this. Skirmishes with neighbours may have been as more akin to sport than war in some respects. The commons was large enough at the time to negate this need to resolve disputes, although they did occur and appear to have been resolved through 'moots', which is to say, town hall debates where everyone had a voice.
Of course, once people 'own land' and 'own resources', suddenly there are disputes and frameworks to profit from them - which is why the world of resources is the world of police. Hope this is clarifying rather than obfuscating! 🙂
Just a point of information. I spent a couple of days in the Auckland Museum. A lot of space is devoted to Neolithic peoples in New Guinea and New Zealand. Lots of serious warcraft stuff. Losers were taken as slaves. In Neolithic times the amount on inter village conflict might have depend on the relative amount of space. Lots of it in North America. Not so much on a South Pacific Island.
Now I think about it we can replace the commons/resources labelling with abundance/scarcity. It seems to me that while something is relatively abundant, and each can take what they desire, we can treat it as a "commons". However, once something becomes relatively scarce with respect to the needs or desires of the relevant community (at whatever level of scale we want to consider) that the notion of conflict & police emerges representing the relative power of factions that want to consume. An additional dimension being the desire of some to create synthetic scarcity to drive the negative part of this equation.
Feb 14, 2023·edited Feb 14, 2023Liked by Chris Bateman
Indeed the very concept of ownership of land seems strange to me. Although I will concede that I would like to "own" some even as I feel a certain resentment towards those whose seem, often via historical accident, to own quite vast amounts of it. It seems to me that all land should be on loan... although I have no idea who it should be loaned out by. Or how we decide the terms of those loand. Perhaps a world government might make this easier.
The concept of land ownership ought to feel strange - it is bizarre. Although my medieval history is not quite rich enough to affirm this, but I suspect land ownership in Europe is the origin of the world of resources in many respects. I like the idea of 'borrowing' land! I'll ponder this... anything to create reciprocal relations over land might be helpful. I don't think a global government would help, though, since the larger a government, the more dangerous it becomes. If we cannot trust our own national governments, how much less could we trust a world government...?
Bizarre? In my world, fundamentally everything that happens arises from natural causes. Ownership of land was created by human minds, which are the result of natural evolution. The question is, given where humanity is at present, does this arrangement serve? And even if the answer is that it should be modified, like a lot of stuff, the concept is so woven into the whole fabric of our civilization that it’s difficult to even imagine alternatives.
What about the whole concept of private property? Is this a manifestation of fundamental human psychology? Doesn’t the concept of “mine” exist in every single human society?
"In my world, fundamentally everything that happens arises from natural causes."
This inevitably emerges from a certain decision in defining 'nature'. As such, I tend to find statements like this aren't actually doing any work.
"Doesn’t the concept of “mine” exist in every single human society?"
Honestly, I'm not certain... But the concept of a private sphere (in which private property might serve a role) is separate from the concept of a commons. It is when private property is mounted on the framework of resources that it becomes possible to 'own everything' and there are no commons. That's what's at task.
As Matt suggested, land ownership is one of the key questions here, and the issue of land usage is the environmental issue which we are rarely permitted to discuss.
“fundamentally everything that happens arises from natural causes”
Yes, as it stands this statement doesn’t do any work. Everything that happens is either natural or supernatural, and for practical reasons I have banned the supernatural from my world.
Your reply goes on to say:
“it is when private property is mounted on the framework of resources that it becomes possible to own everything and there is no commons.”
I have several problems with this statement. The first is that I’m not sure what it really means. The second is that, given what I make of it, I don’t think it presents a useful view, at least not for me.
I have several personal objectives in pursuing our dialogue. One of these is to improve the veracity of my own models of social reality entities by attempting to understand other, different views. Another is to try to find ways to sidestep what I think might be a disastrous future for humankind. The following remarks attempt to address my first objective.
In this post you introduced the notion of the commons with a description of an idyllic village by the sea, a river, and a forest. You did not cite any time or place where such a village might have existed. But if we back off from your idyllic picture, we can find evidence of human societies in which what we can now call a commons was at the heart of life, and the concept of resources did not exist.
In 1950 there were still groups of people in the Kalahari Desert in southwest Africa living in the same way that they had lived for tens of thousands of years. For a short time in the mid-50s these people, the San, offered anthropologist a rare opportunity to examine the beginnings of human culture, and to get a glimpse of how human minds worked before we began to dominate the natural world, and before we began to create elaborate social realities.
“The Old Way”, published in 2006, is one such description of the lifeways of the San.[1] These people sustained their hunter-gatherer culture in a harsh environment by hunting game animals and foraging for a variety of plant food.
For me, the San are an example of a culture built around a commons. Each person had their own meager possessions, and each family ‘owned’ the twig and grass huts they constructed at each camp as they traveled about their desert territory searching for game and edible plants.
In both your imagined village and in my band of San hunter-gatherers I would guess that in the minds of these people there were only two sorts of places: public and private. In your village the house and small garden of each family would be private. For my hunter-gatherers the temporary family huts would be private. Everything else was public. I would guess that they did not have words for private and public. This was just the way things were, and always had been.
Within the boundaries of our current understanding our species came into existence in the East Africa Rift Valley. From there, our current understanding is that over centuries some of our earliest ancestors left the Rift Valley, and created different ways of living elsewhere, quite possibly in villages like the one you imagined.
Unlike our nearest non-human relatives, the chimpanzees, human society continually changes (many say it evolves). Every band of chimpanzees has a single, recognized leader. This leader has preeminent status but does not, in our sense, rule. In the San bands of hunter gatherers social conventions were developed, and rigorously maintained, to forestall the rise of leaders/rulers, and to keep the society functioning democratically. You seem to indicate that this would also have been the case in your imagined village.
If in various corners of the Earth, at various times, human life was organized around your imagined idyllic village, it didn’t stay that way for all that long.[2] “It is generally accepted that the transition from early agricultural settlements to larger social organizations was accompanied by increasing social inequality and a concentration of power in the hands of a few.”[3] Undoubtedly ,a concentration of power in the hands of a few was accompanied by the conversion of some commons to private ownership. Presumably, the concepts of public and private developed along with this process.
Apparently, the concept of “resources” comes much later. An early use of this word in a way that is perhaps similar to yours is cited in [4 ].
“it becomes possible to own everything and there is no commons”
Yes, if I understand you, the way you view the commons is that they have ceased to exist long ago. But I claim that we still have commons. In our First Worldwide Civilization there are two commons that are critical for human survival, the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans. Furthermore, within the 195 states that make up civilization, each has its own commons. These are not commons in your view because they are owned and managed by a state. This ownership arrangement is one that is usually used in the way our society is currently organized. In the US most beaches, lakes, and rivers are commons. A significant portion of the land is still owned by the US government, including more than 60 national parks. While these common areas are owned by the national government they are considered by almost all citizens to be national treasures, and are cared for as such. Yes, there is social/political contention about this arrangement, but the majority of US citizens think of these parks as a commons.
Whew! I didn’t mean to write such a lengthy reply. Your comments on the difference between the commons and our current property arrangements seem to me to be central to your worldview. If I have not got that right, I trust you’ll straighten me out as our dialogue proceeds.
Notes
[1] The Old Way, Elizabeth Thomas, 2006.
[2] In response to:
“At some point groups of hunter-gatherers created permanent agricultural settlements. In a previous reply you indicated that at least in San culture hunter gatherer groups may have been relatively egalitarian and democratic. Was this also true of early agricultural settlements?”
ChatGPT (citing several anthropological references) wrote: There is evidence to suggest that some early agricultural societies were relatively egalitarian, while others were more hierarchical. (4/2/23)
[3] This quote is part of ChatGPT’s response to: “Is it fair to say that as early agriculture settlements were absorbed into larger social organizations that then became decidedly less egalitarian and democratic? Give references.” (4/2/23)
[4] In response to:
“When and how does the concept of ‘resource’ appear? Give references.”
and:
“Does the word ‘resource’ appear in: Simon, H. A. (1957). Models of man; social and rational. Wiley.?”
ChatGPT replied:
Yes, the word "resource" does appear [in this reference] (4/2/23)
Thanks for digging into this question of the commons so diligently. I found your remarks illuminating, both in terms of what you present and also in terms of what it reveals in contrast i.e. what is hidden in the shadows. Let me start from the back and work forwards...
"Your comments on the difference between the commons and our current property arrangements seem to me to be central to your worldview. If I have not got that right, I trust you’ll straighten me out as our dialogue proceeds."
I'm uncertain about this. Certainly, I view this question of restoring and establishing new commons to represent a whole set of major political paths forward that are under-considered and worthy of more careful contemplation.
I don't think they are central to my worldview, though... my expectation is that it is going to be difficult to get anyone to understand the commons - and this is a reasonable assumption given that (a) Illich wrote extensively on the commons, and had far more influence than I do, and yet he STILL didn't get this discussion point into clear view (even among scholars of Illich!) and (b) the world of resources AKA the world of economics is so baked into the technocratic worlds that unseating it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
My interest in the commons is that there is an incredibly powerful concept of co-operation here that to me offers a much more vital contrast of political philosophy than the tired and near-irrelevant contrast between capitalism and communism i.e. between whether a private plutocracy owns all the resources or whether kleptocratic states own all the resources. Both these routes seem like disasters to me, and as such the contrast between commons and resources seems a much more fruitful distinction to explore. There could be all manner of unseen pathways here worth exploring.
But exploration is my point here. I am not tied to any path forward from where we are... I think at this point in our species' existence it would be foolish to be tied to a single path. Right now, there are no viable routes forward, so we ought to explore all our options. Restoring and expanding the commons is one such option, but it might primarily be an option for those nations that are not already 'developed', and thus still have interesting political choices they can make.
I do, however, feel passionately that we should only consider 'philanthropy' any action that restores or expands the commons. Everything else is what I am calling in this current phase of Stranger Worlds "imperial technocracy" (I expect we will have moved on from this term before the end of the year, but let's see how it goes). I wrote a piece on "Restoring the Commons" back in February 2022, but I'm reluctant to link to it as I feel I am already saddling you with too much to read! But here it is, without expectation or obligation:
I think it is most fascinating that you cannot quite wrap your head around this concept of the commons - because you are extremely knowledgeable, and therefore this concept must be challenging for ANYONE to grasp. This is something I am learning from our discussion that I think is extremely important for me to wrestle with...
On the one hand, you want to say the state of the commons "didn’t stay that way for all that long", based on the sudden onset of agriculture. This definitely looks wrong to me on two counts. Firstly, the first humans appear around 300,000 years ago and civilisation isn't much more than 10,000 years old, so there's a long, long window there of potential life with commons. But of course, it's the part where we don't have much of a window! More importantly, the death of the commons doesn't really begin until the enclosure of the common lands from the 15th century onwards in Europe. So that's another 3500 years since cities where the commons persisted. From a US perspective, the Native Americans lived with commons right up until the point the Europeans 'colonised' them (I do think 'colonised' is almost necessarily a euphemism).
On the other hand, you want to assert that there are still commons around today - e.g national parks. Well I agree that there are commons around today, although I don't think there are any in the United States of America. India still has commons, and most African nations still have commons. If there are still commons in Europe, I haven't found them yet.
Why are national parks not commons? While I support protected lands, you cannot subsist from or dwell in a national park, these serve a different purpose (largely in the US, deluding citizens into believing that they have protected their 'environment', but this is another sideline). What makes land into a commons is that you can be a commoner there i.e. you can subsist. This is expressly forbidden in a national park. Again, the link above might bring this into clearer relief.
However, I will accede that protected lands *are* commons in the broader sense, even if they are not commons in the narrower sense, and I would certainly not want to give up protected lands at this point! Thus I do also think any wealthy elite who expanded protected lands would be conducting actual philanthropy.
Please remember that it was not until roughly the 19th century that it was possible to carve up the surface of our planet like it was a jigsaw, with each country fitting into its neighbours. Yes, there were 'border' skirmishes long before this point - but in point of fact, no territory was well defined before this point, because the cartographic techniques for such a carving up of land were impossible. There were centres of power, not edges. In this regard, Bendict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" is brilliant - although he is wrong to attribute all these changes to 'print capitalism', as the appearance of the page in the twelfth century is an important precursor to the changes brought on by moveable type - although this is another tangent, and a huge one at that!
Finally, it is true that the concept of a 'resource' is of comparatively recent invention. In fact, I think here we brush up against Heidegger's critique of technology, and I shall be hoping to do something on this in the future as it remains as salient as it ever was. The twentieth century is the time at which 'resource' becomes key, although the conceptual roots lie earlier, of course, in the era of colonialism. I expect we will end up somewhere adjacent to this at a future point.
I fear that a world governing body that wasn't powerful would be controlled by national and corporate powers that were. Actually, I think we are already living this! 🙂 However, there may be ways of construing and managing commons (including land) that would be suitable for a post-resource planet - always assuming this path could be opened. Since as our earlier discussion made clear, currently it is entirely closed.
Also, I hope that nothing is out of the scope of Stranger Worlds, but some tangents might take us far from the focus of the individual pieces. It may be helpful (but is certainly not required) to try and stay within the orbit of the individual themes, if only for clarity of focus.
I'm not quite positing a world government, merely that a world government would be in place to apply a consistent set of rules about loaning out land to people. Perhaps a structure along the lines of the United Nations could do this — although I've no evidence these structures can do anything useful in the face of the compromises that seem to be required to consistute them in the first place.
Aye, it seems the United Nations could not avoid being a 'Old Boy's Club' where the powerful nations could bully the rest around. Was this better or worse than what came before the League of Nations...? It reduced overt war, I suppose. But it may have just transposed the conflicts into other dimensions. 🙁
Without seeing the counter factual it's very hard to get purchase on this, isn't it? The UN clearly hasn't stopped conflict, but has it helped to contain the intensity of such conflicts — maybe there is an argument for that. Would I trust the UN to resolve, say, water conflicts? Nope.
Chris, I would find it helpful if you would provide a little more information about other entities in social reality [1] that are closely related to the concept you present here. You mentioned Ivan Illich. Where might I find comments of Ivan’s that are pertinent to your reference?
Lacking any guidance from you, I googled “Ivan Illich commons” and read his 1982 “The ‘commons’” piece at https://www.panarchy.org/illich/commons.html .
In this piece Ivan tells his story without any references to evidence. But I think it is safe to take the general societal change from ‘common’ to ‘resource’ as historical fact.
Apparently, Ivan ascribes this change to the avarice of evil individuals (the “lords”). Undoubtedly, in many specific instances the change was facilitated by aggressive, self-serving individuals, but it seems to me that more fundamental economic and social forces were at work. Despite Ivan’s rosy view of a common based society, I guess that I would prefer living in our present resource based society, even with all of its short comings and inequities. These problems, I think, can be effective addressed within a resource paradigm.
I’m having trouble following your thoughts. I think I understand (and agree) that ‘defund the police’ is, in it’s extreme, ridiculous, but paradoxical? For me, your imaginary world of commons needs clarification. You say it is a village. For me that conjures up a place of a few hundred to a few thousand people; smaller would be a hamlet, larger would be a town. Given the invariants of how human brains operate, even a village of a few hundred would have a variety of ongoing social problems that would need to be addressed. Presumably in a small village such problems could be addressed as they arose by a voluntary village council. But a village of a few thousand would probably find it advantageous to create some sort of recognized office of public safety, i.e., some sort of police.
Another problem I have with Ivan’s vision of a commons based society is that at scale they have not happened. Some hunter-gatherer bands took all of their substances from ‘the commons,’ [2] but once year-round, settled agriculture took hold my impression is that social hierarchies formed, and with them private ownership and ‘police.’
In your closing, I’m not sure what you mean by “The New Normal.” In response to “What is meant by the current phrase ‘the new normal'?” ChatGPT replied (among other things) that “Ultimately, the ‘new normal’ refers to a shift in the way things are done, which has become the expected and accepted standard.” Certainly, human rights agreements are under attack around the world. In a human society of any significant size, to be operable ‘rights’ must be encoded in laws. The police, are by definition, an agency charged with enforcing laws. So, aren’t police necessary to ensure the continuation of this common?
Are human rights in fact being eroded? In the democracies I’m not sure there is a clear-cut answer. In a democracy there will always be contention over what is a ‘right’, and what us not. Operationally, when push comes to shove, in a democracy this is decided by majority vote. There is constant disagreement and back and forth changes. As long as civility, empathy, and compromise prevail, I think that this is the best that humans can manage.
Notes
[1] For me, Stranger Worlds is a social reality entity. “The Police and Commons” is a sub-entity.
[2] The Old Way, Elizabeth Thomas, 2007.
Thanks for your notes here, Frank.
I would not expect anyone to pick up Illich's perspective quickly or from any single essay, although it is certainly not rose-tinted... it is the most damning critique of the last two millennia I've encountered. But it is hard for people to wrap their heads around it... even scholars of Illich, it seems to me, frequently misunderstand him.
If I had to suggest an entry point into his thought it would probably be Tools for Conviviality, although his historical interest in the commons comes later. In general, my suspicion is that you are not in a place (i.e. a world) from which you can read Illich, and that this is a description that applies to most people today, regardless of how well read they might be. Illich writes from another world... and as I say in this piece, it is an alien world.
Regardless, I don't doubt that you are correct that you would prefer to remain inside the world of resources... I think this is true of a great many people. And then there are those who would not wish to remain inside this world, but have no choice because globally, it is the occupying power. As such, it really doesn't matter what people want in this regard. However, I think it is helpful to try and see through and around that world, because the problems we are encountering are - or so I claim - tied to that world, and sometime in the next millennia we are going to need to consider either a new game, or a new way of playing that one.
Anyway, I don't think Illich was arguing from the point of view of reverting to subsistence at all... his position, as a well-travelled individual in the mid-twentieth century with a sense of the way that technocracy was encroaching on and eradicating all other ways of being, was that those who had not already succumbed to it did not have a good reason to do so (the opposite of the doctrine of 'development' in fact). In this regard, it may already be too late as I feel these last outposts of the commons have fallen - although I look to the legal news from India and sometimes think "there is still hope"...
Personally, I find it helpful to understand the conditions of these earlier worlds to help navigate out of the crisis we have made for ourselves. Your mileage, as ever, may vary.
Lastly, 'the New Normal' a common phrase that nonetheless I'm quite sure ChatGPT is neither willing nor permitted to discuss, this being a shibboleth for a certain kind of resistance today - specifically opposition to what I am calling here 'imperial technocracy'. The international evocation of the phrase 'the New Normal' in media across the planet in the last couple of years is a striking symbol of a problem that still remains invisible for a great many people.
As for whether human rights are being eroded - we are now quite beyond that stage, alas, they are gone except as a kind of phantasmal echo, a sort of a performative game, rather like Morris dancing in the UK which is still performed but has none of its pagan meaning. You perhaps blur the meaning of human rights in your notes... Human rights were international agreements made in the first ten years after World War II, while the colloquial discussion of 'rights' is mostly idle chatter. It is here in people's fevered rambling about 'their rights' that there is contention, but it is largely a pointless argument as we are far beyond upholding rights at this point. However this statement of yours:
"Operationally, when push comes to shove, in a democracy this is decided by majority vote."
...is now demonstrably false, and I find the invocation of the majority vote concept highly problematic under the conditions that currently attain. The very purpose of the human rights agreements was to provide a limit for what could be agreed by majority vote. The moment this was violated and exceeded, we gave up democracy and accepted imperial technocracy. When governments decided to collude with information platforms (social media, wikis, search engines) to censor 'disinformation' (defined as anything opposed to the government's chosen views) we passed beyond the ideals of democracy you refer to. I truly wish this were not so.
However, I greatly respect your wish that "civility, empathy, and compromise prevail". These are indeed key to the spirit of democracy. If only we could find any of these now.
Stranger Worlds, The Police and Commons, Response to Feb 15 comment
Hi Chris. As always thanks for your response. I hope you don’t mind if I reply bit-by-bit. Given the way my daily life is presently structured it is difficult for me to do anything else. If you like, you can hold off responding until I’ve posted the last bit. (Or not at all, of course.)
The Illich piece you cite is available on the web. Despite your warnings, I’ll take a look. At a minimum perhaps I’ll get some insight into your world.
PS Since you don’t do Facebook, you might be interested in my most recent post:
Found: A Dialogue Partner
For the last two years I’ve been searching for a place on the web where I could join a dialogue on fundamental questions. [1] Following a suggestion by Pat Monday [Montana Tech colleague] it appears that I have found such a place.
When I asked Pat for names of current real philosophers (as opposed to academics just teaching and commenting) he mentioned that one such was David Chalmers. It turns out that Chalmers has an extensive personal website (conse.net) that has a lengthy list of links. One of these links, under the heading of “Non-philosophers with Philosophy Related Weblogs” was Chris Bateman. Mr. Bateman, it turns out, is an old-time game designer (Discworld Nour – 1999) who is presently associated with the game consulting entity “International Hobo Ltd.” He is also a prolific writer of books and blog entries. From Chalmers link (“Only a Game”) I found his latest blog: “Stranger Worlds And How to Live In Them” at strangerworlds.substack.com.
Chris posts a piece there once a week and requested comments. I recently coughed up $5 for the opportunity to comment. I have since been engaged in several non-trivial exchanges with Chris.
Substack posts are open to all for reading. Currently I’ve posted under “The Axe and the Tree” and “The Police and Commons.” I expect to be making more FB posts about my on-going discussions with Mr. Bateman.
Notes
[1] Stuff happens. Currently, there is no evidence for why our universe suddenly came into existence 13.8 billion years ago (what our currently accepted models say). But apparently human minds are so structured that most of us believe that there is a cause for anything that happens. [2] For me, then, fundamental questions are about the causes and possible futures of situations or conditions that matter. For example: Over the next half-century, can the United States, in the light of its current social, economic, and political situation, survive as a democracy?
[2] Emanual Kant (1781 – Critique of Pure Reason) proposed that the models human construct about what’s out there are influenced by how our brains work as well as by what we can observe.
Thank you so much for this Frank! Much appreciated. A small technical point: I do have a PhD and so am technically 'Dr Bateman', although I prefer 'Chris'. 🙂 Likewise, Kant's first name is Immanuel, not Emanual. Apologies for nitpickery - it's a habit I cannot break!
Reply at your own pace to any and all comments, piecemeal is more than acceptible - I appreciate anyone and everyone who can sustain a convivial discourse, and since I have poor impulse control when it comes to conversations (a secondary factor in my avoiding Facebook...) I appreciate a slower rate of reply as it allows me to pace myself better.
However, also bear in mind that many of the topics we open in one post will be revisited in other forms further down the line. As such, while I welcome any continuation of our discussions, the opportunity to return to the points raised will likely be in play for some time. There is therefore no explicit need to respond to every point, and I would encourage you to leave some ground fallow in order that we plant on it later.
Many thanks for continuing our conversations!
Appreciate corrections. Especially for Kant! Where was your PhD? Carnegie Mellon? I think one of your papers (dissertation?) was there. But apparently not anymore. My PhD was at Chapel Hill with Fred Brooks
Yes, I figured topics would come up again. If you don’t mind, I’ll continue to comment freely as I work through each piece. However, feel free to answer with a forward reference. That way I’ll can keep track of my concerns as they come up, and you can put them off for later. For my part I’ll try to keep my comments focused on your points.
When I first entered Stranger Worlds I read your welcome post but then went directly to “Trust No One”. I just now read the four posts I skipped. I now have a better idea of where you’re coming from. My writing is also motivated by a heavy concern that our civilization is in deep trouble from a slew of crisis of its own making. We’re coming from our conclusions from different perspectives, so I for one expect to learn a lot from our conversation.
I’m finding Illich’s assertions about what is the case in various enterprises to be short on evidence. But when I view this piece as proposing a philosophical framework for analyzing a society, and making policy proposals, it starts to look interesting.
Tools for Conviviality [1] (last few paragraphs of Introduction):
-------
“I here submit the concept of a multidimensional balance of human life which can serve as a framework for evaluating man’s relation to his tools.
“In each of several dimensions of this balance it is possible to identify a natural scale.
“When an enterprise grows beyond a certain point on this scale, it first frustrates the end for which it was originally designed, and then rapidly becomes a threat to society itself.
“These scales must be identified and the parameters of human endeavors within which human life remains viable must be explored.
“Once these limits are recognized, it becomes possible to articulate the triadic relationship between persons, tools, and a new collectivity.
“I have chosen “convivial” as a technical term to designate a modern society of responsibly limited tools.”
------
I’ll be examining the rest of this piece from the perspective specified in the above quotes:
.- Are the dimensions of a proposed “multidimensional balance of human life” clearly described?
.- Do these dimensions serve as an adequate “framework for evaluating man’s relation to his tools”?
.- Is a “natural scale” defined for each of these dimensions?
.- Does he consider how various enterprises preform along his specified dimensions?
.- Does he really show that once an enterprise grows beyond a certain point on his scale it first negates its benefits, and then becomes a “threat to society itself.”?
.- Is it reasonable to claim that the parameters of these dimensions define the space in “which human life remains viable.”?
.- Will he propose realistic remedies?
Notes
[1] https://www.convivial.tools/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Illich_Tools_for_Conviviality.pdf
This question of the commons and of the ownership of land has often wrankled with me although I do not have a sophisticated enough understanding of the issues to argue them. In the world of the commons were there no resources? I mean is my hut part of the commons? Or mine? How do I defend my hut? Is our village part of the commons so that someone from outside our village can also freely/fairly (for whatever value of fair we choose) use it? Or does our village turn into "police" when they feel you are treated their resources as your commons? It seems to me there is no easy divide here.
Matt, I think that perhaps you are confusing ‘resource’ with property. As nearly as I can tell from first hand accounts by modern observers, in Neolithic villages there were two type of ownership, private and communal. A family hut was private; cultivated land was communal. The entities in each category were defined by local culture. No one in the culture was the least bit confused about the distinction.
Outside of one’s own village there might be other villages that were considered ‘kin’ and other that were considered ‘other.’ Others were seen as potential rivals.
Am I? Could be, I'm not sure — for the purposes of what I was writing I think I was talking about property as a resource although clearly trees-as-wood become a resource too. At this point I am not sure what point I was trying to clarify and, helpfully, substack only shows your comment and not my comments. Anyway, thanks for trying to clarify.
Hi Matt,
I didn’t mean to put you down. I’m also finding Illich’s terminology confusing. Certainly a common physical entity like a pasture is a resource for the community. But according to Chris “commons” refers to non-physical entities as well.
That's okay, I didn't take it as such — I just wasn't sure if I agreed with you :)
Hey Frank:
A small clarification: my suggestion that human rights created a commons should be read poetically, and is not grounded in Illich's thought as such.
Is silence non-physical...? Illich specifically writes about silence as a commons, but you might consider this to be physical, depending on how you think about such things. The point being that the appearance of the loudspeaker removed the capacity to be silent from large spaces of the world, and Illich sees this as the appropriation of another commons.
PS: In response to a question elsewhere in these comments: I am a British citizen, my university educations were at British institutions, primarily University of Manchester. However, my wife and kids are dual citizens, and I will be living in the US again from the Spring this year. It is my fifth international move.
Well this is a historic moment - the first time we have had discussions between Fellow Travellers. It seems we are coming along in the world! 🙂
We backproject our understanding of 'resources' onto earlier worlds, because we are now so wed to this conception we cannot escape it. This was what I was foreshadowing in last week's "The Axe and the Tree" in fact.
As Frank says, the commons in traditional societies is distinct from the private space of the family. There are also other private spaces based on other kinds of affiliations. The commons was that which was beyond ownership. However, the kind of world in which the commons make sense is opposed to that in which everything (including people) can be resources - this is precisely what I am trying to highlight in these two pieces (this week's and last week's).
I think what I was trying to get at was the notion of who decides what is "the commons", and how do you resolve disputes about that?
Everything starts out as a commons, although dwelling creates a private space apart from it. However, once you live in the world of resources it's difficult to get back into the mindset of the many worlds of subsistence and the commons - I describe it not unfairly as an "alien world" in this piece. What's more, you can't just go back to it - we dependents of technology can't go back to that world, but we could learn from it and find other ways of moving forward.
The question of disputes is an interesting one - it is thinking in terms of resources and ownership that amplifies the possibility of disputes. Unlike Frank, my impression is not that village communities viewed other villages as rivals per se - the latest anthropology regarding, for instance, Native Americans, doesn't show this. Skirmishes with neighbours may have been as more akin to sport than war in some respects. The commons was large enough at the time to negate this need to resolve disputes, although they did occur and appear to have been resolved through 'moots', which is to say, town hall debates where everyone had a voice.
Of course, once people 'own land' and 'own resources', suddenly there are disputes and frameworks to profit from them - which is why the world of resources is the world of police. Hope this is clarifying rather than obfuscating! 🙂
Just a point of information. I spent a couple of days in the Auckland Museum. A lot of space is devoted to Neolithic peoples in New Guinea and New Zealand. Lots of serious warcraft stuff. Losers were taken as slaves. In Neolithic times the amount on inter village conflict might have depend on the relative amount of space. Lots of it in North America. Not so much on a South Pacific Island.
Now I think about it we can replace the commons/resources labelling with abundance/scarcity. It seems to me that while something is relatively abundant, and each can take what they desire, we can treat it as a "commons". However, once something becomes relatively scarce with respect to the needs or desires of the relevant community (at whatever level of scale we want to consider) that the notion of conflict & police emerges representing the relative power of factions that want to consume. An additional dimension being the desire of some to create synthetic scarcity to drive the negative part of this equation.
Indeed the very concept of ownership of land seems strange to me. Although I will concede that I would like to "own" some even as I feel a certain resentment towards those whose seem, often via historical accident, to own quite vast amounts of it. It seems to me that all land should be on loan... although I have no idea who it should be loaned out by. Or how we decide the terms of those loand. Perhaps a world government might make this easier.
The concept of land ownership ought to feel strange - it is bizarre. Although my medieval history is not quite rich enough to affirm this, but I suspect land ownership in Europe is the origin of the world of resources in many respects. I like the idea of 'borrowing' land! I'll ponder this... anything to create reciprocal relations over land might be helpful. I don't think a global government would help, though, since the larger a government, the more dangerous it becomes. If we cannot trust our own national governments, how much less could we trust a world government...?
Bizarre? In my world, fundamentally everything that happens arises from natural causes. Ownership of land was created by human minds, which are the result of natural evolution. The question is, given where humanity is at present, does this arrangement serve? And even if the answer is that it should be modified, like a lot of stuff, the concept is so woven into the whole fabric of our civilization that it’s difficult to even imagine alternatives.
What about the whole concept of private property? Is this a manifestation of fundamental human psychology? Doesn’t the concept of “mine” exist in every single human society?
"In my world, fundamentally everything that happens arises from natural causes."
This inevitably emerges from a certain decision in defining 'nature'. As such, I tend to find statements like this aren't actually doing any work.
"Doesn’t the concept of “mine” exist in every single human society?"
Honestly, I'm not certain... But the concept of a private sphere (in which private property might serve a role) is separate from the concept of a commons. It is when private property is mounted on the framework of resources that it becomes possible to 'own everything' and there are no commons. That's what's at task.
As Matt suggested, land ownership is one of the key questions here, and the issue of land usage is the environmental issue which we are rarely permitted to discuss.
Hi Chris
“fundamentally everything that happens arises from natural causes”
Yes, as it stands this statement doesn’t do any work. Everything that happens is either natural or supernatural, and for practical reasons I have banned the supernatural from my world.
Your reply goes on to say:
“it is when private property is mounted on the framework of resources that it becomes possible to own everything and there is no commons.”
I have several problems with this statement. The first is that I’m not sure what it really means. The second is that, given what I make of it, I don’t think it presents a useful view, at least not for me.
I have several personal objectives in pursuing our dialogue. One of these is to improve the veracity of my own models of social reality entities by attempting to understand other, different views. Another is to try to find ways to sidestep what I think might be a disastrous future for humankind. The following remarks attempt to address my first objective.
In this post you introduced the notion of the commons with a description of an idyllic village by the sea, a river, and a forest. You did not cite any time or place where such a village might have existed. But if we back off from your idyllic picture, we can find evidence of human societies in which what we can now call a commons was at the heart of life, and the concept of resources did not exist.
In 1950 there were still groups of people in the Kalahari Desert in southwest Africa living in the same way that they had lived for tens of thousands of years. For a short time in the mid-50s these people, the San, offered anthropologist a rare opportunity to examine the beginnings of human culture, and to get a glimpse of how human minds worked before we began to dominate the natural world, and before we began to create elaborate social realities.
“The Old Way”, published in 2006, is one such description of the lifeways of the San.[1] These people sustained their hunter-gatherer culture in a harsh environment by hunting game animals and foraging for a variety of plant food.
For me, the San are an example of a culture built around a commons. Each person had their own meager possessions, and each family ‘owned’ the twig and grass huts they constructed at each camp as they traveled about their desert territory searching for game and edible plants.
In both your imagined village and in my band of San hunter-gatherers I would guess that in the minds of these people there were only two sorts of places: public and private. In your village the house and small garden of each family would be private. For my hunter-gatherers the temporary family huts would be private. Everything else was public. I would guess that they did not have words for private and public. This was just the way things were, and always had been.
Within the boundaries of our current understanding our species came into existence in the East Africa Rift Valley. From there, our current understanding is that over centuries some of our earliest ancestors left the Rift Valley, and created different ways of living elsewhere, quite possibly in villages like the one you imagined.
Unlike our nearest non-human relatives, the chimpanzees, human society continually changes (many say it evolves). Every band of chimpanzees has a single, recognized leader. This leader has preeminent status but does not, in our sense, rule. In the San bands of hunter gatherers social conventions were developed, and rigorously maintained, to forestall the rise of leaders/rulers, and to keep the society functioning democratically. You seem to indicate that this would also have been the case in your imagined village.
If in various corners of the Earth, at various times, human life was organized around your imagined idyllic village, it didn’t stay that way for all that long.[2] “It is generally accepted that the transition from early agricultural settlements to larger social organizations was accompanied by increasing social inequality and a concentration of power in the hands of a few.”[3] Undoubtedly ,a concentration of power in the hands of a few was accompanied by the conversion of some commons to private ownership. Presumably, the concepts of public and private developed along with this process.
Apparently, the concept of “resources” comes much later. An early use of this word in a way that is perhaps similar to yours is cited in [4 ].
“it becomes possible to own everything and there is no commons”
Yes, if I understand you, the way you view the commons is that they have ceased to exist long ago. But I claim that we still have commons. In our First Worldwide Civilization there are two commons that are critical for human survival, the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans. Furthermore, within the 195 states that make up civilization, each has its own commons. These are not commons in your view because they are owned and managed by a state. This ownership arrangement is one that is usually used in the way our society is currently organized. In the US most beaches, lakes, and rivers are commons. A significant portion of the land is still owned by the US government, including more than 60 national parks. While these common areas are owned by the national government they are considered by almost all citizens to be national treasures, and are cared for as such. Yes, there is social/political contention about this arrangement, but the majority of US citizens think of these parks as a commons.
Whew! I didn’t mean to write such a lengthy reply. Your comments on the difference between the commons and our current property arrangements seem to me to be central to your worldview. If I have not got that right, I trust you’ll straighten me out as our dialogue proceeds.
Notes
[1] The Old Way, Elizabeth Thomas, 2006.
[2] In response to:
“At some point groups of hunter-gatherers created permanent agricultural settlements. In a previous reply you indicated that at least in San culture hunter gatherer groups may have been relatively egalitarian and democratic. Was this also true of early agricultural settlements?”
ChatGPT (citing several anthropological references) wrote: There is evidence to suggest that some early agricultural societies were relatively egalitarian, while others were more hierarchical. (4/2/23)
[3] This quote is part of ChatGPT’s response to: “Is it fair to say that as early agriculture settlements were absorbed into larger social organizations that then became decidedly less egalitarian and democratic? Give references.” (4/2/23)
[4] In response to:
“When and how does the concept of ‘resource’ appear? Give references.”
and:
“Does the word ‘resource’ appear in: Simon, H. A. (1957). Models of man; social and rational. Wiley.?”
ChatGPT replied:
Yes, the word "resource" does appear [in this reference] (4/2/23)
Hi Frank,
Thanks for digging into this question of the commons so diligently. I found your remarks illuminating, both in terms of what you present and also in terms of what it reveals in contrast i.e. what is hidden in the shadows. Let me start from the back and work forwards...
"Your comments on the difference between the commons and our current property arrangements seem to me to be central to your worldview. If I have not got that right, I trust you’ll straighten me out as our dialogue proceeds."
I'm uncertain about this. Certainly, I view this question of restoring and establishing new commons to represent a whole set of major political paths forward that are under-considered and worthy of more careful contemplation.
I don't think they are central to my worldview, though... my expectation is that it is going to be difficult to get anyone to understand the commons - and this is a reasonable assumption given that (a) Illich wrote extensively on the commons, and had far more influence than I do, and yet he STILL didn't get this discussion point into clear view (even among scholars of Illich!) and (b) the world of resources AKA the world of economics is so baked into the technocratic worlds that unseating it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
My interest in the commons is that there is an incredibly powerful concept of co-operation here that to me offers a much more vital contrast of political philosophy than the tired and near-irrelevant contrast between capitalism and communism i.e. between whether a private plutocracy owns all the resources or whether kleptocratic states own all the resources. Both these routes seem like disasters to me, and as such the contrast between commons and resources seems a much more fruitful distinction to explore. There could be all manner of unseen pathways here worth exploring.
But exploration is my point here. I am not tied to any path forward from where we are... I think at this point in our species' existence it would be foolish to be tied to a single path. Right now, there are no viable routes forward, so we ought to explore all our options. Restoring and expanding the commons is one such option, but it might primarily be an option for those nations that are not already 'developed', and thus still have interesting political choices they can make.
I do, however, feel passionately that we should only consider 'philanthropy' any action that restores or expands the commons. Everything else is what I am calling in this current phase of Stranger Worlds "imperial technocracy" (I expect we will have moved on from this term before the end of the year, but let's see how it goes). I wrote a piece on "Restoring the Commons" back in February 2022, but I'm reluctant to link to it as I feel I am already saddling you with too much to read! But here it is, without expectation or obligation:
https://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2022/02/restoring-the-commons.html
I think it is most fascinating that you cannot quite wrap your head around this concept of the commons - because you are extremely knowledgeable, and therefore this concept must be challenging for ANYONE to grasp. This is something I am learning from our discussion that I think is extremely important for me to wrestle with...
On the one hand, you want to say the state of the commons "didn’t stay that way for all that long", based on the sudden onset of agriculture. This definitely looks wrong to me on two counts. Firstly, the first humans appear around 300,000 years ago and civilisation isn't much more than 10,000 years old, so there's a long, long window there of potential life with commons. But of course, it's the part where we don't have much of a window! More importantly, the death of the commons doesn't really begin until the enclosure of the common lands from the 15th century onwards in Europe. So that's another 3500 years since cities where the commons persisted. From a US perspective, the Native Americans lived with commons right up until the point the Europeans 'colonised' them (I do think 'colonised' is almost necessarily a euphemism).
On the other hand, you want to assert that there are still commons around today - e.g national parks. Well I agree that there are commons around today, although I don't think there are any in the United States of America. India still has commons, and most African nations still have commons. If there are still commons in Europe, I haven't found them yet.
Why are national parks not commons? While I support protected lands, you cannot subsist from or dwell in a national park, these serve a different purpose (largely in the US, deluding citizens into believing that they have protected their 'environment', but this is another sideline). What makes land into a commons is that you can be a commoner there i.e. you can subsist. This is expressly forbidden in a national park. Again, the link above might bring this into clearer relief.
However, I will accede that protected lands *are* commons in the broader sense, even if they are not commons in the narrower sense, and I would certainly not want to give up protected lands at this point! Thus I do also think any wealthy elite who expanded protected lands would be conducting actual philanthropy.
Please remember that it was not until roughly the 19th century that it was possible to carve up the surface of our planet like it was a jigsaw, with each country fitting into its neighbours. Yes, there were 'border' skirmishes long before this point - but in point of fact, no territory was well defined before this point, because the cartographic techniques for such a carving up of land were impossible. There were centres of power, not edges. In this regard, Bendict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" is brilliant - although he is wrong to attribute all these changes to 'print capitalism', as the appearance of the page in the twelfth century is an important precursor to the changes brought on by moveable type - although this is another tangent, and a huge one at that!
Finally, it is true that the concept of a 'resource' is of comparatively recent invention. In fact, I think here we brush up against Heidegger's critique of technology, and I shall be hoping to do something on this in the future as it remains as salient as it ever was. The twentieth century is the time at which 'resource' becomes key, although the conceptual roots lie earlier, of course, in the era of colonialism. I expect we will end up somewhere adjacent to this at a future point.
I hope some of these remarks are helpful!
Chris.
A world government body need not be particularly powerful. This whole question might be out of the scope of Stranger Worlds.
I fear that a world governing body that wasn't powerful would be controlled by national and corporate powers that were. Actually, I think we are already living this! 🙂 However, there may be ways of construing and managing commons (including land) that would be suitable for a post-resource planet - always assuming this path could be opened. Since as our earlier discussion made clear, currently it is entirely closed.
Also, I hope that nothing is out of the scope of Stranger Worlds, but some tangents might take us far from the focus of the individual pieces. It may be helpful (but is certainly not required) to try and stay within the orbit of the individual themes, if only for clarity of focus.
I'm not quite positing a world government, merely that a world government would be in place to apply a consistent set of rules about loaning out land to people. Perhaps a structure along the lines of the United Nations could do this — although I've no evidence these structures can do anything useful in the face of the compromises that seem to be required to consistute them in the first place.
Aye, it seems the United Nations could not avoid being a 'Old Boy's Club' where the powerful nations could bully the rest around. Was this better or worse than what came before the League of Nations...? It reduced overt war, I suppose. But it may have just transposed the conflicts into other dimensions. 🙁
Without seeing the counter factual it's very hard to get purchase on this, isn't it? The UN clearly hasn't stopped conflict, but has it helped to contain the intensity of such conflicts — maybe there is an argument for that. Would I trust the UN to resolve, say, water conflicts? Nope.