This Land is Our Land

A

documentary film

David Bollier on the commons. What is it and why does it matter?

• Polio. Vaccine not patented. Jonas Salk.
• Contrast with HIV/AIDS. 20,000 a month dying in South Africa. Because they couldn't afford the patented drugs. South Africa made a generic version. Drug industry called it piracy. They won. Patents caused many to die.
• We need to bring back the commons.
• We have an inate ability to cooperative. Res publica and res communes. Magna Carta. and the Charter of the Forest.
• The commons were in many ways a social safety net.
• The Constitution of the United States had bits based on the Magna Carta.
• Benjamin Franklin didn't patent things. And he liked to reuse that which had gone before…
• Thatcher, Reagan, brought out neoliberal capitalism in to the mainstream.
• The 80s and 90s were awash with privatisation.
  • "Resulting in a shift of more than trillion dollars of state-owned enterprises to private interests." (dunno if that's worldwide or US)
• enclosure of the commons.
  • Studied by Karl Polanyi. "A revolution of the rich against the poor"
• Branded bottled water.
  • The market feeds off the commons.
• Enclosure of broadcast airwaves. (valued today at roughly $0.5 trillion)
• It used to be: if you take from the commons, you should give back to the commons.
• Reagon and Clinton deregulated the airwaves.
• Enclosure of the internet.
• Girl scouts sued for singing puff the magic dragon.
• Woody Guthrie didn't believe in copyright. This machine kills fascists.
• Hardin was never describing a commons. He was describing a free-for-all. Commons have rules.
• World Social Forum.
• Reclaming the commons.