Not Communism, Not Capitalism
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A federal judge has ruled that Google’s ambitious attempt to digitize all books, including those for which the copyright holders cannot be found, cannot go forward as planned. That’s great news. It will prevent Google from claiming a de facto monopoly over millions of “orphan works” whose copyright holders cannot be found. The company will not be able to charge exorbitant prices for access to books that ought to be free or at-cost.
Even better, the rejection of Google’s plan means that the nation’s libraries and research institutions can now entertain the idea of building their own repository of digitized books. It can be a real commons, and not a “free” proprietary platform that would come with all sorts of strings attached.
Robert Darnton, the director of the Harvard University Library, makes these points in a terrific oped piece in the NYT today. After detailing why Google’s book project deserved to be rejected, Darnton asks: Why not build a digital library better than Google’s? Let’s build “a vast collection of resources that can be tapped, free of charge, by anyone, anywhere, at any time,” he writes.
How to save local, independent bricks and mortar businesses in the face of big-box and Internet retailing? Former retailer and now consultant Cinda Baxter had a great idea in March 2009 that led her to start The 350 Project, a marketing initiative to promote consumer patronage of local businesses and give visibility to the idea of "buying local." The basic idea is that you should pick three local businesses that you would hate to see disappear, and then spend $50 a month at those and other independent local businesses. The aggregate benefits for local businesses could be impressive.
As the project’s website points out, if half of the employed population in the U.S. did that, it would generate $42.6 billion in revenue. That could be quite a boost to local bricks-and-mortar businesses at a time when Internet retailers and big-box stores are grabbing so much market share. And the local community would benefit as well: For every $100 spent on retail purchases, a national retail chain leaves behind only $43 (in payroll, taxes, etc.) while an independent local retailer returns $68 to the community.
It is rare for a political activist and a poet to cohabit the same body. Rarer still for that strange hybrid to intersect with my life and share my journey. Which is why I was so privileged to work with my friend Jonathan Rowe – and why I am going to miss him a great deal.
On Saturday morning Jon went off to the gym, as he often did, and came home not feeling well. By the evening he had a scorching fever and went to the hospital. By Sunday morning, he was gone. He was 65 and leaves behind his wife Mary Jean and young son Josh.
Jon’s sudden, unexpected death underscores something that he understood well: our fixation on the big abstractions – politics, economics, wealth – tends to blind us to the fragile and beautiful realities of human existence, whose intrinsic importance cannot be denied....must not be denied.
As someone blessed with a capacious mind and soul, Jon clearly recognized the brutal necessities of politics while honoring the immanent truths of the spiritual. He also had the clarity of mind to realize that while the two realms may never be reconciled or integrated, neither can they ever be disconnected. Jon’s life was to wrestle with this koan.
So what do digital technologies and the Internet mean for the future of work? That was the topic of last year’s Information Roundtable at the Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society Program, an annual event that brings together some heavyweight businesspeople, technologies and academics to discuss a breaking issue.
It was a fascinating discussion because so many of these issues are not probed in such depth by such diverse experts. Once again, I was the rapporteur for the three-day gathering. My report, The Future of Work: What It Means for Individuals, Businesses, Markets and Governments is now available online as a pdf file. The report focuses on the concerns of traditional businesses and startups as they grapple with the new competitive environment created by digital technologies and networks. The report examines how the technologies are altering market structures, business strategies, the organization of work, and individuals’ work lives.
My former colleague at On the Commons, Jay Walljasper, has pulled together a rich array of stories, short essays, profiles and other found gems in a new book, All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons (New Press, 2010). It’s an especially useful introduction for newcomers to the commons, but it valuable to others as well. The book explains the basics of what is the commons, why they matter now, and how they provide practical alternatives or complements to existing market systems. All That We Share covers everything from the enclosures of urban spaces and information to water and nature, as well as a slew of inspiring models for the future.
There’s the story of Mark Lakeman’s work in reviving neighborhood squares in Portland, Oregon, and Jesús León Santos leadership in re-introducing indigenous farming techniques to Mexico, which is helping stop erosion and improve water flows. There’s the story of North Dakota’s state-owned bank, which has made affordable credit available to its citizens; the Alaska Permanent Fund that channels dividends from oil drilling revenues to every citizen in Alaska; and the remarkable improvements to public transit and schools that Mayor Enrique Peñalosa brought to Bogotá, Colombia.
I confess I’m not the best reviewer of All That We Share because I have several excerpts of my own in it and because Jay’s a friend. But let the volume speak for itself: it features such illustrious contributors as Robert Reich, Jeremy Rifkin, Peter Barnes, Peter Linebaugh, Mark Dowie, Winona LaDuke, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Lewis Hyde, among others. It puts a human face on the dozens of different realms in which commoners are making a difference, and tells their stories in an accessible way. A wealth of commons-based innovations is reconstructing a battered world. Read all about it.
At a time when Republican-dominated legislatures in the Midwest are slashing state budgets and declaring war on the middle class, some visionary politicians in the State of Vermont are proposing an ingenious way to use state assets to benefit everyone equitably, while protecting the natural environment.
Eleven state Representatives have just introduced legislation, H.385, that would declare certain natural resources to be common assets that belong to all citizens of the state. These assets would then be protected by a new type of entity, the Vermont Common Assets Trust, whose foremost duty would be to protect the common assets for present and future generations.
Where appropriate, the Trust would generate revenues from those assets (such as selling water extraction rights to bottlers or timber-harvesting rights) that would directly serve the citizens of the state. The money would not flow through the legislature, but would be managed directly by the Trust. (The full text of the legislation can be downloaded here as a pdf file.)
A memorable Dilbert cartoon strip features Dogbert as a “creativity consultant” who is directed by his boss to come up with some hard quantitative data. The boss barks: “The only way to make decisions is to pull numbers of the air, call them ‘assumptions,’ and calculate the net present value.” The punchline: “Of course, you have to use the right discount rate, otherwise it’s meaningless.”
That encapsulates the faux-rigor of regulatory decisions for protecting health, safety and the environment. Ascertaining the dollar value of human life using the most rigorous science possible is a politically useful charade.
As the New York Times recently reported, the scientifically determined value of a life at the Environmental Protection Agency has gone up from $6.8 million in the Bush II years to $9.1 million at present. Across town, the FDA decides whether to ban an unsafe drug based on a valuation of $7.9 million per life. In deciding whether automakers will install new safety features, the Transportation Department figures $6 million.
One of the recurrent questions that people have about the future of the Internet is, So how are creators going to make money in the digital environment? The good news is that the Free Culture Forum – a Barcelona-based international gathering of free software, free culture, creators and policy activists – has addressed these very questions in a major “how to” guide that was just released.
In “Sustainable Models for Creativity in the Digital Age,” the FCF affirms:
We can no longer put off re-thinking the economic structures that have been producing, financing and funding culture up until now. Many of the old models have become anachronistic and detrimental to civil society. The aim of this document is to promote innovative strategies to defend and extend the sphere in which human creativity and knowledge can prosper freely and sustainably.
This report is aimed at policy reformers, citizens and free/libre culture activists to provide them practical tools to understand the policy options and revenue models, and the importance of the commons in the new digital marketplaces.
A small group of innovative commoners in Phoenix is closing in on an innovative breakthrough: a commons-based revenue model for photovoltaic solar energy development in cities. It’s called the Solar Commons, which sports the tagline, "The sun shines for everyone."
The idea is to use the public rights of way in cities and towns to collect solar energy, and then channel the revenue to a community trust. The trust will manage the solar panels and electricity sales, and distribute the revenues to help the community. In this case, the Solar Commons will support low-income housing and commons education efforts in Phoenix.
It sounds simple enough, but the Solar Commons has taken considerable out-of-the-box thinking and operational innovation to get on track as a demonstration project. Among the challenges: the city-commons relationship, legal liability and project maintenance and management. At this stage, the Solar Commons is on track to becoming a demonstration project.
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