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The Commons

The Gleaners   by Francois Millet
 

The Commons are those things, activities and conditions that are not property, that are not wilderness. They are abundant or at least sufficient, usually 'taken' for granted. They are available to us, not because of any performance, and not as a matter of 'right'. Though not owned they do belong to us, and often enoogh we sense some obligation toward the commons- though not an obligation of law.

The painting above shows gleaners in a field in Frnace, autumn, a couple of hundred years ago. Gleaning was a matter of commons. The lord of the estate here had the right and claim of first harvest, but the grain his harvesters missed did not belong to the manorial lord. It belonged to anyone of this countryside. They were free to enter the fields after harvest and glean from it. What they got, they understood to by 'given' by God, not donated by the landlord.

The grazing commons has a well-considered history in England in the 17th century - There were a set of laws, called the 'Laws of Enclosure', sometimes bitterly opposed by the peasantry that turned common pasturage into private property. Even at that time the question was asked, "By what authority are the mountains, moors and glens, god-given, turned into royal charters.

Commons of pescary. Go to the Fairmount dam, below the art museum in Philadelphia. Below the dam, no licence to fish is required of anyone. Twenty-yards upstream (just above the dam) it is a misdeanor crime to fish in the Schuykill River. At this very moment the oceans are a commons that is vanishing. Though at present anyone reading this is free to fish in the ocean and its tongues (the lower Schuylkill), it is underdoing a process of degradation (overuse, overfishing) that generates a social response. Soon the ocean and its inhabitants and components will become government managed, and market accomodated goods. It will cease to be a commons, will pass through a period as a natural 'resource' and eventually become a market commodity as has the earth (territory, land, real estate).

Turbary- energy - access to the bog.

Estovers - trash

alimony - the obligations and claims of alienations.

Commonwealth can be distinguished from resources, public utilities, and public works. And these in turn can be distinguished from say federal property, private property, government services and entitilments

Read about the overgrazing that was at issue when the English laws of enclosure were authorized.

I my growing years there was not a scarcity of grown-ups to supervise and look after me. In addition to present and available mother, there were at least ten other women in the neighborhood who seemed to have authority to tell me what to do, what not to do, how to play, what words not to say. Also many men, when they weren't at work had the authority (and I suppose the obligation, though not a legal one) to 'mind' me. At  a certain age, my friends and I would take every opportunity to avoid these grownups and seek freedom (and smoke cigarettes). Child-care centers had no necessity in that world. In order for Child-care centers to become a necessity (and now under discussion a 'right') supervision first had to become scarce. What are the ways that that supervision - abundant fifty years ago- has become scarce? And now its replacement has become a costly expense.

Replacement of common with commodity

In class William Butler remarked that the villagers (in that video we watched called "Before Sunup")  were poor and didn't have anything. One could say that many of them looked like single-parent families, but I'd like to contend that the whole village functions as active parents (with different degrees of intensity) to all the children in the village. So although they are poorer than us in some ways, they have an abundance of "child care" - and they don't need to go out to make money which they then turn over to the Child-care center manager.

Disappearance of old common

There is a process through which something that is abundant, and sufficient is transformed into something that is scarce and costly.

Assumption or Arrogation of the commonwealth by economy

In middle ages farmers had a concept of the donum/factum. A boundary line between that which was 'given' and that which was laboriously brought forth - factum (latin for made, manufactured -brought about by the hand of a man). The woods were donum, the trees in a orchard were factum. The earth/land was given, the furrows and drills were factum, the stones were donum but the hut was factum. There were 'use' rights for that which was factum - one could also use the donum - the god given, but it wasn't anything that could be traded, marketed, profited by. No more than I could get away with selling you the air you breathe when you are in my classroom.

The Economy is built up from the commons.

Perrier or Evian are using something that belongs to all. They do add value to it through their labor - pump it up out of the ground, test, bottle, transport, adverstise, market. All of these activities are human labor inputs - for which we want to compensate - but the water? Who does the water belong to?

There is a threshold that we slip over. In arrogating the commons to become commodity we run the danger of  creating a condition that renders what was abundant and sufficient as scarce, and then completely unavailable. I have no problem with Perrier making a living selling water. I do have a problem when we then make the Schuylkill so foul that no children can swim in it, no one can slake their thirst, or sit by the banks of the river for the sound of flowing water.