OK, here goes. I'm diving right into the practical proposals and skipping the "principles" (Have a Concrete Plan, Use Clear Language, Challenge the Technological Fetish, Embrace all Levels of Political Engagement, Work for Cultural Change) but if anyone is
interested I can post these also. Most of these seem pretty self-evident but I could be wrong.
So following is an intro to the proposals and then the first one of these short practical proposals. I suppose the degree of "practicality" is something that can be disputed! Ideas on how to improve or implement them, or observations on why they are stupid
and should be dropped, are invited.
[Intro] Practical Proposals
At this point in time, a realistic assessment is that peer production’s collaborative methods and ethic of transparency are – with the exception of FOSS – anecdotal both in economic and ecological terms. They do however enable critical conversations about
practical alternative solutions. We now present a range of concrete policy proposals (summarized in Table 30.2) aiming to put into practice the principles defined in the previous section. Some of these proposals can be achieved rapidly and independently (e.g.,
mapping common goods) but most will require years of concerted efforts (e.g., regulatory or education curriculum changes).
1. Spreading New Values
1.1-Change the curriculum
How can we increase the societal recognition of the worth of the commons? One way is to create new champions, whose contributions are valued and taught to school children and students alike. For example, Elinor Ostrom renewed economics by focusing on social
and institutional forms which enable the sharing of common resources and rights. She contradicted how mainstream economists and international institutions conceived the world, a property and market-centric view that still dominates among Western elites and
in our education systems (Broca & Coriat, 2015). During early modernity (16th to 18th centuries), by mixing law, technology and economics, “science” became normalized as the act of dissipating non-renewable natural resources (Capra & Mattei, 2015). We still
live in a world where private property is better protected than common property: a concerted cultural shift, primarily disseminated through schools, must be made to understand the consequences of, and change this value system.
Indigenous people were the First Nations of many territories prior to the arrival of settlers. Indigenous peoples’ territories have been taken away from them, and terrible violence, at times amounting to physical and cultural genocide, has been perpetrated.
During colonization the justification for taking indigenous land was the doctrine of terra nullius which asserted that indigenous people were unsovereign, and therefore that their land held in common now belonged to the colonial power that discovered it. In
a context of indigenous resurgence, grave environmental concerns, and opposition to extractivism, it is time to recognize, respect, and teach indigenous sovereignty – including indigenous technological and data sovereignty.
1.2. Mapping common goods
Identifying and celebrating the material common and public goods around us, such as built ones (schools and libraries), natural ones (air and sunlight), as well as communal islands in family, friendship, and cooperative circles, demonstrates that such
goods are a foundational aspect of society. Mapping digital commons is also important. For example tracing co-production networks of free and open source projects and firms (O’Neil et al., 2021) addresses the issue noted by Eghbalh (2016): “With better metrics,
we could describe the economic impact of digital infrastructure, identify critical projects that are lacking support, and understand dependencies between projects and people” (p. 129). The extent to which the IT industry depends on FOSS is not widely known,
so increasing public awareness of this symbiotic relationship would help publicize the existence, benefits, and economic significance of peer production and the commons.