[Air-l] Re: Tragedy of the Commons/Tragedy of Capital, some notes

[Lachlan Brown]

Re the Commons

Its important to make a distinction between 
American models for 'the commons' and British/Commonwealth takes on 'the commons'. 
The 'commons' in the American imaginary 
seems to be equated with 'the frontier-
middle landscape' transistion in Turner's Frontier Thesis. 

The notion of 'the commons' in Britain inflects, among other things a tradition of public service altrusim (and of course Internet can be understood only in terms of the translations of this British and Commonwealth public service altrusim in several different contexts.) 

If Internet governance is to employ 'the commons' as a metaphor in the management of 
change in Internet, then the several genealogies of 'the commons' as well as contemporary articulations of 'the commons' 
need to be known; to help inform one or two insightful, and one would hope foresightful, re-articulations of an idea of 'the commons' that might be cited in a combined social/natural contract.

Lachlan


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