[p2p-research] [Commoning] Am I missing any commons?

[Samuel Rose]

Thank you Miguel.

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Miguel Said Vieira
<miguelsvieira at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'd just like to mention that, as far as I understand Ostrom's work, it
> does not help us so much as Samuel suggested. Yes, it does point to the
> fact that people are in fact likely to collaborate in a commons (when
> other theories -- and most of mainstream economics -- posited that they
> would not). But on the other hand, in Governing the Commons she states
> that such a collaboration is likely *only* in (and inside) small-scale,
> well-defined commons.
>


> She did not approach large-scale ones, and she says explicitly that when
> the boundaries are not well defined, the commons usually fails; she's
> not optimistic at all about open access commons. Also (and again, as far
> as I know her work), she doesn't approach the issue of cooperation
> between different commons, which is very important if you want to think
> about social justice. After all, of what good is a commons if its
> functioning requires the destruction of another commons, or if it is
> accessible only to a small group -- while others outside suffer?
>
> So in some way, we really need to be covering new ground here.
>



I actually mentioned Ostrum, and David Bollier in that message that
you quoted. Probably the best *existing* synthesis of knowledge about
commons, cooperation, etc are in my opinion (in addition to work
already done by Ostrum and Bollier as mentioned):

Michel Bauwens http://integralvisioning.org/article.php?story=p2ptheory1

Paul B Hartzog Panarchy:
http://www.panarchy.com/Members/PaulBHartzog/Papers/Panarchy%20-%20Governance%20in%20the%20Network%20Age.htm

Marc Elliot dissertation on collaboration http://metacollab.net

Peter Kollock Multiple works see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kollock

Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs


... as well as many others

We also are beginning to work on this, too. See:
http://forwardfound.org/blog/?q=resource-sharing-grounding-21st-century-economy

Michel could probably point out dozens of pages where he is tracking
the evolution of theory and practice around this thinking at
http://p2pfoundation.net too


In any case, Miguel,  I agree with what I believe is your core point:
While Ostrum was groundbreaking, there is much work left to be done.
We are definitely covering new ground (although there are some key
insights from Ostrum that very obviously apply these approaches. Even
if Ostrum was not optimistic about open access commons, etc)

> All best,
> Miguel S Vieira
>
> P.S. -- very interesting exchanges here, thanks to all.
>
>


-- 
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Sam Rose
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