It’s
always invigorating when scholars and activists interested in the
commons get together. Last Friday more than 100 of us convened in
Milwaukee to learn how commons activism stretches back to the Magna
Carta – and how seeds, sky, airwaves and city spaces spaces are
vulnerable commons that need to be protected. The symposium was
called, “From Magna Carta to the Sky Trust: The Historical Arc of
the Commons,” and it was hosted by the Center for 21st Century Studies
at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Kathryn Milun of the
Tomales Bay Institute (and previous guest-blogger here) was a
co-organizer of the event with Rachel Ida Buff of UWM.
Historian
Peter Linebaugh opened with a brisk account of the role of the Magna
Carta in guaranteeing certain rights to commoners. Linbaugh has a
new book coming out in February, The Magna Carta Manifesto (University
of California Press), which explains why this pre-modern document has a
great deal of contemporary relevance. While you wait for the book
(although pre-orders can be made now!), you may want to check out an
essay that he wrote for the Boston Review, “The Secret History of the Magna Carta.”
After
years of civil war, European wars and witch hunts, King John in 1215
signed the Magna Carta, assuring the commoners of the rights to habeas
corpus, trial by jury and the rule of law, as well as the prohibition
of torture. It is a measure of the extreme times that we live in
that such doctrines, nearly 800 years old, are now violated with
impunity by President Bush.
The Magna Carta also grants
the commoners a right of subsistence from the commons, freedom from
enclosure and reparations from unlawful seizures of the commons.
For example, the document guaranteed the “widow’s estovers” -- the
right to gather wood in the forest, among other subsistence needs
supplied by nature. Linebaugh noted that “commons” in the 13th
Century was actually used as a verb, as in “those are resources that
enable us to commons.”
Over dinner, I learned the origins
of the terms, Diggers and Levelers, the most determined commoners of
their day. The Diggers, Linebaugh explained, used to dig up
hedges that had been grown to enclose commons – while the Levelers were
given to knocking down stone walls that were erected for the same
purpose. Today, it’s a more complicated proposition to be a
Digger or Leveler, but no less urgent.
Another speaker at the symposium was Keith Aoki, a law professor at UC Davis who has just completed a forthcoming book, Seed Wars,
about the battles to control the genetic commons of agricultural
seeds. In his talk, Aoki explained how the reckless growth of
patent rights in plant genetic resources has created an “anti-commons”
in which property rights are highly diffused and fragmented.
This means that farmers or companies trying to develop new seed
varieties are stymied by the problem of clearing or paying for
rights. The seed for the high-yield, pest-resistant Golden Rice,
for example, required clearing the rights to 70 different intellectual
property rights owned by 32 different parties. Given these
anti-commons, seed companies would rather litigate than
innovate.
There are, however, some promising attempts to create genetic commons for seeds. Cambia
(Centre for Application of Molecular Biology in Agriculture), headed by
Richard Jefferson, is developing open-source biological research tools
as a way to democratize genetic innovation and prevent the Monsantos
and DuPonts from controlling all new seeds. Another project, PIPRA
(Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture) is in the
business of sharing seed licenses, as in a patent pool, to help
overcome the ag biotech anti-commons.
A number of
Milwaukee activists turned out for the symposium, too, showing how much
innovative commons work is going on in that city. Melissa Scanlan
of Midwest Environmental Advocates talked about using the public trust doctrine to recover land near waterways. Will Allen of Growing Power talked
about his urban agriculture project that helps city people grow,
process and distribute their own healthy food. James Godsil, at
the break, clued me into his wiki, Milwaukee Renaissance,
which puts forward an “urban citizen vision” for the city.
Julilly Kohler of Kane Commons Project spoke of her efforts to bring
the commons paradigm to activism in Milwaukee.
A video record of the symposium was made. If and when it becomes available, I will post a link here.
