17 Oct 2009

"On behalf of the Green Party, I'd like to offer my warmest congratulations to Elinor Ostrom."


Great statement on Elinor Ostrom from Caroline Lucas here.

I will try and write something over the weekend on Elinor, suffice to say her work is a powerful (but non violent) weapon for the Awajun and all the other indigenous peoples in struggle....and I know they will pick it up and use because especially in the Peruvian Amazon, the indigenous are strategic and resourceful.

The classic piece of work inspired by Ostrom is Reclaiming the Commons here.

Interesting that as some one who uses one of Marx's central economic concept (the commons), she is a strikingly libertarian thinker, both disproving Hayek and Nash but at the same time challenging 'big government' solutions.

Great stuff, intelligent libertarians and 21st century socialists will be making use of her work....but its the people in the Peruvian Amazon who will find it the most useful!

FOSS and all that is Ostrom territory but she got to the promised land before Stallman, Benkler and the rest (not that they are not excellent as well).

Good news for a change.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don’t overlook Elinor Ostrom’s work on ‘co-production’ (state socialist won’t like it). Elinor Ostrom explained to the Chicago police in the 1970s why crime went up when the police started using patrol cars, rather than staying in touch with people on the beat. She coined the term ‘co-production’ to mean that crucial element of law ‘n’ order, was in fact provided by the service users or the public, and that is true of most other public services. I understand the research had a profound influence on former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall John Alderson QPM (Liberal candidate for Teignbridge) who pioneered community policing.

Derek Wall said...

thanks an interesting pointer....could do with elinor ostrom at the climate camp with reports of cops biffing people coming in.

Ostrom can rescue socialism from top down dictat.

Libertarianism from corporate greed and greens from being irrelevent.

Interested to hear Liberal Democrats may be looking at her stuff....however the bigger winners will be in the rainforests of Peru.

thanks, what a pleasure to get information like this in the comments box

Imperialism Is the Arsonist: Marxism’s Contribution to Ecological Literatures and Struggles

Derek Wall ’s article entitled  Imperialism Is the Arsonist: Marxism’s Contribution to Ecological Literatures and Struggles , argues that Ma...