By the ‘common’
we mean, first of all, the common wealth of the material world – the air, the
water, the fruits of the soil, and all nature’s bounty – which in classic
European political texts is often claimed to be the inheritance of the humanity
as a whole, to be shared together. We consider the commons also, and more
significantly those results of social production that are necessary for social
interaction and further production, such as knowledges, languages, codes,
information, affects, and so forth. This notion of the common does not position
humanity separate from nature, as either its exploiter or its custodian, but
focuses rather on the practices of interaction, care and cohabitation in a
common world, promoting the beneficial and limiting the detrimental forms of
the common. In the era of globalization, issues of the maintenance, production
and distribution of the common in both these senses and in both ecological
and socioeconomic frameworks become increasingly central. (Negri and
Hardt 2009: vii)
1 comment:
Err, interesting quote, but you really should offer the disclaimer that it can only properly be understood in the context of active application to the rest of the authors' work rather than as a proper definition for wider application. Otherwise you're simply promoting unacknowledged bias.
More specifically problems can be found with this definition, firstly in political prioritisation (economic, cultural, environmental and social), and consequently in debatable emphasis towards imposed rather than selective commonality.
Frankly that type of usage is a different type of common.
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