What is created through the existence of the Commons is an ongoing relationship of people working together to ensure the resources in question stay healthy and available for everyone currently in the community. For the vast majority of human existence, societies operated with a combonation of persoanlly owned homes and possesions, and commonly owned resources which everyone utilized and maintained. While the ways in which these common lands and resources were organized and managed were unique between civilizations, the culture of communal systems and the customs developed to maintain and enrich them were found virtually everywhere on Earth.
These communal-custom cultures were methods of self regulation so that no one would be denied access, but would also not be able to monopolize resources meant for all. Some of the largest and most flourishing civilizations our world has ever seen were built on socioeconomic systems containing intricate customs and practices that acknowledged personal as well as communal ownership without privatization or monetary systems. However, in many places on Earth, the histories and methods of these cultures and their use of communal-resource based economics have either been reduced in importance or gotten rid of entirely to serve an agenda.
Within recorded history, the robber barons and aristocrats who desired power began systems of Enclosure—they took The Commons which held resources for the community to utilize and turned them into private property. Unlike personal property which is owned and used by individuals (homes, vehicles, personal possessions), or communal property held in common and owned by everyone, private property is used to exploit money or labor out of others through the exclusivity of right of ownership. This concept of private ownership regardless of ones ability to utilize the resources owned and economic capital—wealth used to coerce labor out of individuals in order to increase ones own wealth—join together to create Capitalism.
This re-imagined form of economic feudalism works alongside the State to protect its so-called “rights” to this privatization, creates the problems of scarcity, poverty, and class stratification, and then claims to be the solution to those same problems.
Ever hungry for more regardless of how much they have, the Capitalists have sucessfully begun systems of Digital Enclosure.Within living memory, the digital landscape created by the computer age and the launching of the Internet--once a decentralized non-commercial space were we could share knowledge, research, and culture governed by free association and collaboration; where academics and user communities came together to freely exchange open protocols and programs, user-generated content, personal websites and libraries of information--has become a cesspool of advertizments and corprate manipulation.
Currently, the majority of what people experience online is a simulacrum of true Internet. Paywall subscription models and platform enclosure have made it so we have to bankrupt ourselves for the right to be present on an infinite virtual space that was designed to be freely accessible. Corporate social media takes advantage of our loneliness created by our societal alienation, and hijacks our brains in an infinite scroll of addictive over-stimulation laced with advertisements and propaganda.
In the struggle against the tyrany of Enclosure and Privatization many turn to Anarchist Socialist model of understanding. Though both these words are often maligned, they are not well understood. Socialism is the rejection of capitalism, which as laid out previously, is the use of private rights to property and capital to coerce labor from the working class as a means of profiting off their labor.
In a socialist system, instead of having a small group of capitalists owning a place of business and its tools of production, the business and all its wealth would be co-owned in equal share by the workers, and all decisions being made by a mixture of democratic vote and consensus. This is the model used by worker co-operatives, and it has shown to greatly improve the well being of workers as well as strengthen worker solidarity and work ethic. Anarchism is the rejection of authoritative rule. It seeks the abolition of capitalism, private property, and the state.
Again, private property is not the same as personal property. Personal property is anything a person owns and utilizes themselves, while private property refers to ownership of resources which a person does not utilize themselves, but instead uses it to extort wealth out of others through exclusionary access. The state is the authoritative, bureaucratic structure which uses its exclusive right to dispense punishment to enforce the protection of private property as well as dictate the rights and freedoms of individuals without their consent.
A society operating through an anarchist socialist system would be one where individuals enjoy personal ownership and liberty, while collectively owning, utilizing, and maintaining the communal property and shared spaces. Such a society would create systems of collective decision making and customs of self management and regulation to ensure the well being of every individual. Such a system—which truly is a revitalization of the Commons which is our ancestral heritage—would hinge upon the maxim:
From each according to their means, to each according to their needs.
DigiComms is an attempt to relaim some of the Digital Commons through Digital Humanism--a human-centered, anarchist-socialist philosophy aimed at returning to Small Web ecosystems, the free exchange of information, and building conscious community. Here you will find our Archive library full of free resources, as well as a forum to meet and socialize with other users.
