Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth

by David Bollier

'They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose.' - Traditional nursery rhyme Until a 1998 federal court decision, a Minnesota publisher claimed to own every federal court decision, including Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education. A Texas company was recently allowed to claim a patent on basmati rice, a kind of rice grown in India for hundreds of years. The Mining Act of 1872 is still in effect, allowing companies to buy land from the government at USD5 an acre if they pan to mine it. These are resources that belong to all, yet they are being given away to companies with anything but the common interest in mind. Where was the public outcry, or the government intervention, when these were happening? The answers are alarming. Private corporations are consuming the resources that the American people collectively own at a staggering rate, and the government is not protecting the commons on our behalf. In Silent Theft, David Bollier exposes the audacious attempts of companies to appropriate medical breakthroughs, public airwaves, outer space, state research, and even the DNA of plants and animals. Amazingly, these abuses often go unnoticed, Bollier argues, because we have lost our ability to see the commons. Publicly funded technological innovations create common wealth (cell phone airwaves, internet addresses, gene sequences) at blinding speed, while an economic atmosphere of deregulation and privatization ensures they will be quickly bought and sold. In an age of market triumphalism, does the notion of the commons have any practical meaning? Crisp and revelatory, Silent Theft is a bold attempt to develop a new language of the commons, a new ethos of commonwealth in the face of a market ethic that knows no bounds.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

272 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2002

Reviews

[Randall Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book continues on from Karl Polanyi’s work, to include a wonderful dizzying ride past England’s enclosure movement to the enclosure of the commons of nature, and every other commons you need to know about, from the airwaves, public lands, and community wealth, to even generic drugs as a triumph of the commons. Even franchising is a form of enclosure, because it means quirky local restaurants and convenience stores get squeezed out. One question is how does the planet respond to all these enclosures? Another is, since rosy periwinkle of Madagascar earns $100 million annually as part of the cure for Hodgkin’s disease, why do the people of Madagascar get nothing? Another is, why does our Forest Service lose $1 to $2 billion per year, when it could be collecting from instead giving freebies to Boise–Cascade and Louisiana-Pacific? “The surrender of the public airwaves to commercial broadcasters was a giveaway that not only cost the American people untold millions of dollars, but consigned great swatches of artistic endeavor, science, politics, religion, and education to the periphery of American life.” That alone meant that commercial values would dictate the values of American culture. When you agree to wear a brand logo you surrender your identity, and yet it’s often done because PR teams in suits have proven it’s the closest most Americans will get to being a celebrity. Today, the business in naming deals for sports stadiums alone is 3.2 billion dollars. At the end of this book you have seen how important the commons is in all its permutations so you will better be able to protect it and respect it as the commons makes it’s comeback. Solving Climate Change means 90% curtailment of energy use; when everyone does that then the commons is going to be a huge part of our lives again. In such a no growth society centered around the commons, which will look like a sharing, recycling culture, instead of flying Danish cookies to the US in those round metal tins, their obvious embodied energy costs would be noted and countries could merely exchange recipes. ☺

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Bollier is far from many of the more revolutionary notions of the commons, as his writing makes clear: “It is not market activity itself which is objectionable; it is the intrusion of market activity into the commons on terms that expropriate public wealth and/ or violate important shared values." The main concern of his book is that Americans are losing their rights to the commons, and therefore their heritage as a commonwealth, assets, and potentially democratic traditions. Like the others, he sees these commons as very broadly defined: social institutions and cultural traditions, democratic values, wildlife and national forests, public spaces in cities, and communications media. His book essentially outlines what has already been lost and what is still left to lose, questioning the rhetoric of the market that presents itself as both timeless and objective, when in fact it is neither as it seeks to guarantee “continued private access to the commons by requiring that everything be for sale.” This includes natural resources, ranging from plant genes to mineral deposits, the internet, created through massive government subsidies to be a free and open sharing of knowledge and information, the academic traditions of openness, information sharing and peer review, and cultural and public spaces. This occurs through appropriation and enclosures, as private companies gain control over a resource, shifting not simply the ownership, but often the management and character of the resource in the process.

[Debbie is on Storygraph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book about how the government and industry are enclosing the commonwealth that rightly belongs to people, like medical and scientific knowledge, natural resources, and even the Internet. Quite relevant with the current movement in Congress to get rid of Net Neutrality. My one problem with this book was that Bollier did a lot of finger pointing and hand wringing, but didn't really give specific ways to rectify this theft. Still, very good and informative book. It's one of those you can't help but read and be outraged.

[PaviG · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am perhaps late to the game.. reading this book in 2020 feels a little dated as most of the examples cited were from the early 2000’s. However, most of the lessons around the commons are relevant today more than ever. The usage and understanding of the “commons” is a very deep and a relative topic but some of the arguments and validations make perfect sense. What I found difficult was how much content were dumped in just 200 pages and some of the topics certainly required more elaboration than what was in the book especially around Internet laws and the copyright laws. It felt like very important incidents and policies were just sprinkled in every chapter without any depth. Overall, a very thought-provoking book

[William Crosby · Rating 5 out of 5]

The commons is a difficult concept to me and many others. In the U.S. we are used to a market economy and private property as the only way to exist. Economic theory and monetary systems are so dominant that we often don't realize the social and emotional benefits of non-monetary interactions. (For example, paying for a psychologist is just not the same as interacting with a good friend.) A gift exchange system has much more flexibility and resourcefulness.

This book helped me understand more about the commons. We can still have the stock market and use capitalism as a useful tool, but we need to offer/allow more diversity and resilience into the system. Depressions/recessions would not have such a devastating impact if there were more commons to buffer the economic mess. This book also showed how much the government gives away to corporations. There is more corporate welfare than there is welfare for individuals. We do not need to redistribute wealth via taxation to lessen the extreme disparity between the wealthy and the poor. We could do much more by stop giving money/research/resources (i.e. timber, coal) to corporations. That is one of the many lessons in this book.

Explores the various kinds of commons (i.e. nature, internet, academia).