Latest / Mechonomist Podcast / Right to Repair and the Commons

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Right to Repair and the Commons · Mechonomist Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Happy belated Labor Day.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Saturday was my birthday and I had a big birthday party with a bunch of my friends.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was really fantastic.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here this morning doing stay at home dad duties.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I got my son in the jungle gym right next to me.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So all is good on the home front.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've been seeing a little scuttlebutt about some events where people are starting
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: to talk about the commons.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been talking about the commons for at least 15 years, if not longer.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: there are three forms of property,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: private property,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: which is ownership by the few,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: public property or state owned property,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: which is the ownership by no one and the commons,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: which is ownership by many.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I, I'm in,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: encouraged that people are starting to talk about the commons and i believe that
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: the next movement is going to be about property specifically right to repair and
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: the commons so right to repair is the idea that intellectual property needs to be
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: democratized and turned into a form of commons or at least some intellectual
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: property the practical application of this is
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: machinery with electronic equipment is not serviceable by the owners of that
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: equipment because it is understood that the manufacturers own the intellectual
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: property on that equipment,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: the software on that equipment,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: not the people who buy the equipment.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the weird thing about intellectual property is it's not limited.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about real property, if I own a piece of property, nobody else can have it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if I own a piece of software, anybody else can have it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So capitalists have figured out a way to make money off that by saying there's such
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: thing as intellectual property and restricting the rights to it the way they would
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: restrict to the rights to real property.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it makes sense in some level to restrict the rights to real property in some way.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And even commons do this.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: because a certain community or group of people is using that property and it can be
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: used by two separate groups of people at the same time.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So again,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: remember commons of the ownership by many democratically controlled a little
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: history of the commons commons,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: really the oldest form of property has existed since the beginning of organized humanity,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: but it has disappeared at certain points in time.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it has certainly disappeared in the United States in 2024.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't legal frameworks for commons pretty much anywhere.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are some legal frameworks for cooperatives, which are a type of commons,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: but it's not very widespread.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in the recent appearance of the commons was peasants in the West, these peasants in feudal manners.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the peasants took those commons from the feudal lords and forced the feudal
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: lords to recognize the legitimacy of that institution.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those commons were destroyed by capitalism and the enclosure movement.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The very beginning of capitalism was the enclosure movement, which enclosed the commons
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: kick the peasants off the land and turn them into proletarians.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I want to be clear about is that you can't have an ideological commons.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The right to repair movement ranges from, you know, country farmers to transgender tech people.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wide range of people who want to be able to repair their cell phones,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: to people who want to be able to repair their tractors.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a broad ideological expanse,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: and it has the potential to bring people together in a way that we're not really
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: brought together right now.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason it can't be ideological is because ideological excludes... That's my kid.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because ideology excludes people based on what they believe.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is exclusion in commons.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is restricted access to commons.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Come here, buddy.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is the fun of stay-at-home dadhood.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Got a screaming baby that you got to console sometimes.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: the way that borders are determined by commons is through a democratic process of
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: the people involved,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: of the communities involved.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the people or groups who are excluded are determined by that democratic process.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's more inclusive than private property, which is the ownership by few.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's even more inclusive than state-owned or public property, which is the ownership by no one.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to have to drop the ideology stuff if you really want to create
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: commons that can carve out a space within our crumbling empire for the people.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to drop the ideological purity test, period.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to deal with people who may have racist views.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: You may have to deal with people who have classist views.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: You may have to deal with people who are patriarchal, homophobic.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Those things all have to be worked out in the process of building the commons.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can't be imposed from the outside or it's not democratic.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, that's my brief little history of the commons and what they are and how they work.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: and also a bit of a warning and admonition to people who are potentially trying to
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: create rigidly ideological commons in a way that would be not a widespread movement,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: but a very narrow movement that excluded more people than it included.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: See y'all later.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Peace, y'all.