Greetings, The article below pertains to COMMONS beyond traditional usage. It also uses a broad notion of "externalities". There is as much economics as politics involved (IMO), although it is written as a piece on democracy. I don't agree with everything in it, particularly the statement about corporate ability to produce excess.(what goods & for how long? food? potable water?...) As I'm unsure of copyright restrictions, I'm only posting an excerpt. The actual publication in which it appears is SPLICE, listed below. Perhaps GRAIN will fwd the complete post to you upon request. Steve "BIO-IPR is an irregular listserver put out by Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN). Its purpose is to circulate information about recent developments in the field of intellectual property rights related to biodiversity & associated knowledge. BIO-IPR is a strictly non-commercial and educational service for nonprofit organisations and individuals active in the struggle against IPRs on life. The views expressed in each post are those of the indicated author(s). HOW TO PARTICIPATE -- To get on the mailing list, send the word "subscribe" (no quotes) as the subject of an email message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To get off the list, send the word "unsubscribe" instead. To submit material to the list, address your message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. A note with further details about BIO-IPR is sent to all subscribers. ABOUT GRAIN -- For general information about GRAIN, you may visit our website http://www.grain.org or send an email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ________________________________________________________ TITLE: Can democracy cope with biotechnology? AUTHOR: Alan Simpson, Member of Parliament (UK) PUBLICATION: Splice, Vol 5, Issue 2 DATE: January 1999 SOURCE: The Genetics Forum URL: http://www.geneticsforum.org.uk ________________________________________________________ CAN DEMOCRACY COPE WITH BIOTECHNOLOGY? by Alan Simpson Member of Parliament Developments in biotechnology are raising many concerns - ecological, social, ethical - but what Alan Simpson MP sees as the most insidious result of this biotech age is it's threat to democracy. The threat biotechnology poses to democracy may not be immediately apparent. Threats to democracy usually come in the form of out of favour dictators, not the test-tube. But I will argue that the threat is real. However, it first needs to be seen in the wider context of an economic globalisation, already heading towards collapse. Fundamentally, the question is whether civic democracy is compatible with global deregulation, and whether the WTO's intellectual property rights' for biotechnology discoveries will take us all into an era of corporate feudalism. The world is being spun around by big corporations who have an ability to produce more goods than the world can consume. And so, they focus their efforts on consuming each other, along with any smaller elements that get in the way. They do this with the approval of government policy, and international treaties, which are designed to create a world fit for the corporations to dominate. This is an unsustainable state of affairs, and it takes on an even more ominous dimension when you look at the world of biotechnology. There are two separate aspects to consider: 1. The nature of scientific change, and 2. The ownership of that change. First, there is no doubt that the rate of change is breathtaking. In itself, this distorts our view about the nature of the world. We are in real danger of believing industry claims about science as a world of magic cures; that, somehow, modified genes will end all illness; or modified crops will grow in any conditions, resistant to all blight. That is arrant nonsense. It is a fundamental aspect of life on earth, that nature has never given us the gift of infallibility. Our ecosystem carries no guarantees of a world free from droughts, floods or crop failures. And by and large, the world is kept in balance by dint of this diversity. The strength of this diversity is that not all varieties of a crop get destroyed, and not all of a population succumbs to a particular illness. In general, nature also provides access to cures for the ills that it throws up. Biotechnology is in danger of simply destroying our ability to apply this common sense to common science. And politicians are amongst the least able to grasp this. We are either invited into a knee-jerk reaction 'against' it, on almost anti-science terms; or towards an uncritical 'yes', as part of the thoroughly modern (and pliable) parliament that industry demands. In the past we always used to be guided by the precautionary principle, that if we were not clear about the consequences of a new drug or product, public safety would over-ride commercial exploitation as the guiding principle. Now we are being driven to accept change at a much faster rate. Not because it is safer, but because some of the corporations who own patents stand to make large sums of money if they can be in the arena before their competitors. This takes me on to the second point. My contention is that the rush into biotechnology, through patents, is, in itself, anti-research, anti-science and anti-democratic. It breaks with the traditions of research being done in pursuit of a cure, not a fortune; of farmers saving seeds, propagating plants and sharing them as protection against the larger, unpredictable forces of nature. These cures and the seeds have always been part of the global commons. Patenting has distorted our understanding of this. (SNIP)
